Margaret Sanger

The pioneering work of Margaret Higgins Sanger (1879-1966), American crusader for scientific contraception, family planning, and population control, made her a world-renowned figure.

Margaret Higgins was born on September 14, 1879, in Corning, New York. Her father was a thoroughgoing freethinker. Her mother was a devout Roman Catholic who had 11 children before dying of tuberculosis. Although Margaret was greatly influenced by her father, her mother's death left her with a deep sense of dissatisfaction concerning her own and society's medical ignorance. After graduating from the local high school and from Claverack College at Hudson, New York, she took nurse's training. She moved to New York City and served in the poverty-stricken slums of its East Side. In 1902 she...