Brownsville Clinic Open 99 Years Ago

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anniversaries, Brooklyn, Brownsville clinic, Censorship

Today is the 99th anniversary of the day Margaret Sanger opened this nation’s first birth control clinic in Brownsville, Brooklyn. We thought this was a good opportunity to revisit that event from Sanger’s own reminiscences. In an article entitled, “Why I Went to Jail,” published in February 1960, she recalled,

Clinic exterior at 46 Amboy Street

Sanger, her sister Ethel Byrne and Yiddish interpreter Fania Mindell counseling clients.

“It was a crisp, bright morning on October 16, 1916, in Brooklyn, N.Y., that I opened the doors of the first birth-control clinic in the United States. I believed then, and do today, that this was an event of social significance in the lives of American womanhood. ” She wrote. “Three years before, as a professional nurse, I had gone with a doctor on a call in New York’s lower East Side. I had watched a frail mother die from a self-induced abortion. The doctor previously had refused to give her contraceptive information. The mother was one of a thousand such cases; in New   York alone there were over 100,000 abortions a year. That night I knew I could not go on merely nursing, allowing mothers to suffer and die. . . . It was the beginning of my birth-control crusade.”
Sanger’s biggest concern was whether the women would come to clinic. She need not have worried. As she described it,

Sanger and Fania Mindell

“Halfway to the corner they stood in line, shawled, hatless, their red hands          clasping the chapped smaller ones of their children. All day long and far into the evening, in ever-increasing numbers they came, over 100 the opening day. Jews and Christians, Protestants and Roman Catholics alike made their confessions to us. . . .Every day the little waiting room was crowded. The women came in pairs, with friends, married daughters, some with nursing babies clasped in their arms. Women from the far end of Long Island, the press having spread the word, from Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey. They came to learn the ‘secret’ which was possessed by the rich and denied the poor.”
She continued, “My sister and I lectured to eight women at a time on the basic techniques of contraception, referring them to a druggist to purchase the necessary equipment. Records were meticulously kept. It was vital to have complete case histories if our work was to have scientific value. We also gave many of the women copies of What Every Girl Should Know, a brief booklet I had written earlier.”

The stories of the women were indeed tragic. “One woman told of her 15 children. Six were living. ‘I’m 37 years old. Look at me! I might be 50!’ Then there was a reluctantly pregnant Jewish woman who, after bringing eight children to birth, had two abortions and heaven knows how many miscarriages. Worn out, not only from housework but from making hats in a sweatshop, nervous beyond words, she cried morbidly, ‘If you don’t help me, I’m going to chop up a glass and swallow it.’ I comforted her the best I could, but there was nothing I would do to interrupt her pregnancy. We believed in birth control, not abortion.”

But the clinic was not always a tragic scene. Sanger recalled how they were cheered by neighbors. “The grocer’s wife on the corner dropped in to wish us luck, and the jolly old German baker whose wife gave out handbills to everybody passing the door sent us doughnuts. Then Mrs. Rabinowitz would call to us, ‘If I bring some hot tea now, will you stop the people coming?’ The postman delivering his 50 to 100 letters daily had his little pleasantry, ‘Farewell ladies; hope I find you here tomorrow.’”
He was right—their time was growing short. Sanger wrote, “On the ninth day, a well-dressed, hard-faced woman pushed her way past the humble applicants, gave her name, flaunted a $2 bill, payment for What Every Girl Should Know, and demanded immediate attention. My colleague had a hunch she might be a detective, and pinned the bill on the wall and wrote: ‘Received from Mrs. ——— of the Police Department, as her contribution.’” The following afternoon, according to Sanger, on Oct. 26, “the policewoman again pushed her way through the group of patiently waiting women and, striding into my room, snapped peremptorily, ‘You, Margaret Sanger, are under arrest.’”

Sanger was arrested, tried, convicted and spent 30 days in the queens County Penitentiary. But she went on to lead a crusade to make birth control legal, safe, effective, inexpensive and available to all women regardless of race, religion or ethnicity. Can we still be struggling to ensure women’s reproductive rights 99 years later?

Margaret Sanger Jail Interview with the Brooklyn Daily Eagle

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Brooklyn, Brownsville clinic, clinics

If there is one thing I have learned during my time here at the Sanger Papers, it is that Sanger was not afraid to go to extreme lengths for her cause. This level of dedication and devotion to the birth control movement inevitably landed her in jail multiple times, as birth control was not effectively legalized until 1965.

I recently came across an interview of Sanger during one of her first stints in jail, after the raid of her Brownsville Clinic in 1916, and found it to be incredibly inspiring. The reporter started off the article by noting how “remarkably fresh” she appeared, despite having spent the night in horrible prison conditions. Sanger truly could withstand anything.

Mothers with carriages stand outside the Brownsville Clinic, Brooklyn

Sanger started off the interview by describing the horrible conditions of her prison cell.

“I’m glad you came,” she said, “but before we begin to discuss my arrest I wish to tell you something. Please- for my sake and for the sakes of the other women detained here- let me describe the horrible conditions of this jail. I do not see how the people of Kings County can tolerate such conditions. The blanket which covers my iron cot is dirty. Creatures of all manners and kinds invaded my cell. They came in vast numbers. There is no soap with which to wash my hands. I am only mentioning a few of the defects. Put me on record, please, as saying the women of Kings County should invade this place and clean it out.”

Then, she discussed her actual imprisonment and expressed her conviction to keep fighting.

Sanger dramatized her Brownsville Clinic arrest in a film she produced in 1917. Named “Birth Control,” it was banned by New York City’s Commissioner of Licenses, George Bell. Unfortunately, no copies of the film have been found.

“Now I can talk of my arrest. How do I regard it? As an invasion of my personal rights. It is an outrage and the day will come when this community will realize that Margaret Sanger long ago tried to show it the light. I shall continue in my work. After my trial and the final disposition of my case I am going back to my clinic.”

“They cannot stop me by placing me under arrest. Some time or other I will have regained my liberty. Then Margaret Sanger is going back to violate that law all over again. The charge in the newspapers that I was exhibiting and offering for sale a box of pills is a vicious lie.”

Sanger also referred to the way in which she was caught—by selling birth control devices (probably a diaphragm) to a female detective.

“I admit we did sell to the woman detective. We knew who she was. Mrs. Byrne, my sister, is a hot-headed Irish girl and she deliberately urged the detective to buy. We framed the two dollar bill and wrote across the bill. ‘Received from a spy.’ It was laughable to see the woman’s face when she returned and saw how she had been tricked.”

“That woman detective is beyond me. Perhaps she did only her duty, but personally I would rather scrub floors for my bread than earn it by fighting my sisters.”

For the full article, see http://sangerpapers.org/sanger/app/documents/show.php?sangerDoc=422082.xml

For a related article, see:
Why I Went to Jail, Feb. 1960
http://sangerpapers.org/sanger/app/documents/show.php?sangerDoc=303281.xml

Address at the Hotel Brevoort, January 17, 1916

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1916, birth control, brevoort hotel, Brooklyn, Brownsville clinic, margaret sanger, reproductive rights, speeches, Woman Rebel

There is never an easy path to becoming a national icon, and Margaret Sanger’s was no different.  While many would say that “no press is bad press,” it was probably not in Sanger’s best interests to be jailed just as her birth control movement was taking shape.  While her famous monthly, Woman Rebel, was first published in March of 1914 and was then banned from public mailing, her trial concerning the publication was continuously postponed until January of 1916.  The day before her trial, a large crowd of people was privileged enough to hear Sanger deliver a short but powerful speech at the Hotel Brevoort.

A 1954 photo of the Brevoort Hotel shortly before its demolition.

Once a farm property, the Hotel Brevoort was erected in 1845 across from the Brevoort family mansion.  In business for over 100 years, the hotel was home to many colorful people, including “Congressmen, Senators, Mexican and Turkish heads of state, past U.S. presidents, army generals, and even Prince Arthur”.  Even Mark Twain, who lived nearby the hotel, frequented its barber shop run by long-time barber Henri Grechen.

Sanger gave her speech at a dinner held in her support.  Although the speech was short, it had a powerful impact on the hundreds of people, men and women, who came to show their support for the original Woman Rebel.  It had the air of a proud woman, ready to become a martyr for her cause as a way of extending her voice to those she had not yet reached in her travels.  She praises her supporters, saying that “all our great and modern thinkers have advocated it!  It is an idea that must appeal to any mature intelligence”², placing them on a pedestal of higher society.  Sanger understood that some of her audience members did not fully agree with the method she was using to spread the information of safe birth control, and addressed this in her address:

I know that physicians and scientists have a great technical fund of information–greater than I had on the subject of family limitation – Margaret Sanger, Hotel Brevoort Speech

and goes on to ask her audience members to carry on her work in the way they saw fit.  Not because, I believe, she anticipated never returning from prison or exile, but because she wished, upon her eminent return, that there would still be a movement in the United States fighting for the freedom and safety of women’s bodies.

In the end, the government dropped the charges against Sanger.  The death of her daughter, Peggy, just a few weeks before her trial date led prosecutors to believe that jailing Sanger would brand her as martyr, and decided to avoid the bad press that came with prosecuting a grieving mother.  By not being jailed, Sanger was able to start a birth control clinic in October of 1916 in Brooklyn, the first of its kind in the United States.  Sanger was jailed for 30 days for opening the clinic, but her jailing led to a court ruling in the reformation of the law that prohibited the dispensing of contraceptive information, and restricted it to allow professional doctors to become legal distributers.  This culminated in Sanger opening the first legal birth control clinic in 1923 at 104, 5^th Avenue, and the beginning of mass distribution of information to women in need of a family planning strategy.

——–

The complete Hotel Brevoort Speech:

http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/webedition/app/documents/show.php?sangerDoc=128167.xml

New York Times on the Hotel Brevoort Speech:

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F50D10FD3B5B17738DDDA10994D9405B868DF1D3

History of the Hotel Brevoort:

http://westviewnews.org/2012/07/brevoort-in-the-village/

Mapping Margaret Sanger

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birth control, Brooklyn, Brownsville, Carnegie Hall, Eleanor Roosevelt, Google Maps, Mapping, Maps, margaret sanger, New York, New York City, sanger

I’m not a New Yorker. I’d never even visited New York City before beginning my internship here in May. (Don’t worry, I see why everyone loves it so much, and I’m certain that I’ll be back in the not-too-distant future!) The subway system confused me for the first week or so, but I was grateful that the grid layout of the streets made sense. Slowly, I’ve figured out how to get from Point A to Point B with minimal hassle.

The Google Map of Sanger in New York City.

Walking home one day from my internship, I wondered how Sanger experienced New York. She spent some of the most important years of her career living in this city, after all, when she wasn’t traveling to spread her message. As soon as I began plotting relevant locations on a map, I realized that Sanger ranged far and wide across New York City in her quest for legal, accessible birth control. The same woman who made public appearances and gave lectures at such places as Carnegie Hall, The Plaza, and the Waldorf-Astoria sought out the bleakest neighborhood of Brooklyn to open her first birth control clinic. She finally settled on Brownsville, which she described in her Autobiography as

particularly dingy and squalid. Block after block, street after street, as far as we could see in every direction stretched the same endless lines of cramped, unpainted houses that crouched together as though for warmth, bursting with excess of wretched humanity.

I tried to include as many places as possible where Sanger lived or worked, the offices of organizations that she was associated with, and locations where she gave important speeches. I also made sure to include the important New York City landmarks — Carnegie Hall, The Plaza, the Waldorf-Astoria, and others — where Sanger gave speeches or held meetings. However, I do not pretend that this is a complete listing of every address we know of that Sanger was associated with! I have included 49 addresses.

Apart from the obvious places of interest, such as Sanger’s residences and the Brownsville clinic, a few places with which Sanger was associated were particularly interesting to me. One of these, the Gamut Club, located at 69 W. 46th Street, was founded in 1913 by actress and feminist Mary Shaw. The club held weekly Tuesday dinner meetings with guest speakers. Sanger spoke in February 1920 and was introduced by Mary Shaw; she spoke again on March 26, 1924, together with Dorothy Bocker, on the question of “Should All Women Be Mothers?” One of the primary activities of the Gamut Club was its production and sponsorship of plays dealing with feminist topics, including both original short plays by Mary Shaw, such as the radical “Parrot Cage,” as well as popular plays that were centered on women, like George Bernard Shaw’s controversial play Mrs. Warren’s Profession.

Several important events for Sanger took place at the American Woman’s Association club house, at 353 W. 57th Street. The American Woman’s Association was founded in 1921 by Anne Morgan, daughter of J. Pierpont Morgan. Miss Morgan called the AWA ”a training school for leadership, a mental exchange” where women ”can hear what other women are doing.” The cornerstone of the club house, on 57th Street, was laid in 1928, and the building was completed in 1929. It had 1,250 rooms for women, in addition to a swimming pool, gym, meeting rooms, a restaurant, music rooms, and terraces. In 1941, bankruptcy forced the club house to close; the building was converted into the Henry Hudson Hotel, which rented rooms to both men and women. The AWA passed out of existence by 1980. On November 12, 1931, the organization awarded Sanger its Medal of Achievement; Eleanor Roosevelt spoke at the event. Less than a year later, on April 20, 1932, the AWA held a testimonial dinner in Sanger’s honor, at which H. G. Wells called her “the greatest revolutionary bacteriologist the world has ever known.”

Margaret Sanger Square, at the corner of Mott and Bleecker Streets.

There are a few options for accessing this information. First, I created a map using Google Maps. This shows each location and, if you click on a blue place-marker, a short blurb about what happened there. A Google Doc spreadsheet provides the address, year(s), what type of event took place there, and the same short blurb. This would be useful to look at just Sanger’s residences or just places she gave lectures. I also used MyHistro to create a timeline; this website allowed me to add images (although unfortunately not all events have images) and allows you to view the events in chronological order.

You can view the map here, the Google Doc spreadsheet here, and the timeline at MyHistro here. I’d welcome and appreciate any feedback or contributions!

For more information on the Gamut Club, see P. Cobrin, From Winning the Vote to Directing on Broadway: The Emergence of Women on the New York Stage, 1880-1927 (Associated University Presses, 2009), pp. 62-92. For more on the American Woman’s Association club house, see C. Gray, “Streetscapes/The Henry Hudson Hotel, 353 W. 57th Street; From Women’s Clubhouse to WNET to $75 a Night,” New York Times, Jan. 4, 1998.

95th Anniversary of the Brownsville Clinic

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anniversaries, Brooklyn, Brownsville clinic

October 16th, 1916: The Brownsville Clinic opened its doors to the public, staffed by Sanger, Ethel Byrne (her sister and a registered nurse), and an interpreter to facilitate communication with the residents of the multi-ethnic neighborhood. Ten days later, after providing information about contraception and the female reproductive system to roughly 400 women, the clinic was raided by the police and shut down. Although Sanger opened the clinic twice more, on November 14th and 16th, it was finally closed after the staff were evicted by the building’s landlord.

Under the Comstock Laws of the time, distributing information about birth control was obscene and therefore illegal. Rather than opening the clinic secretly and quietly, Sanger courted political and media attention in order to draw the public eye to her campaign. After the arrests and during the subsequent trial, Sanger used the sensation around the opening of the clinic and her struggle to disseminate information about contraception to her advantage, ultimately opening a legal birth control clinic three years later and eventually founding both the organization that became Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

This past Thursday, the BBC aired an interview with Alex Sanger (Margaret Sanger’s grandson) and Esther Katz (Editor and Director of the MSPP). During the interview, Alex Sanger mentions that despite her many successes, the first clinic, opened exactly 95 years ago, was one of his grandmother’s proudest achievements. It seems fitting, at a time in which women’s reproductive rights are increasingly under attack, to commemorate the bravery, spirit, and dedication shown by Sanger and the other staff members of the Brownsville clinic in their fight to make contraception accessible to women from all walks of life.

For more on the Brownsville clinic and Sanger’s work in the early years of the birth control movement, consult Volume I of the Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger: The Woman Rebel, 1900-1928.