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Margaret Sanger
Her
Life in Her Words
Miriam
Reed
Introduction
by Margaret Sanger Lampe
In
1916, Margaret Sanger made her legal stand
against the repressive laws forbidding
the distribution of obscene articles -
including any information on contraception.
Though embraced by feminists, socialists,
birth-control advocates, and the working
class, her ideas are still as controversial
and valid today as they were ninety years
ago.
Margaret
Sanger, the controversial fighter for
legalized birth control and visionary
whose ideas formed Planned Parenthood,
has never had her story
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told
with as much scope as Margaret Sanger:
Her Life in Her Words. Here, Miriam Reed
compiles insightful historical and personal
commentary on a broad selection of Sanger's
letters, articles, and speeches. These
original documents venture beyond Sanger's
involvement in the contraception movement
and depict the untold autobiography of
Sanger¹s wide social impact.
This
book includes Sanger's writings on marriage
and children, the labor movement, socialism,
prison reform, pacifism, eugenics, and
sex education. The chronological arrangement
of documents illustrates Sanger's impact
on these issues, the development of the
struggle between working class and middle
class, and the clash between conservative
mores and the freethinking women that
have shaped today's society. It features
the original articles "Nothing"
and "What Every Girl Should Know"
from The New York Call, which sparked
the ongoing struggle for women's reproductive
freedom.
MIRIAM
REED is an actress and writer of one-woman
performances. Her one-woman performances
include Louisa May Alcott: Living Little
Women, Talking Abortion, Oscar Wilde's
Women, and most importantly, Margaret
Sanger: Radiant Rebel.
Booklist
review
March 1, 2003
Sanger
became committed to sex education and
birth control (a term she coined) after
watching her mother die at age 50 after
enduring 18 pregnancies, and witnessing
the suffering of poor women and children
as a nurse on New York¹s Lower East
Side. A radical first, then a reformer
and a mother of three, Sanger devoted
herself to helping women take charge of
their bodies and their lives in the hope
that every child would be wanted and cared
for. She fought courageously against the
Comstock Laws, which made it illegal to
talk openly about contraception, then
launched an international family planning
campaign. Sanger is, in short, a great
but overlooked hero. Reed, a creator of
one-woman performances, including one
based on Margaret Sanger¹s life,
seeks to revitalize our appreciation for
Sanger in this invaluable collection of
her seminal, intelligent, and compassionate
writings, which are accompanied by Reed¹s
vibrant and illuminating commentary and
a charming introduction by Sanger¹s
granddaughter, Margaret Sanger Lampe who
remembers her red-haired, "small
and soft spoken" grandmother as an
animated and giving woman who loved champagne,
parties, and life itself.
Donna Seaman
YA/C: Sanger comes to life in this essential
resource on a persistently controversial
subject. DS
Women's
Studies/Biography
May
6 x 9
288 Pages (Illustrated)
Rights: World
Paperback
$16.95
ISBN: 1-56980-246-7
Cloth
$24.00
ISBN: 1-56980-255-6
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