Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts records, 1859-2002 (ongoing) (bulk 1916-1960).

ArchivalResource

Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts records, 1859-2002 (ongoing) (bulk 1916-1960).

The PPLM records provide a unique source for the study of the establishment and development of an organization largely run by women. They document the half-century struggle to revoke the Massachusetts Comstock Laws through state initiative and referendum voting (1942-1948) campaigns for the right to disseminate information on birth control. Also of interest are letters to and from Margaret Sanger, and from General Douglas MacArthur forbidding Sanger from visiting Japan; individual files of Loraine L. Campbell, birth control crusader and President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in the 1950's; and files on such topics as maternal and infant health, abortion, African Americans and birth control, population and public policy, eugenics, marriage and sex counseling, connections and conflicts with the Catholic Church, and contraceptive research. Types of materials include organizational records, conference proceedings, financial records, publicity, photographs, scrapbooks, a large amount of correspondence, and reports.

49.5 linear ft. (122 boxes; 7 reels microfilm; and oversized materials)

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 7567156

Smith College, Neilson Library

Related Entities

There are 24 Entities related to this resource.

Sanger, Margaret, 1879-1966

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w66b7wgt (person)

Margaret Louise Higgins was born in Corning, New York, on September 15, 1879, the sixth of eleven children and the third of four daughters born to Anne Purcell Higgins and Michael Hennessey Higgins, a stone mason. Her two elder sisters worked to supplement the family income, and financed her education at Claverack College, a private coeducational preparatory school in the Catskills. After leaving Claverack, Higgins took a job teaching first grade to immigrant children, but decided after a short ...

Bell Telephone Laboratories, inc.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6650fn9 (corporateBody)

Pilpel, Harriet F. (Harriet Fleischl), 1911-1991

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6941jwn (person)

>Harriet Fleischl Pilpel (December 2, 1911 – April 23, 1991) was an American attorney and women's rights activist. She wrote and lectured extensively regarding the freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and reproductive freedom. Pilpel served as general counsel for both the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood. During her career, she participated in 27 cases that came before the United States Supreme Court. Pilpel was involved in the birth control movement and the pro-choice m...

Campbell, Loraine Leeson, 1905-1982

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6q34qvs (person)

Campbell was brought up in Boston, Mass., and attended the Winsor School. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar in 1928 and returned home to help raise her brother and sister. She was active in Planned Parenthood, especially in lobbying for legislation to make birth control information and legal abortions available to all women. From the description of Papers, 1922-1982 (inclusive), 1922-1928 (bulk). (Harvard University). WorldCat record id: 232007538 ...

Rose, Florence, 1903-1969

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6912vbj (person)

Florence Rose, born in New York City on June 20, 1903, was the youngest of three children and the only daughter of Jewish Hungarian immigrants who probably used the surname Rosenbaum. Rose was raised along with her brothers Felix and Leon in Brooklyn. In addition to secretarial training, her education included study at both Hunter College and Columbia University, but it is not clear whether she ever completed a degree. After concluding her education, Rose held a variet...

Calderone, Mary Steichen, 1904-1998

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6xj0gn1 (person)

Mary Steichen Calderone (July 1, 1904 – October 24, 1998) was an American physician and a public health advocate for sexual education. Her most notable feat was overturning the American Medical Association policy against the dissemination of birth control information to patients. Calderone served as president and co-founder of the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) from 1954 to 1982. She was also the medical director for Planned Parenthood. She wrote many publ...

Birth Control League Of Massachusetts

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6zt3n0s (corporateBody)

In the summer of 1916 Van Kleek Allison, a Fabian socialist agitator, was arrested for distributing family planning pamphlets to workers at Boston's North End Candy factory. A group of citizens, known as the Allison Defense Committee, formed in his support (Allison was sentenced to two months in prison in 1917). By August 1916 the group was sufficiently organized to vote to change its name to the Birth Control League, although beginning with the October 30, 1916 minutes, the group referred to it...

Massachusetts Mothers' Health Council

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McCormick, Katharine Dexter, 1876-1967

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6s866vp (person)

Katharine Dexter McCormick (August 27, 1875 – December 28, 1967) was a U.S. suffragist, philanthropist and, after her husband's death, heir to a substantial part of the McCormick family fortune. She funded most of the research necessary to develop the first birth control pill. Katharine Dexter was born on August 27, 1875, in Dexter, Michigan, in her grandparents' mansion, Gordon Hall, and grew up in Chicago where her father, Wirt Dexter, was a prominent lawyer. Following the early death of he...

Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6x16zjk (person)

Birth control advocacy organization. From the description of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts records, 1859-2002 (ongoing) (bulk 1916-1960). (Smith College). WorldCat record id: 465473771 The League is a non-profit, volunteer organization whose goal is to educate the public about the medical, social, and economic aspects of parenthood. From the description of Records, 1946-1948 (inclusive). (Harvard University). WorldCat record id: 232007852 ...

Ames, Blanche Ames, 1878-1969

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6f010t0 (person)

Blanche Ames Ames (February 18, 1878 – March 2, 1969) was an American artist, political activist, inventor, writer, and prominent supporter of women's suffrage and birth control. Born Blanche Ames in Lowell, Massachusetts, Ames was the daughter of Adelbert Ames, a West Point graduate who became a Civil War General and Mississippi Governor, and Blanche Butler Ames, who attended the Academy of the Visitation and enjoyed painting and the arts. The fourth of six children, she was the sister of Ad...

Dennett, Mary Ware, 1872-1947

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w69q3s66 (person)

Mary Coffin Ware Dennett (April 4, 1872 – July 25, 1947) was an American women's rights activist, pacifist, homeopathic advocate, and pioneer in the areas of birth control, sex education, and women's suffrage. She co-founded the National Birth Control League in 1915 together with Jessie Ashley and Clara Gruening Stillman. She founded the Voluntary Parenthood League, served in the National American Women's Suffrage Association, co-founded the Twilight Sleep Association, and wrote a famous pamphle...

Keller, Helen, 1880-1968

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6sc4vq1 (person)

Helen Adams Keller (1880-1968) devoted her life to bettering the education and treatment of the blind, the deaf, and the nonverbal, and was a pioneer in educating the public in the prevention of blindness in newborns. Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama on June 27, 1880. When Helen Keller was 19 months old she became ill with Scarlet Fever, which resulted in her becoming blind and deaf. In her autobiography The Story of My Life, a book she first wrote in 1903 at the age of 23, she desc...

Mothers' Health Offices.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w67b24j1 (corporateBody)

Planned parenthood federation of America

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6bp3xkr (corporateBody)

In 1921 Margaret Sanger founded the national lobbying organization, American Birth Control League (ABCL) which in 1942 became Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA). Between 1921 and 1942 the organization underwent two transformations. In 1923 Sanger opened the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau (BCCRB) for the purposes of dispensing contraceptives under the supervision of licensed physicians and studying their effectiveness. The ABCL provided institutional backing for ...

Bryant, Louise Stevens, 1885-1959

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w69w0w5k (person)

Public health specialist; Author; Editor; Publicist. From the description of Papers 1885-1956. (Smith College). WorldCat record id: 46706099 Louise Stevens Bryants' publicity photo for Girl Scouts, 1919-23 Public health specialist, editor, and publicist Louise Stevens Bryant (1885-1956) received a B.S. from Smith College in 1908 and a PhD in Medical Science from the University of Pennsylvania. She promoted dispensary development and edited a pioneer...

Hepburn, Katherine Houghton, 1878-1951

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6zt0mgh (person)

Guttmacher, Alan F. (Alan Frank), 1898-1974

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6hh7634 (person)

Alan Frank Guttmacher, (1898-1974), was President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America from 1962 to 1974. His research focused on women's reproductive health issues including family planning, birth control, legalized abortion, sterility, fertility, multiple birth pregnancies, and global overpopulation. Guttmacher was an obstetrician, gynecologist, and family planning advocate in Baltimore, Md. before becoming Director of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New Yor...

Butler, Jessie Haver, 1886-

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6hm84xg (person)

Teacher, public speaking; Lecturer; Lobbyist; Suffragist; Author. From the description of Papers 1920-1978. (Smith College). WorldCat record id: 46706497 Teacher of public speaking to wives of senators and diplomats, Butler, (Smith College, B.A., 1909; George Washington University, M.A. in public speaking) was the first woman lobbyist in Washington, and a suffragist. From the description of My romance with history: Autobiography, 1978. (Harvard University). World...

Hanau, Stella, 1890-1972

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6ww8qfd (person)

Dance card, undated Born Stella Bloch, New York City, 1890; B.A. English, Barnard, 1911; married Leo Hanau 1923 (divorced 1940s); one son. Press agent, publicity manager for several "experimental" theatres, New York City, circa 1920s, including the Greenwich Village Theatre and Neighborhood Playhouse, and Provincetown Playhouse (Mass.); co-authored, with Helen Deutsch, The Provincetown: A Story of the Theatre (1931); managed Paul Robeson's first concert; published playb...

Pincus, Gregory, 1903-1967

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6pk0h8p (person)

Biologist. From the description of Papers of Gregory Pincus, 1920-1969 (bulk 1950-1967). (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 71009865 ...

Dickinson, Robert Latou, 1861-1950

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6nc6hv6 (person)

Robert Latou Dickinson, 1861-1950, MD, 1882, Long Island College Hospital, was a gynecologist and obstetrician at Brooklyn Hospital and also taught at Long Island College Hospital. Dickinson served as secretary to the National Committee on Maternal Health, senior vice-president of Planned Parenthood Federation, president of the Euthanasia Society, and was president of the American Gynecological Society and New York Obstetrical Society. In addition to research on obstetrics and diseases of women,...

Gamble, Clarence James, 1894-

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6br9bbj (person)

Gamble (1894-1966) (Harvard, M.D. 1920) became involved in the birth control movement in 1929 when he helped to establish the Maternal Health Clinic and Committee in Cincinnati and became associated with a Philadelphia clinic. In 1933 he chaired the board of Philadelphia Maternal Health Centers, and began a term as president of the Pennsylvania Birth Control Federation. He later served in an executive capacity with the Birth Control Federation and Planned Parenthood Federation of America. He pro...

Buck, Pearl S. (Pearl Sydenstricker), 1892-1973

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w66w9g8f (person)

Pearl S. Buck was the daughter of American missionary parents, and spent the first seventeen years of her life in China. Her third novel, The Good Earth, won the Pulitzer Prize, and a Nobel Prize for literature followed, citing The Good Earth as well as her biographies of her parents. Critical reception for her works has been mixed since these early successes. A prolific and optimistic author, most of her fiction is set in China, and she displays great affection for the place and her characters....