The nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century feminist activity that worked for the abolition of gender double standards and sought to win women's suffrage, female education rights, and better working conditions is known as "first-wave feminism." The term "first-wave" was coined retrospectively when the term "second-wave feminism" was used to describe a newer feminist movement that fought social and cultural inequalities beyond basic political inequalities.
Feminists did not recognize separate waves of feminism until the second wave was so named by journalist Martha Lear, according to Jennifer Baumgardner. Baumgardner, a writer, activist, filmmaker, and lecturer, discusses criticism of the division of feminism into waves and the difficulty of associating some feminists with specific waves. She argues that the main critics of a wave are likely to be members of the previous wave who remain vital, and that waves are coming faster. The "waves debate" has influenced how historians and other scholars have established the chronologies of women's political activism. Despite the controversy over labeling these interconnected movements, it is clear that after women's suffrage was secured, feminists continued to fight for equality that included a wider range of issues: sexuality, family, the workplace, reproductive rights, de facto inequalities, and official legal inequalities. One especially important movement of the time concerned birth control and was led in large part by Margaret Sanger.
Birth Control
For many feminists, legalizing contraception became a central issue in the campaign for equal social and political rights. In the nineteenth century, contraception often was under attack from various religious groups (loosely known as the "purity movement"), which were composed primarily of Protestant moral reformers and middle-class women. This Victorian-era anti-contraception campaign attacked birth control as an immoral practice that promoted prostitution and venereal disease. Anthony Comstock, a postal inspector and leader in the purity movement, successfully lobbied for the passage of the 1873 Comstock Act, a federal law prohibiting the mailing of, "any article or thing designed or intended for the prevention of conception or procuring of abortion," as well as any form of contraceptive information. Many states also passed similar laws (collectively known as the Comstock laws), that extended the federal law by outlawing the use of contraceptives as well as their distribution. In response, contraception went underground. Drugstores continued to sell condoms as "rubber goods" and cervical caps as "womb supporters."
At the turn of the century, an energetic movement arose that sought to overturn anti-obscenity laws and the Comstock Acts. Centered in Greenwich Village, this movement was largely composed of radicals, feminists, anarchists, and atheists such as Ezra Heywood, Moses Harman, D.M. Bennett, Emma Goldman, and Margaret Sanger. In 1913, Sanger worked in New York's Lower East Side, often with poor women who were suffering severe medical problems due to frequent childbirth and self-induced abortions.
Margaret Sanger
Portrait of Margaret Sanger, leader of the U.S. birth-control movement.
Under the influence of Goldman and the Free Speech League, Sanger became determined to challenge the Comstock Acts that outlawed the dissemination of contraceptive information. In 1914, she launched "The Woman Rebel," an eight-page monthly newsletter that promoted contraception using the slogan, "No Gods, No Masters," and proclaimed that each woman should be, "the absolute mistress of her own body." Sanger coined the term "birth control," which first appeared in her newsletter. Sanger's goal of challenging the law was fulfilled when she was indicted in August, 1914, but the prosecution focused their attention on articles Sanger had written about marriage, rather than those about contraception. Afraid that she might be sent to prison without an opportunity to argue for birth control in court, Sanger fled to England to escape arrest. While Sanger was in Europe, her husband continued her work, which led to his arrest after he distributed a copy of a birth-control pamphlet to an undercover postal worker.
Front page of "The Woman Rebel"
The first issue of "The Woman Rebel," March 1914.
New York state law prohibited the distribution of contraceptives or even contraceptive information, but Sanger hoped to exploit a provision in the law that permitted doctors to prescribe contraceptives for the prevention of disease. On October 16, 1916, she opened the Brownsville Clinic in Brooklyn. It was an immediate success, with more than 100 women visiting on the first day. A few days after the clinic's opening, an undercover policewoman purchased a cervical cap at the clinic, and Sanger was arrested. Refusing to walk, Sanger and a coworker were dragged out of the clinic by police officers. The clinic was shut down, and no other birth-control clinics were opened in the United States until the 1920s. However, the publicity from Sanger's trial generated immense enthusiasm for the cause, and by the end of 1917, there were more than 30 birth-control organizations in the United States.
In the aftermath of Sanger's trial, the birth-control movement began to grow from its radical, working-class roots into a campaign backed by society women and liberal professionals. Sanger and her fellow advocates began to deliberately tone down their radical rhetoric and instead emphasized the socioeconomic benefits of birth control, a policy that led to increasing acceptance by mainstream Americans. Media coverage increased, and several silent motion pictures produced in the 1910s featured birth control as a theme (including Birth Control, produced by and starring Sanger).
The birth-control movement received an unexpected political boost during World War I, as hundreds of U.S. soldiers were diagnosed with syphilis or gonorrhea while overseas. The military undertook an extensive education campaign, focusing on abstinence, but also offering some contraceptive guidance. Previously, the military did not distribute condoms, or even endorse their use, making the United States the only military force in World War I that did not supply condoms to its troops. When U.S. soldiers were in Europe, they found rubber condoms readily available, and when they returned to America, they continued to use condoms as their preferred method of birth control. The military's anti-venereal-disease campaign marked a major turning point for the movement: It was the first time a government institution had engaged in a sustained, public discussion of sexual matters. The government's public discourse changed sex into a legitimate topic of scientific research, and it transformed contraception from an issue of morals to an issue of public health.
Margaret Sanger on courthouse steps
Margaret Sanger leaving a courthouse in New York in 1917.