More Mapping Margaret Sanger

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Maps, speeches

Sanger traveled by train on her 1916 national tour. (Library of Congress)

We always knew that Margaret Sanger was a busy woman, but now we are beginning to see just how active she was.  We had first started thinking about the idea in 2012, when we started the “Margaret Sanger Slept Here” series of blog posts, which aimed to show the breadth of her travels and highlight some of the more interesting places where she stayed.  Robin Pokorski blogged about a map she created of Margaret Sanger’s New York that highlighted the places she lived, spoke, and worked.

With the help of interns Yvonne Garrett and Tori Sciancalepore, who helped design the project, and Jackie Collens, Kaitlin Hackbarth, Madeline Moran, Allie Strickland, Vidhi Vakharia, and Laura Filion, who continued inputting data, we used Google Fusion tables to create a geographic representations of Sanger’s public appearances. We began by using an existing Microsoft Access database used to track documents in the digital edition. We excluded articles, which had no place associated with them, and focused on speeches, press statements, and interviews. We exported relevant records into a spreadsheet and imported that into a Google Fusion Table.  We added a field for Location, and a URL. Yvonne and Tori went through the speeches and other public statements, adding places to the table when possible. We tried to get specific addresses when possible, but in some cases had to just input a city name. The URL entered matched the item in the Fusion Table to that speech in the digital edition.

A sample of the spreadsheet that underlies the map.

Once all the documents were added, we decided to go back and enter all the events that we knew of, whether or not we had a copy of the speech that was given. We keep an extensive Chronology, also in Microsoft Access, which has almost 5,000 entries, culled from clippings, correspondence and other research. We did not want to dump this database into the Fusion table because it would duplicate the records we already had in the Fusion table, an it has many entries that don’t have a location associated with them. Also, many of our chronology entries just indicate what Sanger was in, but have no other details. So we began entering only those entries that discussed specific events. These come from correspondence and diary entries, as well as discussions of Sanger’s doings in the press, the Birth Control Review, and other journals, and from scrapbooks. This work is still continuing but we are starting to see the results.

We wanted users to be able to distinguish between the speeches that they could read–in the Speeches and Articles Digital Edition–and those that were just map points. We added the field “Pin Color” to the spreadsheet, selecting the ever imaginative green dots for speeches that we have, and red ones for those that we do not.

When a reader clicks on a dot, it opens up a label which provides the title of the speech, the date, the location, and our notes. If we have the speech you can click through to see it.

As it is filling in, the map provides a interesting sense of the range of Sanger’s travels. You can see that her northern-most speech was in Stockholm, while the most southerly was in Singapore.  As you might expect, the United States is liberally dotted with entries, with emphasis on the Northeast and Midwest, where birth control organizing was most advanced. We can see her three-month tour or India, and her groundbreaking tour of Japan, Korea, and China in 1922. We can also see that she never spoke in the Southern Hemisphere.

The breadth of Sanger’s travels. (Click on image to go to the Fusion Map)

What also makes this map special is that it is interactive.  You can zoom in and out, and by using filters, you can determine which entries are mapped.  By focusing in on Manhattan, for example, we see exactly where Sanger spoke in the city.

Here are Sanger’s Manhattan speeches (Click on the image to get to the Fusion Map)

By limiting the map to the dates April through August 1916, we can see her first national speaking tour taking shape.

Sanger traveled to the West Coast and back in 1916. (Click on the image to get to the Fusion Map)

Sanger disembarking in California in 1937. (American Airlines)

As we continue to vicariously travel the globe, adding Margaret Sanger’s travels to the map, we hope that you will find it a useful resource.

If you know of any Sanger speeches in your neighborhood, and they are not on the map– please let us know by sending a clipping or other report to the Project.

Go to the MAP!

 

 

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.