America and the Pill: A History of Promise, Peril, and Liberation (21 page)
Read America and the Pill: A History of Promise, Peril, and Liberation Online
Authors: Elaine Tyler May
Tags: #History, #United States, #20th Century, #Modern, #Social History, #Social Science, #Abortion & Birth Control
CHAPTER 2
Hugh Moore, quoted in Lara V. Marks,
Sexual Chemistry: A History of the Contraceptive Pill
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 28.The author attended this conference and remembers it vividly. After the presentation, during informal conversations, many of the
Indian physicians predicted that the pill would not work in India. It turned out that they were correct.
See Marks,
Sexual Chemistry
, especially Chapter 1. Some re- searchers were dubious about claims that the pill would prove to be a panacea for overpopulation, including John Rock, who believed that the pill would be of little value in places like India, especially in rural areas where women had no access to education, no rights, and no privacy. See Margaret Marsh and Wanda Ronner,
The Fertility Doc- tor: John Rock and the Reproductive Revolution
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), pp. 200–201.Quoted in Linda Gordon,
The Moral Property of Women: A His- tory of Birth Control Politics in America
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002 edition), p. 147.See Matthew Connelly,
Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), for a powerful critique of the population control movement. He notes the distinction between the two terms on p. 16.James Reed,
From Private Vice to Public Virtue: The Birth Control Movement and American Society Since 1830
(New York: Basic Books, 1978), pp. 102, 144, and 187.Abraham Stone, “The Control of Fertility,”
Scientific American
, April 1954, p. 31; on Sanger’s opposition see Ellen Chesler,
Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), pp. 393–394.Marks,
Sexual Chemistry
, pp. 21–22; Elaine Tyler May,
Home- ward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era
(New York: Basic Books, 2008 edition), pp. 142–143.See Elizabeth Siegel Watkins,
On the Pill: A Social History of Oral Contraceptives, 1950–1970
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univer- sity Press, 1998), pp. 16–19; Sheldon J. Segal,
Under the Banyan Tree
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. xviii.Marks,
Sexual Chemistry
, pp. 31–34.Quoted in Gordon,
Moral Property of Women
, p. 284.Quoted in Marks,
Sexual Chemistry
, p. 28.U.S. News & World Report
articles: “Surging Population: An ‘Erupting Volcano,’ ” 52, 20 (May 14, 1962), p. 9; “An Overcrowded World?” 45, 9 (Aug. 29, 1958), p. 48; “Too Many People in the World?” 41, 2 ( July 13, 1956), p. 80; “As Population Keeps Climb- ing,” 46, 1 ( Jan. 2, 1959), p. 54; “Asia’s ‘Boom’ in Babies,” 51, 6 (Au- gust 7, 1961), p. 66; “World Choice: Limit Population or Face Famine,” 58, 24 ( June 14, 1965), p. 64; and “The World’s Biggest Problem,” 55, 13 (Sept. 16, 1963), p. 60; “Where Will U.S. Put 60 Million More People?” 43, 6 (Aug. 9, 1957), p. 46; “How the Popu- lation Boom Will Change America,” 45, 22 (Nov. 28, 1958), p. 86; “Breakthrough in Birth Control: Answer to Population Explosion?” 59, 14 (Oct. 4, 1965), p. 56. David Lyle, “The Human Race Has, Maybe, Thirty-Five Years Left,”
Esquire
LXVII, 3 (Whole No. 406) (September 1967), p. 116.Marks,
Sexual Chemistry
, pp. 29–31.Quoted in Tone,
Devices and Desires
, p. 214; and Asbell,
The Pill
, p. 234.Edward G. Stockwell,
Population and People
(Chicago: Quad- rangle Books, 1968), pp. 5–11; See also Margaret O. Hyde,
This Crowded Planet
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961).Paul Ehrlich quoted in Connelly,
Fatal Misconception
, p. 259; Asbell,
The Pill
, pp. 326–328.Connelly,
Fatal Misconception
, pp. 239, 259.No byline,
Life
, April 17, 1970, vol. 68, no. 14.Gordon Rattray Taylor, chief science adviser to the British Broadcasting Company, “People Pollution . . . ”
Ladies Home Journal
, October 1970, pp. 74–80; Leyhausen quoted on p. 78.No byline, “Our Multiplying Families,”
Changing Times
, The Kiplinger Magazine, May 1966, p. 6.David Lyle, “The Human Race Has, Maybe, Thirty-Five Years Left,”
Esquire
LXVII, 3 (Whole No. 406) (September 1967), pp. 182–183.See Elaine Tyler May,
Barren in the Promised Land: Childless Americans and the Pursuit of Happiness
(New York: Basic Books, 1995), pp. 114–119.Johanna Schoen,
Choice and Coercion: Birth Control, Steriliza- tion, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare
(Chapel Hill: Univer- sity of North Carolina Press, 2005), pp. 2–3.Schoen,
Choice and Coercion
, pp. 4–12.“How to Plan a Family,”
Ebony
magazine, July 1948, pp. 13–15, quoted in “Case for Birth Control,”
Newsweek
, 31 January 1955, pp. 60–61.See, for example, Gordon,
Moral Property of Women
, p. 200; Marks,
Sexual Chemistry
, p. 20.Quoted in Dorothy Roberts,
Killing the Black Body: Race, Re- production, and the Meaning of Liberty
(New York: Pantheon, 1997), pp. 76–77.Legal scholar Dorothy Roberts concluded that Sanger was mo- tivated by a genuine desire to improve the lives of the poor women she served. See Roberts,
Killing the Black Body
, quotes on p. 81.In the same year, he abandoned his former name, LeRoi Jones,
to become Amiri Baraka.
Discussion of Black Power leaders’ opposition and quote from Dawes in Roberts,
Killing the Black Body
, pp. 98–99, quote on p. 99.Quotes are from Roberts,
Killing the Black Body
, p. 100. Em-phasis in the original.
Roberts,
Killing the Black Body
, pp. 100–101, quotes on p. 100; Ralph Z. Hallow, “The Blacks Cry Genocide,”
The Nation
, April 28, 1969, pp. 535–537.Legal scholar Dorothy Roberts noted, “We must acknowledge the justice of ensuring equal access to birth control for poor and mi- nority women without denying the injustice of imposing birth con- trol as a means of reducing their fertility.” See Roberts,
Killing the Black Body
, pp. 56–57; Ralph Z. Hallow, “The Blacks Cry Geno- cide,”
The Nation
, April 28, 1969, p. 537.Asbell,
The Pill
, pp. 326–328.Segal,
Under the Banyan Tree
, p. xxvii.Ibid., p. xviii.
For data supporting these claims, see Connelly,
Fatal Miscon- ception
, pp. 374–376.Segal,
Under the Banyan Tree,
p. xv.Asbell,
The Pill
, pp. 326–328; Segal,
Under the Banyan Tree
, p. xii.Segal,
Under the Banyan Tree
, p. xxviii.Ibid., pp. xxiv, xxviii.
Connelly,
Fatal Misconception
, p. 373.
CHAPTER 3
Both quotes are from Robert W. Kistner, M.D., “What ‘The Pill’ Does to Husbands,”
Ladies Home Journal
, January 1969, pp. 66, 68.See Elaine Tyler May,
Homeward Bound: American Families inthe Cold War Era
(New York: Basic Books, 2008).Joyce Johnson,
Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir
(New York: Penguin, 1999).“The Pill Versus The Springhill Mine Disaster” from
The Pill Versus The Springhill Mine Disaster
, by Richard Brautigan. Copyright© by Richard Brautigan. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Elizabeth Fraterrigo,
Playboy and the Making of the Good Life in Modern America
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), reader- ship on p. 1.See Barbara Ehrenreich,
The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment
(New York: Anchor Books/Double- day, 1983).Carrie Pitzulo, “The Battle in Every Man’s Bed:
Playboy
and the Fiery Feminists,”
Journal of the History of Sexuality
17, 2 (May 2008), pp. 259–289. On funding for Masters and Johnson, see Thomas Maier,
Masters of Sex: The Life and Times of William Masters and Vir-ginia Johnson, the Couple Who Taught America How to Love
(New York: Basic Books, 2009), pp. 203–206.Philip Wylie, “The Womanization of America,”
Playboy
, Sep- tember 1958; a forum including comments by Edward Bernays, Dr. Ernest Dichter, Alexander King, Norman Mailer, Herbert Mayes, Dr. Ashley Montagu, Dr. Theodor Reik, and Mort Sahl, “The Playboy Panel: The Womanization of America,”
Playboy
, June 1962, vol. 9, issue 6, pp. 43 et seq.Ibid.
Quotes are from the Playboy Panel, June 1962, p. 46.
Cartoons are from
Playboy
, April 1960, vol. 7, issue 4; January 1961, vol. 8, issue 1; January 1962, vol. 9, issue 1.
12.
Playboy
, 1964, vol. 11, issue 5, p. 170;
Playboy
, 1964, vol. 11, issue 5, p. 145.
13.
Playboy
, 1965, vol. 12, issue 7; p. 202; 1965, vol. 12, issue 4,
p. 161.
14.
Playboy
, 1965 vol. 12, issue 9, p. 258; 1966, vol.13, issue 7, p. 100.
Hugh M. Hefner, “The Playboy Philosophy,”
Playboy
, January 1964, vol. 11, issue 1, p. 64; responses in
Playboy
, May 1964, vol. 11, issue 5, p. 55“(Name Withheld by request),” Grenada Hills, California, “Playboy Forum,” and Stephen L. Larson, M.D., Rochester, Min- nesota, “Alternative to Abortion,” in
Playboy
, 1966, vol. 13, issue 5,p. 135; Harry Clark, Cleveland, Ohio, “Abortion: Doctors’ View”;
Mark Ross, University of California, Santa Barbara, “Contraception and Abortion”; Kenneth Sherwood, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, “Birth-Control Ban”; and Thomas Gibbons, Los An- geles, California, “Catholics and the Pill,” all in the “Playboy Forum” of
Playboy
, 1967, vol. 14, issue 8, p. 37.Hugh Hefner, “The Playboy Philosophy,”
Playboy
, 1964, vol.11, issue 7, p. 115.
By the mid-1960s female readers began to write to the maga- zine. It is not altogether certain that female writers actually wrote all
the letters attributed to women. Some letters with the “name with- held” may have been generated by the editors in order for
Playboy
to argue against the views expressed. Either way,
Playboy
was not sym- pathetic to women who were reluctant to take the pill.Charleen Dimmick, New Orleans, Louisiana, “Perils of the Pill,” and response by the editors,
Playboy
, 1967, vol. 13, issue 1, pp. 63–64.“(Name Withheld by Request),” Letter to the Editor, and Ed-
itor’s Reply, “Perils of the Pill,”
Playboy
, 1967, vol. 14, issue 11, p. 164. Response quoted a study by Dr. Frederick J. Ziegler of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.“The Pill,”
Redbook
, January 1966, p. 76, quoted in Tone,
De- vices and Desires
, p. 252.Quoted in Linda Witt, “The Male Contraceptive, A Bitter Pill?”
Today’s Health,
June 1970
,
p. 18.Quoted in Witt, “Male Contraceptive,” p. 18.
Kistner was widely regarded as one of the leading experts on oral contraceptives. He also served as an expert witness for Searle in a suit resulting from the death of a woman from thromboembolic disease in 1965. See Margaret Marsh and Wanda Ronner,
The Fer- tility Doctor: John Rock and the Reproductive Revolution
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), pp. 260, 262.All of these quotes are from experts quoted in Robert W. Kist- ner, M.D., “What ‘The Pill’ Does to Husbands,”
Ladies Home Jour- nal
, January 1969, pp. 66, 68.Quotes are from Kistner, “What ‘The Pill’ Does to Husbands.”
Kistner and other experts are quoted in Kistner, “What ‘The Pill’ Does to Husbands.”
CHAPTER 4
Gloria Steinem, “The Moral Disarmament of Betty Coed,”
Es- quire
LVIII, 3 (Whole no. 346) September 1962, pp. 97, 153–157, quote on p. 155.Pearl S. Buck, in
Readers Digest
, quoted in Elizabeth Siegel Watkins,
On the Pill: A Social History of Oral Contraceptives, 1950– 1970
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998) p. 66.Beth Bailey,
Sex in the Heartland
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 106.Quotes are from Steinem, “Moral Disarmament,” p. 153.
See John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman,
Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988, 1997), especially Chapter 13.Dr. John Gagnon and clinical psychologist Isadore Rubin quoted in Bernard Asbell,
The Pill: A Biography of the Drug that Changed the World
(New York: Random House, 1995), p. 198.Steinem, “Moral Disarmament,” pp. 155–157.
Stephanie Coontz,
The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap
(New York: Basic Books, 2000 edition), pp. 182–183, 194, 202; Watkins,
On the Pill,
p. 9.Coontz,
The Way We Never Were
, pp. 194, 198; D’Emilio and Freedman,
Intimate Matters
, p. 286; Asbell,
The Pill,
p. 200.D’Emilio and Freedman,
Intimate Matters
, Chapters 10 and 11.Quoted in Linda Gordon,
The Moral Property of Women: A History of Birth Control Politics in America
(Urbana: University of Illi- nois Press, 2002 edition), pp. 151–152.D’Emilio and Freedman,
Intimate Matters
, Part II. These views were also reflected in early motion pictures. Seven films between 1916 and 1939 dealt with birth control, taking on the controversies. Each film was explicitly either for or against contraception. Those that pro- moted birth control, including Margaret Sanger’s documentary
Birth Control
(1917) and the feature film
The Hand that Rocks the Cradle
(1917), show the dangers to women of having too many children and the folly of making birth control illegal. Those that opposed contra- ception, such as
Where Are My Children?
(1916) and
The House With- out Children
(1919), condemned the “modern” woman who tried to prevent pregnancy as immoral and anti-family. In Cecil B. DeMille’sbiggest box-office failure,
Four Frightened People
(1934), westerners marooned on an island of “pygmies” try to teach birth control to na- tive women.
Unborn Souls
(1939) promotes birth control as the posi- tive alternative to illegal abortion. After
Unborn Souls
was released, birth control disappeared from American screens until the 1950s, when two films touched very lightly on the subject.
Cheaper by the Dozen
(1950), based on a true story, includes a brief scene when the mother of twelve is approached to be the president of a local Planned Parenthood chapter;
Full of Life
(1957) includes graphic discussions of pregnancy and birth control and was criticized for being in bad taste. Film plots and reviews were gathered at the Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Los Angeles.See Elaine Tyler May,
Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era
(New York: Basic Books, 2008).See Leslie Reagan,
When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medi- cine, and Law in the United States, 1867–1973
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).See Rickie Solinger,
Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race before Roe v. Wade
(New York: Routledge, 1992).Mary McCarthy, “Dottie Makes an Honest Woman of Her- self,”
Partisan Review
, January-February 1954, pp. 34–52. Quotes are from pp. 34 and 52. See also Nancy K. Miller, “Women’s Secrets and the Novel: Remembering Mary McCarthy’s
The Group
,”
Social Research
, Vol. 68, 2001.Philip Roth,
Goodbye, Columbus
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1959).Philip Roth interview with Terry Gross,
Fresh Air
, National Public Radio, 2005, rebroadcast April 11, 2008.Mad Men
season 1, episode 1, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” AMC, 2007.Watkins,
On the Pill
, pp. 2, 44–45, 54–55, quote from
Made- moiselle
on pp. 44–45.Bailey,
Sex in the Heartland,
p. 119.Watkins,
On the Pill
, pp. 58–59.Quoted in Watkins,
On the Pill
, pp. 65–66.Asbell,
The Pill,
p. 196.Watkins,
On the Pill
, pp. 66–67; Asbell,
The Pill
, pp. 196, 198; D’Emilio and Freedman,
Intimate Matters
, p. 251.Quoted in Andrea Tone,
Devices and Desires: A History of Con- traceptives in America
(New York: Hill and Wang, 2001), p. 236.No byline, “The Second Sexual Revolution,”
Time
, January 24, 1964, pp. 54–59, quotes on pp. 55–58.No byline, “No Moral Revolution Discovered, Yet,”
Science News
, 93, 3 ( Jan. 20, 1968), pp. 60–61.Reiss quoted in Asbell,
The Pill
, pp. 198–199; Ira L. Reiss,
The Social Context of Premarital Sexual Permissiveness
(New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967).Sean Goldberg, San Francisco, California, “Morning-After Pill,”
Playboy
, 1967, vol. 4, issue 7, p. 133.Watkins,
On the Pill
, pp. 60, 63–64; Asbell,
The Pill,
pp. 200,206–207; Watkins,
On the Pill
, pp. 58–59.Rebecca L, e-mail response to Internet survey.
Eleanor S, e-mail response to Internet survey.
Bailey,
Sex in the Heartland
, esp. Chapter 4.Bailey,
Sex in the Heartland
, p. 110; Watkins,
On the Pill
, p. 2.Asbell,
The Pill
, pp. 195, 198.Asbell,
The Pill
, p. 201.Bailey,
Sex in the Heartland
, p. 120.Bailey,
Sex in the Heartland
, pp. 120–130.Goodbye Columbus
and
Prudence and the Pill
, viewed by the au- thor. Other film plot summaries derived from listings at the Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Los Angeles.
