Keywords
birth control movement, Margaret Sanger, reproductive autonomy
Abstract
Like many other women, I too, want to be free,” explained a 33-year- old Utah woman in a 1925 letter to Margaret Sanger, a prominent leader in the birth control movement. This woman, whose name is unknown, was married to a 78-year- old man with whom, she thought, “in her ignorance,” that she would never have any children—she was proven wrong. With six children under the age of eight at the time and wanting to prevent having more, this woman’s predicament reflects Sanger’s mission to inform everyday women of birth control so they could make their own reproductive choices. After reading Sanger’s book, Woman and the New Race, she turned to Sanger to help her because her doctor “says be careful—but he didn’t tell me what to do.”
Recommended Citation
Wilcox, Evelyn
(2025)
"“I, Too, Want to Be Free”: Women and the Birth Control Movement in Utah, 1914–1940,"
The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing: Vol. 54:
Iss.
1, Article 7.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/thetean/vol54/iss1/7
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