[On October 16,
1916, Margaret
Sanger opened her first birth control clinic in New York City. So this
week, on the 100th anniversary of that moment, I’ve AmericanStudied
Sanger and other histories and images connected to this still-controversial
subject. Leading up to this special weekend post highlighting a great scholarly
book on the topic by a former colleague!]
When I started planning
a series on birth control, I knew I’d want to highlight Layne Parish Craig’s When
Sex Changed: Birth Control Politics and Literature between the World Wars
(Rutgers University Press, 2013). I was fortunate enough to have Craig as a colleague at
Fitchburg State University for one year, before she returned to Texas where she’s
now on the faculty at
Texas Christian University. But even if I had never met Craig and didn’t
know that she’s as impressive of a teacher and colleague as she is a scholar, I’d
still find her book one of the best I’ve encountered on not just Margaret
Sanger and her issues and era, but on how literature and culture reflect and
engage with and complicate those historical and political conversations. The
Modernist era was one in which so, so much changed in the U.S. and around the
world, yet Craig’s book make a convincing case that no change was more
momentous and wide-reaching than that captured in Sanger’s 1916 clinic and its
many aftermaths. If you want to learn and think more about that moment, that
era, and all the issues I’ve engaged with this week (among many others), Craig’s
book is a perfect next step.
Next series
starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other birth control histories or images you’d highlight?
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