Margaret Sanger: A Walking Contradiction
How one woman pioneered modern-day birth control and supported eugenics all at once
Margaret Sanger was once hailed by LIFE magazine as one of the 100 most important Americans of the 20th century. Best known for her role in convincing Americans and the world regarding the need for birth control, she was also an advocate of eugenics, amazing historians with the mental gymnastics she had to employ to juggle such antagonistic but equally taboo beliefs at the time.
Triggered by tragedy
Born Margaret Higgins in 1879, she was one of eleven children from working class Irish parents, in an era where women were expected to bear children at all costs. Margaret grew up in a home that had equally polarizing mindsets, her father was a progressive free-thinker who taught her to defy authority whereas her mother was a devout Catholic who upheld obedience.
Her first brush with tragedy came at the age of 19 as she watched her mother die of tuberculosis. Margaret attributed her tragic death to the strain of having been pregnant a grand total of 18 times, seven of which miscarried. She stood over her mother’s coffin and lashed out at her father, “Mother is dead from having too many children”.
