The Transformation of American Sex Education: Mary Calderone and the Fight for Sexual Health. Ellen S. More

Abstract

Dr. Mary Steichen Calderone (1904–1998) was one of the best-known sex educators in the twentieth-century United States. However, her work has not received much attention until the publication of The Transformation of American Sex Education. This book approaches the history of twentieth-century American sex education through the lens of Calderone’s career and that of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), an advocacy organization that she cofounded in July 1964. However, the absence of an argument and uneven choices about topic coverage make Calderone and her achievements difficult to parse. Sex education in the US has received attention from historians including Jeffrey P. Moran (Teaching Sex, 2000), Janice M. Irvine (Talk about Sex, 2004), Susan K. Freeman (Sex Goes to School, 2008), Alexandra M. Lord (Condom Nation, 2010), and Courtney Q. Shah (Sex Ed, Segregated, 2015). None of them focus specifically on Calderone and SIECUS, or address the topic beyond the 1990s, and this book fills a gap in the literature by focusing on her and the organization and bringing the history of sex education up to the 2010s.