Urchin: Aw! Lookit the Statya of Liberty!: “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings”
New York: Birth Control Review, ca. 1923–1927
Manuscripts and Archives Division
Urchin: Aw! Lookit the Statya of Liberty!
The Comstock Act of 1873 criminalized the dissemination of contraceptives, abortifacients (drugs that induce abortion), and information related to birth control. Regardless, many activists still believed that women had a right to the information and materials necessary to control their reproductive lives. A former nurse, Margaret Sanger was one such activist. Though she later allied with eugenicists and advocated a racially discriminatory vision of family planning, her early activism was informed by her alliances with socialists and anarchists, and her vision for increased health and freedoms for poor women. She began publishing The Birth Control Review in New York City in 1917 to share information about reproductive health. The review was distributed on street corners by activists like Kitty Marian, depicted in this cartoon, which connected the idea of birth control with women’s liberation; it ran in the Review between 1923 and 1927. Marian was arrested multiple times for selling the pamphlet and imprisoned in 1918 for 30 days.
Teach with this item from Unit 3 of the curriculum guide, Reading Dangerously: Censorship and the Freedom to Read in 20th Century America.
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