Editing Sample--The Margaret Sanger Papers
The Margaret Sanger Papers Project is publishing the papers of America's most noted birth control advocate in three formats. Working with a massive collection of over 100,000 individual documents, the Project first located, identified, dated and indexed the letters, speeches, reports and other documents that make up the collection. This material was published in microfilm format. From these documents, we selected approximately 1,000 to be included in our four-volume book edition. These letters, speeches and other writings are transcribed, proofread and annotated for publication. For a separate electronic edition, project editors have selected Sanger's speeches and articles, transcribed them and made them searchable by adding index terms.
Manuscript Facsimile
All the examples on this page are from the same original seventeen-page handwriten manuscript of Margaret Sanger's address at the Fabian Society Hall in London, on July 5, 1915. The original document is located in the Margaret Sanger Papers at the Library of Congress. Click on the image of the document to see a larger version (depending on your browser you may need to click two times to enlarge the image).
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Microfilm Edition: Providing Access
Our goal in producing the microfilm edition was to make Sanger's archive much more accessible. Publishing the documents in microfilm format enables researchers in libraries anywhere to access this valuable collection. The editors considered issues such as which documents should be included and how they should be organized, identified and indexed. Editing each document included a series of steps.
1) Determine whether this is a Sanger document.
This document is written in Sanger's hand and the event is well documented. In this case, there is no doubt about authorship.
2) Determine the author, date, location and title.
With the author evident, we verified that the location of the speech, London, and the date, July 5, 1915 are accurate. Both had been added to the manuscript by someone other than Sanger, but are accurate. Because we were unable to locate the official title of Sanger's speech, we used a descriptive title, based on where the speech was given.
3) Make certain that the document is complete.
In this case, some of the margins have been worn, making some words difficult to read, but all the pages of the speech have been found. In other instances, pages might be missing or enclosures may have become separated from the original. Project staff seek to locate any missing portions or if they cannot be found, to describe them.
4) Fit the document into our organizational schema.
The Project divided the microfilm into subseries to facilitate ease of access. This document was placed in the "Writings" subseries under the heading for "Speeches and Articles." Other categories are "Diaries and Journals," "Statements," "Manuscripts and Books," and "Publications Edited by Margaret Sanger."
Above each document in the microfilm edition, we printed a "target" or brief bibliographical information about the document. The targets contains the title, place and date, which are not always readily apparant from the original. It also includes information about the location of the manuscript itself. (Click on this image to enlarge in a separate screen).
The database used to create the target was also used to generate the microfilm's index and is still used to control access to the documents for the book and electronic editions.
Book Edition: Transcribing the Text and Determining Annotation
When we selected this speech for the book edition, the text of the document was transcribed into a word-processing format and then proofread by editors (see below). This document, a handwriten original in only fair condition, presented some transcription issues. We indicate words that we are not certain of by using [square brackets] and by adding question marks when the words supplied are less certain. Strikeouts and interlineations are rendered in the text, and spelling errors are generally maintained. [Note: interlineations, rendered in print with up/down arrows which did not display on the web have been converted to the codes <UA> and <DA>.]
Editors provide context for the document by explaining not what Sanger meant, but by giving the reader the tools to understand references that are not clear. We identify people or issues mentioned, bring the reader up to date on Sanger's dealings with individuals and organizations, and provide background on the issues she addresses.
Documents in the book edition do not need to stand alone--we assume that the reader has read the documents which come before them in the volume. Therefore, Sanger's stay in London, which is discussed immediately prior to this document is not mentioned here, though we set the scene for this speech, describing the hall and the audience. Detailed annotation in the form of endnotes, linked to specific points in the text, is provided in endnotes.
59. FABIAN HALL SPEECH(1)
The following speech was given at the Fabian Society Hall, 25 Tothill Street, Westminster, in London. The British Fabian socialists focused on education and social research and were less committed to the kind of political activism that American socialists promoted. Sanger later recalled that her audience, “representatives of nearly every social and civic organization in London,” was very different from the socialist women she had addressed in the United States because they “had the rationalist attitude and preferred to listen to principles and theories.” (MS, Autobiography, 170.)
[London, England]
[July 5, 1915]
By the title of the subject to be discussed tonight, I would not have you think that I have originated a special [propoganda] of which I have a special [monopoly] nor would I have you think I have cornered the market as Americans Say but I simply wish to show that there is a special side of our present day propoganda which should recive more of our attention as propogandists and there is always room in a field like the Socialist or Anarchist [philosophies] for some of us to lay special stress on & concentrate our work on special parts of the whole-- My work on the nursing field in U.SA. gave me my first introduction to the physical ignorance of the working women [concerning] the physical care of their own bodies or its physiological function.
Tho I was rocked in the cradle of Socialism--for my father was one of the early pioneers of Socialist thot in USA(2) yet with my nursing experience among women--I could see the [great] undermining & weakening of that class both physically & mentally [through] ignorance of the care of their own bodies & especially the physiological functioning of the sex <UA>generative<DA> organs.
In USA. you are all aware of our world famous Puritanism which has made any mention of sex a prison offense & always reminds me of that Story of which you are no doubt familiar but which bears repeating here. The story of the Queen of Spain travelling through the rural districts to one of the provinces had need to pass through a manufacturing town made famous for its excellent production of hosiery & gloves. The inhabitants of the town being simple & loving people desired to please the lady & show honor to her by presenting to her some of their best & choicest productions. The magistrate of the town assembled the people together to receive the queen & presented her with the gifts. The Escort bowed low & graciously over the gloves & thanked the people for the gift, but declined to accept the stockings by saying “never forget that a queen of Spain has no legs”. This is quite on a par with our Puritanism in America & it is this barrier that must be broken down around the American working girl before you can proceed a step in reaching her--
As you already know there has been throughout the world within the last ten years a tremendous awakening in all civilized countries among women. Every where women have shown tendencies to overthrow some of the old regulations of society & throw off some of the [fetters] which have held them down so long--
This awakening has definitely shown itself in two forms--or groups, one the most universal the desire for political freedom & recognition or the votes for women groups.
The other & more advanced & more recent is perhaps more psychological in its effects but have likewise formed themselves into the Feminist groups.
I shall not go into detail about the votes for women--woman--for she concerns me little & fortunately the working girl has not been greatly enthused in this propoganda.(3) But sufficient is it to say that as far as I have been able to gather their vision of life goes as high as obtaining political positions for women <UL>now today<NM> & aspiring to the lofty attitude of police women, detectives, police [commiss] etc. The women of Chicago have been able to elect some of their sex as police and when the great cloke makers Strike was in progress--the working girls found to their great surprise that the policewoman club hurt just as much swung from the fair hands of her own sex, as it did from that of the policemans--(4) Again--in N.Y. we have C.B.D. (5) the Police [Comissn]--for years Police Matron in the Bedford Home for girls. If one could describe the hope which sprang into the hearts of the women of the underworld when they knew that at last a woman was to be over the Institution wherein they suffered so bitterly and what a keen dissappointment awaited them-- She went at her work for public [applause]--Prison was prison and was no joy house--& accordingly she went to her job to make prison sentence so hard & cruel that no one would return. She refused to allow the inmates to recive outside meals until they were weak & ill & unless there was someone outside to help them they were usually fit for a hospital--this & a few such cruelties K.B.D. brought into the Prison--& today there is little hope for the hands of a woman--
In San California it is the same a letter from a friend tells me at the last election that the women had gone mad on prohibition that they were going to tie the state up so dry, that a working man would have to pay five shillings for a perscription to keep a pint of cider vinegar in the house.(6)
So much for votes for women. Its not that I deplore votes for women for certainly if votes are good for men they are good for women too, but the vision of these women is too narrow & voting women as policeman matrons etc are the same tools in the system as the men are so long as this system [remains.?] The other group of awakened women are the feminists--the basis of which is one of the first steps towards womans emancipation & future development--the ownership & control over her own body--
This movement like all other big vital thots, has been cut up & narrowed down to such a degree that it is scarcely recognized as Feminism--for instance last year in N.Y.C. there was the Feminist Movement launched upon the unsuspectg Puritans--but it was Feminism in name only--& ignoring the basis of the whole movement, lest it should shock the morals of the people, it began to treat of superficial results of its development. For instance--these women--wanted the right to work: the right to ignore fashions: the right to keep her own name, & such poor longings of a bougeous class suffering from loss of vitality. I issued a working womans paper called the Woman Rebel which viewed feminism from the working womans point of view & demanded not the right to work, but the right to be lazy, & guaranteed to find seven millions of women--laundresses, cloak makers, suit makers, cap-- kimona makers scrubwomen, domestics, telephone girls, shop workers, etc etc who would gladly change places with these women who wanted the right to work.(7)
The working girl had never troubled herself about ignoring fashions-- It was compulsory on her part.-- She had to--
The right to keep her own name was a most revolutionary demand for these women to make. Instead of Mrs Ma Frank Brown, she wanted the right to be Mrs Mary Brown-- Why she must loose her identity in Brown when her own name was Jones--was a step too far for them to explain--& why she should tag herself with “Mrs” or a wedding ring was too shocking for these blue stocking prudes to think of & when I suggested that the basis of feminism was a womans right to be an unmarried mother--a stony silence surrounded them & they drew aside their skirts less they be difiled by such tho’ts.(8)
So much for the feminists whose program had no place for the working womans development, or no thot of her emancipation but fundamentally has a basis for her to use of which I shall refer later on.
If the votes for women & Feminist movements as well as nearly all other movements I know of have ignored the working women there have <UA>has<DA> been one kind & ever loving friend who has grasped the opportunity to assist her this friend is the master class or the boss--who has subtly & silently instituted in most all the large shops & stores where many women work--a Welfare Society, which so far has been a wonderful tool in the hands of the boss to blind the workers to <UA>of<DA> their slavery.(9) Heres how it works--two thousand women pay into a welfare fund $10 weekly out of their wages--for this they receive medical attention when they are ill etc. this amount(10) makes $200 a week or 50£. out of which they pay 5£. for one nurse & less than that to another nurse a week, who binds up hurt fingers etc at once, so they do not loose time & get back to work again quickly-- She also tells them that they need milk eggs etc, but does not tell the boss that to see that they get an increase in wages so as to get them oh no, One nurse attends to the hospital while the other one dresses up poorly like the girls themselves & goes among them--she dances, with them plays the piano in the lunch room, gets them to confide in her, walks home with them, and as one of them said to me feels keeps her fingers on the pulse of the shop to see there will be no strikes. This is not all. This same Welfare League aims to [educate] these girls & authorizes & pays well good prices women to come twice a week to lecture to them.-- The lectures consist of all kinds of subjects but the tone of all these lectures the key note of all is to inject into these girls a slave morality which is the most detrimental teaching of today & is not being combatted sufficiently to offset the treachery of it.
Here is some of it--“obedience”--“courtesy” “punctuality” “loyalty”--“honesty” “duty” etc. Implisid obedience--ask no questions but obey when you are told. “Courtesy” rise & bow to your master & show deference to his authority over you--“punctuality” to always be on time--not a minute after 8, but better a minute before so as to give the full days labor for the pay you recive “loyalty”--stand up for the man who gives your daily bread--“honesty” to come & tell when you spoil your work, & not accept full pay for poor work, making these girls a tame, lifeless spiritless mass, without personality or life--and as Nitzsche says a gently--grunting domestic animal--(11) My propoganda to offset this was the working girl agrees only to sell her labor to the boss--not her morality-- Its none of his business if she’s courteous, loyal, honest dutiful obedient. She’s never to forget that there is a war constantly going on--between her class & the boss class--& its up to her to get the largest wage for the least amount of toil & to keep in mind a blow at his profits is a useful weapon to her class.
Just as the working woman must fight for this right to retain her own morality & psychology--so must she fight for the right to own & control her own body, for the ownership of her own body to do with it as she desires--& its no ones business what those desires may be.
This right naturally involves a high standard of idealism as well as a knowledge of the prevention of disease & conception. It is none of Societies business what a woman shall do with her body unless she shall inflict upon Society the consequences of her acts, like venereal diseases or offspring--then Society is concerned & it is its right to be concerned, this then involves knowledge on these [subjects] both are important, but I wish to dwell upon only one the knowledge of the means to prevent conception for the working woman (both sexes).
With this she should be concerned not only as an individual but also as a member of that class, who produce all the <UA>wage<DA> slaves of the world.
lst because the wages of the average man are scarcely sufficient to keep more than one child as it is.
2nd That the cost of living is constantly increasing while wages are practically at a stand still.
3. No matter what increase a strike will bring--one baby added to the family will more than [reduce the] increase even in its first year--which is the year it needs the least expenditure.
[4]th The uncertainty of employment & [the] far reaching effect of abortions [when] resorted to.
[5]th The terrible loss of infant mortality [among?] the working people today--Something like 85,000 death of infants under one year old in one state alone.(12) A little army slaughtered by the carelessness of an indifferent Society.
6th [while] child labor exists she should not add a child slave to its perpetuation.
7th that it is 9 out of ten girls living the life of the underworld who come from parents who had large families & whose fathers belonged to the unskilled & unorganized laborers.(13)
8th Societies attitude toward the workers off spring is entirely an alleviation of present day
misery & ignorance. Rather than go to the root of the question & [it can?] refuse to have more children while Society is in this chaotic condition & here is the means to prevent it. It allows forces them to remain in ignorance & institutes out of their sentimental minds better baby funds, Little Mother leagues, milk Stations for babies, child nurseries for the children while the mother slaves in factories.(14) & As these are almost all charitable affairs--it goes to it is usually the factory owners money which supports the child nurseries while the mother heaps up profits for him. These & hundreds of other reasons why the working woman should have this knowledge & use it. In England you have the Mothers Pensions & I should think it would be a slap in the face to a self respecting woman to have offered to her the small miserable sum to keep her child the few weeks after it is born. These are growing popular is USA too, & no doubt they will soon be an established thing there soon too,(15) & I have no doubt but that the working class will rise & bow, with hat in hand with a ‘thank you sir’ attitude & accept another crumb for the table & be content still a little longer.
Out of this agitation in the Woman Rebel (which issue as it came out was succisively confiscated by the P.O. & our moral guardian Anthony Comstock), came the organization of the Birth Control Leagues throughout the U.S. So far there are five reaching from coast to coast(16) & promise an agitation among the workers on this subject which should have marked results in the next four or five years. The propoganda is not a one-sided Neo Malthusian doctrine--it is one rounded out with the workers economic moral & psychological attitude. It is full of vitality & intense with indignation anger & contempt. The object is to inject into the working woman a class independence which says to the masters produce your own slaves--keep your religion your ethics & your morality for your selves-- Ill have none of it & we refuse to be longer enslaved by it for we are creating our own & are building up a new Society through the process of which we are creating our own morality & individuality.
ADf MSP, DLC (LCM 129:167-175). The words “England” “Fabian Hall” and “Jl 5, 1915" were added to top of the first page by an unidentified author. Ink blots on the first two pages; pages torn. The final version was not found.
1. No formal title for this speech was found.
2. Though a vocal advocate of progressive social causes and the rights of labor, Michael Higgins was unknown outside of Corning, New York.
3. MS was echoing the arguments of many American socialist women who criticized the women’s suffrage movement as a middle-class, conservative attempt to claim women’s “sex rights,” while ignoring their “class rights.” Suffrage did become a major issue for organized working women, particularly after 1914. (Buhle, Women & American Socialism, 214-223; Ellen Carol DuBois, Woman Suffrage and Women’s Rights [New York, 1998], 176-209.)
4. She was referring to the 1910-11 strike of forty thousand Chicago garment workers (mostly young women), marked by police violence against the strikers. Although women were not appointed to the Chicago police force until 1913, a few police station matrons supervised women in custody. (Raphael W. Marrow and Harriet I. Carter, In Pursuit of Crime: The Police of Chicago: Chronicle of a Hundred Years [Sunbury, OH, 1996], 128-129, 348-349, 397; N. Sue Weiler, “The Uprising in Chicago,” in Joan M. Jensen and Sue Davidson, A Needle, A Bobbin, A Strike [Philadelphia, 1984], 114-145; and Women’s Trade Union League of Chicago, “Official Report of the Strike Committee, Chicago Garment Workers’ Strike, Oct. 29” [Chicago, 1911], 3, 9-10, and 30-31.)
5. This was a reference to Katharine Bement Davis.
6. The letter was not found. California women attained the right to vote in November 1911, and it was popularly believed that women’s votes carried a state temperance measure passed the same year. (Gilman Ostrander, The Prohibition Movement in California, 1848-1933 [Berkeley, 1957], 116-120.)
7. She was referring to the “Feminist Mass Meeting,” sponsored by members of Heterodoxy, a feminist circle founded in 1912, and the Feminist Alliance, a 1914 outgrowth of Heterodoxy, held on February 17th and 20th, 1914 at New York City's Cooper Union, at which the speakers focused on self-development and, in Nancy Cott’s words, “individual psychic freedom.” MS later claimed when she told the audience she planned to publish the Woman Rebel, “I struck no responsive chord.” (MS, “The New Feminists,” The Woman Rebel [Mar. 1914], 1-2 [MSM C16:515]; Schwartz, Radical Feminists, 126; Nancy Cott, The Grounding of American Feminism [New Haven, 1987], 13-40 [quote on 39]; MS, Autobiography, 108-9 [quote on 108].)
8. MS included the right to be an unmarried mother in a list claimed by “Rebel Women” in her editorial, “On Picket Duty,” Woman Rebel (Mar. 1914), 3 (MSM C16:517).
9. This was a reference to mutual assistance associations, educational programs, employee assistance programs, and other forms of “welfare capitalism” designed to counter unionization efforts. (Alice Kessler-Harris, Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States [New York, 1982], 162-64.)
“2000
.10
-----
$200.00"
11. This was a loose paraphrase of Nietzsche’s claim that European society ruled by Christianity had degenerated, “until at last a dwarfed, almost ludicrous species has been produced, a gregarious animal, something obliging, sickly, mediocre, the European of the present day.” In a draft of a speech she planned to give on his philosophy, MS wrote, “Nietzsche sees the world becoming peopled with a ludicrous species--a tame, obliging, sickly, mediocre kind of gently-grunting domestic animal.” (Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 84; for MS draft see LCM 130:360B.)
12. Her infant death figure appears to have been grossly inflated. New York had the nation’s highest recorded totals, but the number of deaths among children under one year were closer to 25,000-27,000. (Walter Wilcox, A Special Report on Vital Statistics [Albany, 1910].)
13. While few studies on prostitution deal with family size, Katharine Bement Davis’s work on Bedford Reformatory inmates claimed that 85% of prostitutes there came from families with fewer than six children. (“A Study of Prostitutes Committed from New York City to the State Reformatory for Women at Bedford Hills,” in George J. Kneeland, Commercialized Prostitution in New York City [New York, 1913], 217.)
14. These Progressive-era child welfare efforts aimed at reducing infant mortality by improving maternal and child health and hygiene, culminated in the 1912 creation of the Children’s Bureau, which coordinated the activities of disparate and largely volunteer organizations. MS echoed many left radicals who criticized Progressive reformers for treating the symptoms not the causes of the problem, and for imposing their own middle-class values on the poor, while remaining indifferent to the realities of their lives. (Meckel, Save the Babies, 113-24; see also MS, “Notes for Woman Rebel,” Jan. 1916 [LCM 130:342].)
15. The 1911 British National Health Insurance Act, successfully promoted by the Women’s Cooperative Guild, provided a 30 shilling benefit for the wives and widows of working men to cover medical costs and lost wages. A majority of U.S. states passed similar welfare measures for widows, deserted wives and single mothers who maintained “suitable” homes for their children, but the funds were generally too small to support a family, forcing the women to undertake additional home work to survive. (Jane Lewis, The Politics of Motherhood: Child and Maternal Welfare in England, 1900-1939 [London, 1980], 167; Meckel, Save the Babies, 188; Linda Gordon, Pitied But Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of American Welfare [New York, 1994], 41-50.)
16. In addition to the NBCL, birth control leagues were established in Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle.
Electronic Edition: XML Encoding
The electronic edition is aimed to enable word- and subject- searching of Sanger's speeches and articles. Transcriptions are encoded with XML codes that identify portions of the document, such as paragraphs and headers, names, places, and other types of text, and bibliographic entries that give archival or published sources. We have also added subject terms to each document for ease of searching.
For ease of searching, we have altered the transcription guidelines for electronic publication, chiefly by silently correcting mispellings and typographical errors in the texts. This enables more accurate word searches across the edition.
A brief introductory headnote to this document provides the setting and refers readers to related documents in the edition.
The XML transcription shows all the coding underneath the transcription. Click here for the document as it appears in the electronic edition.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><!DOCTYPE doc SYSTEM "s:\dtds\mep\meptei3x.dtd">
<doc type="Autograph draft speech">
<mepHeader>
<prepDate>2004-10-23 CH</prepDate>
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<prepDate>2004/07/23 CH</prepDate>
<prepDate>2004/08/09 CH</prepDate>
<prepDate>2004/08/13 CH</prepDate>
<docAuthor>Margaret Sanger</docAuthor>
<docDate value="1915-07-05">5 Jul 1915</docDate>
<docTitle>
<titlePart><supplied>Fabian Hall Speech</supplied></titlePart>
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<idno>msp128066</idno>
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<bibl><title>Margaret Sanger Papers, Library of Congress</title></bibl>
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<headNote><p>Sanger gave this address at the Fabian Society
Hall in London.</p><index level1="working classes" level2="women"/><index level1="feminism and feminists"/><index level1="socialism" level2="MS on"/><index level1="censorship"/><index level1="women" level2="freedom and rights of"/><index level1="woman suffrage" level2="Margaret Sanger on"/><index level1="welfare capitalism" level2="Margaret Sanger on"/><index level1="birth control" level2="socioeconomic benefits"/></headNote>
<docBody>
<p>By the title of the subject to be discussed
tonight, I would not have you think that I have originated a
special <sic>propaganda</sic> of which I have a special <supplied>monopoly</supplied> nor would I have you think I have cornered the
market as Americans Say but I simply wish to show that there is a
special side of our present day <sic>propaganda</sic> which should
<sic>receive</sic> more of our attention as <sic>propagandists</sic>
and there is always room in a field like the Socialist or
Anarchist <supplied>philosophies</supplied> for some of us to lay
special stress on & concentrate our work on special parts of the
whole-- My work on the nursing field in <place reg="United States of America">U.SA.</place> gave me my first introduction to the <del>physical </del>ignorance of the working women <supplied>concerning</supplied> the physical care of their own bodies or its
physiological function.</p>
<p>Tho I was rocked in the cradle of Socialism--for my father
was one of the early pioneers of Socialist <sic>thought</sic> in <place reg="United States of America">USA</place> yet with my nursing
experience among women--I could see the <supplied>great</supplied>
undermining & weakening of that class both physically & mentally <supplied>through</supplied> ignorance of the care of their own
bodies & especially the physiological functioning of the <del>sex</del> <add>generative</add> organs.</p>
<p>In <place reg="United States of America">USA.</place> you are all
aware of our world famous Puritanism which has made any mention
of sex a prison offense & always reminds me of that Story of
which you are no doubt familiar but which bears repeating here.
The story of the Queen of Spain travelling through the rural
districts to one of the provinces had need to pass through a
manufacturing town made famous for its excellent production of
hosiery & gloves. The inhabitants of the town being simple &
loving people desired to please the lady & show honor to her by
presenting to her some of their best & choicest productions. The
magistrate of the town assembled the people together to receive
the queen & presented her with the gifts. The Escort bowed low &
graciously over the gloves & thanked the people for the gift, but
declined to accept the stockings by saying "<q who="UNK">never forget
that a queen of Spain has no legs</q>". This is quite on a par
with our Puritanism in <place reg="United States of America">America</place> & it is this barrier that must be broken down around the
American working girl before you can proceed a step in reaching
her--</p>
<p>As you already know there has been throughout the world
within the last ten years a tremendous awakening in all civilized
countries among women. Every where women have shown tendencies
to overthrow some of the old regulations of society & throw off
some of the <supplied>fetters</supplied> which have held them down so
long--</p>
<p>This awakening has definitely shown itself in two forms--or
groups, one the most universal the desire for political freedom &
recognition or the votes for women groups.</p>
<p>The other & more advanced & more recent is perhaps more psychological in its effects but have likewise formed themselves into the Feminist groups.</p>
<p>I shall not go into detail about the votes for
women--woman--for she concerns me little & fortunately the
working girl has not been greatly enthused in this propoganda.
But sufficient is it to say that as far as I have been able to
gather their vision of life goes as high as obtaining political
positions for women <emph rend="underline">now today</emph> & aspiring to
the lofty attitude of police women, detectives, police <supplied>commiss </supplied>etc. The women of <place reg="Chicago, IL">Chicago</place> have been able to elect some of their sex as police and
when the great cloke makers Strike was in progress--the working
girls found to their great surprise that the policewoman club
hurt just as much swung from the fair hands of her own sex, as it
did from that of the policemans-- Again--in <place reg="NY">N.Y.</place>
we have <person reg="Davis, Katherine Bennett">C.B.D.</person> the Police <supplied>Comissioner</supplied>--for years Police Matron in the <place reg="Bedford Hills Reformatory">Bedford Home for girls</place>. If
one could describe the hope which sprang into the hearts of the
women of the underworld when they knew that at last a woman was
to be over the Institution wherein they suffered so bitterly and
what a keen <sic>disappointment</sic> awaited them-- She went at
her work for public <supplied>applause</supplied>--Prison was prison
and was no joy house--& accordingly she went to her job to make
prison sentence so hard & cruel that no one would return. She
refused to allow the inmates to receive outside meals until they
were weak & ill & unless there was someone outside to help them
they were usually fit for a hospital--this & a few such cruelties
<person reg="Davis, Katherine Bennett">K.B.D.</person> brought into the
Prison--& today there is little hope for the hands of a woman--</p>
<p>In <del>San</del> <place reg="CA">California</place> it is the same a
letter from a friend tells me at the last election that the women
had gone mad on prohibition that they were going to tie the state
up so dry, that a working man would have to pay five shillings
for a <sic>prescription</sic> to keep a pint of cider vinegar in
the house.</p>
<p>So much for votes for women. Its not that I deplore votes
for women for certainly if votes are good for men they are good
for women too, but the vision of these women is too narrow & <del>voting</del> women as police<del>man</del> matrons etc are the
same tools in the system as the men are so long as this system <unclear>remains</unclear>. The other group of awakened women are
the feminists--the basis of which is one of the first steps
towards <sic>woman's</sic> emancipation & future development--the
ownership & control over her own body--</p>
<p>This movement like all other big vital <sic>thoughts</sic>,
has been cut up & narrowed down to such a degree that it is
scarcely recognized as Feminism--for instance last year in <place reg="New York, NY">N.Y.C.</place> there was the Feminist Movement
launched upon the <sic>unsuspecting</sic> Puritans--but it was
Feminism in name only--& ignoring the basis of the whole
movement, lest it should shock the morals of the people, it began
to treat of superficial results of its development. For
instance--these women--wanted the right to work: the right to
ignore fashions: the right to keep her own name, & such poor
longings of a <sic>bourgeois</sic> class suffering from loss of
vitality. I issued a working <sic>woman's</sic> paper called the <title>Woman Rebel </title>which viewed feminism from the working
<sic>woman's</sic> point of view & demanded not the right to work,
but the right to be lazy, & guaranteed to find seven millions of
women--laundresses, cloak makers, suit makers, cap-- <sic>kimono</sic> makers <sic>scrub women</sic>, domestics, telephone girls,
shop workers, etc etc who would gladly change places with these
women who wanted the right to work.</p>
<p>The working girl had never troubled herself about ignoring
fashions-- It was compulsory on her part.-- She had to--</p>
<p>The right to keep her own name was a most revolutionary
demand for these women to make. Instead of Mrs <del>Ma</del>
Frank Brown, she wanted the right to be Mrs Mary Brown-- Why she
must loose her identity in Brown when her own name was Jones--was
a step too far for them to explain--& why she should tag herself
with "<soCalled>Mrs</soCalled>" or a wedding ring was too shocking
for these blue stocking prudes to think of & when I suggested
that the basis of feminism was a womans right to be an unmarried
mother--a stony silence surrounded them & they drew aside their
skirts less they be difiled by such tho'ts.</p>
<p>So much for the feminists whose program had no place for the
working womans development, or no thot of her emancipation but
fundamentally has a basis for her to use of which I shall refer
later on.</p>
<p>If the votes for women & Feminist movements as well as
nearly all other movements I know of have ignored the working
women there <del>have</del> <add>has</add> been one kind & ever
loving friend who has grasped the opportunity to assist her this
friend is the master class or the boss--who has subtly & silently
instituted in most all the large shops & stores where many women
work--a Welfare Society, which so far has been a wonderful tool
in the hands of the boss to blind the workers <add>to</add> <del>of</del> their slavery. Heres how it works--two thousand women
pay into a welfare fund $10 weekly out of their wages--for this
they receive medical attention when they are ill etc. this amount
makes $200 a week or 50£. out of which they pay 5£. for one nurse
& less than that to another nurse a week, who binds up hurt
fingers etc at once, so they do not loose time & get back to work
again quickly-- She also tells them that they need milk eggs
etc, but does not tell the boss that to see that they get an
increase in wages so as to get them oh no, One nurse attends to
the hospital while the other one dresses up poorly like the girls
themselves & goes among them--she dances, with them plays the
piano in the lunch room, gets them to confide in her, walks home
with them, and as one of them said to me <del>feels</del> keeps
her fingers on the pulse of the shop to see there will be no
strikes. This is not all. This same Welfare League aims to supplied>educate</supplied> these girls & authorizes & pays <del>well</del> good prices women to come twice a week to lecture to
them.-- The lectures consist of all kinds of subjects but the
tone of all these lectures the key note of all is to inject into
these girls a slave morality which is the most detrimental
teaching of today & is not being combated sufficiently to offset
the treachery of it.</p>
<p>Here is some of it-- "<soCalled>obedience</soCalled>"--"<soCalled>courtesy</soCalled>" "<soCalled>punctuality</soCalled>" <soCalled>loyalty</soCalled>"--"<soCalled>honesty</soCalled>" "<soCalled>duty</soCalled>" etc. Implicit obedience--ask no questions but obey
when you are told. "<soCalled>Courtesy</soCalled>" rise & bow to
your master & show deference to his authority over you- "<soCalled>punctuality</soCalled>" to always be on time--not a minute
after 8, but better a minute before so as to give the full days
labor for the pay you receive "<soCalled>loyalty</soCalled>"--stand
up for the man who gives your daily bread- -"<soCalled>honesty</soCalled>" to come & tell when you spoil your work, & not accept
full pay for poor work, making these girls a tame, lifeless
spiritless mass, without personality or life--and as <person reg="Nietzsche, Friedrich">Nitzsche</person> says a gently--grunting
domestic animal-- My propaganda to offset this was the working
girl agrees only to sell her <emph rend="underline">labor</emph> to the
boss--not her morality-- Its none of his business if she's
courteous, loyal, honest dutiful obedient. She's never to forget
that there is a war constantly going on--between her class & the
boss class--& its up to her to get the largest wage for the least
amount of toil & to keep in mind a blow at his profits is a
useful weapon to her class.</p>
<p>Just as the working woman must fight for this right to retain her own morality & psychology--so must she fight for the right to own & control her own body, for the ownership of her own body to do with it as she desires--& its no ones business what those desires may be.</p>
<p>This right naturally involves a high standard of idealism as
well as a knowledge of the prevention of disease & conception.
It is none of Societies business what a woman shall do with her
body unless she shall inflict upon Society the consequences of
her acts, like venereal diseases or offspring--then Society is
concerned & it is its right to be concerned, this then involves
knowledge on these <supplied>subjects</supplied> both are important,
but I wish to dwell upon only one the knowledge of the means to
prevent conception for the working woman (both sexes).</p>
<p>With this she should be concerned not only as an individual but also as a member of that class, who produce all the <add>wage</add>slaves of the world.</p>
<p>lst because the wages of the average man are scarcely sufficient to keep more than one child as it is.</p>
<p>2nd That the cost of living is constantly increasing while wages are practically at a stand still.</p>
<p>3. No matter what increase a strike will bring--one baby
added to the family will more than <supplied>reduce the</supplied>
increase even in its first year--which is the year it needs the
least expenditure.</p>
<p><supplied>4</supplied>th The uncertainty of employment & <supplied>the</supplied> far reaching effect of abortions <supplied>when</supplied> resorted to.</p>
<p><supplied>5</supplied>th The terrible loss of infant mortality <unclear>among</unclear> the working people today--Something like
85,000 death of infants under one year old in one state alone. A
little army slaughtered by the carelessness of an indifferent
Society.</p>
<p>6th <supplied>while</supplied> child labor exists she should not
add a child slave to its perpetuation. </p>
<p>7th that it is 9 out of ten girls living the life of the underworld who come from parents who had large families & whose fathers belonged to the unskilled & unorganized laborers.</p>
<p>8th Societies attitude toward the workers off spring is
entirely an alleviation of present day misery & ignorance.
Rather than go to the root of the question & <unclear>it can</unclear> refuse to have more children while Society is in this
chaotic condition & here is the means to prevent it. It <del>allows</del> forces them to remain in ignorance & institutes out
of their sentimental minds better baby funds, Little Mother
leagues, milk Stations for babies, child nurseries for the
children while the mother slaves in factories. <del>&</del> As
these are almost all charitable affairs-- <del>it goes to</del> it
is usually the factory owners money which supports the child
nurseries while the mother heaps up profits for him. These &
hundreds of other reasons why the working woman should have this
knowledge & use it. In <place>England</place> you have the
Mothers Pensions & I should think it would be a slap in the face
to a self respecting woman to have offered to her the small
miserable sum to keep her child the few weeks after it is born.
These are growing popular is USA too, & no doubt they will soon
be an established thing there soon too, & I have no doubt but
that the working class will rise & bow, with hat in hand with a '<soCalled>thank you sir</soCalled>' attitude & accept another crumb
for the table & be content still a little longer.</p>
<p>Out of this agitation in the <title>Woman Rebel</title> (which
issue as it came out was successively confiscated by the P.O. &
our moral guardian <person reg="Comstock, Anthony">Anthony Comstock</person>), came the organization of the <org>Birth Control
Leagues</org> throughout the U.S. So far there are five reaching
from coast to coast & promise an agitation among the workers on
this subject which should have marked results in the next four or
five years. The propoganda is not a one-sided Neo Malthusian
doctrine--it is one rounded out with the workers economic moral &
psychological attitude. It is full of vitality & intense with
indignation anger & contempt. The object is to inject into the
working woman a class independence which says to the masters
produce your own slaves--keep your religion your ethics & your
morality for your selves-- Ill have none of it & we refuse to be
longer enslaved by it for we are creating our own & are building
up a new Society through the process of which we are creating our
own morality & individuality.</p>
</docBody>
</doc>
Contributed by Cathy Moran Hajo, Margaret Sanger Papers Project
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