Clarence James Gamble papers

Clarence James Gamble (1894-1966) was born in January 1894 in Cincinnati, Ohio, to David and Mary (Huggins) Gamble; he was white. Gamble’s grandfather, James, was co-founder with William Proctor of the Proctor and Gamble Company in 1837.

Gamble spent his freshman year of college at Occidental College in Pasadena, California, having previously attended Occidental Academy to complete high school after his family moved to California in 1910. He left Occidental College in 1911 and transferred to Princeton University, where he graduated in 1914 with a bachelor’s degree, one of the youngest students in his graduating class. Between 1914 and 1915, he worked for the California State Commission on Immigrants and Housing, funded by his father. It is possible that his decision to return to school for a medical degree was taken after contact with doctors for his own health problems during his year in San Francisco. He returned to Princeton in 1915 and received his M.A. in biological sciences in 1916. In the same year, he entered Harvard Medical School, receiving his M.D. in 1920. During his time at Harvard, Gamble was able to work with Walter Cannon (1871-1945), Henry Christian (1876-1951), and Harvey Cushing (1869-1939) before all three physicians left for Europe during World War I.

Between 1920 and 1922, Gamble held an internship under Richard C. Cabot (1868-1939) at the Massachusetts General Hospital. During his last year of medical school, Gamble began a project with Cabot developing a device which would allow for a range of heart sounds to be recorded and replayed as part of teaching. This resulted in a set of recordings which were widely used in cardiac teaching for decades. However, the recordings also became a point of contention between Gamble and Cabot as to who bore the most responsibility for the work and, therefore, should have the most credit for its successful completion. In the end, the records were sold as the “Gamble-Cabot Cardiac Diagnosis Records.”

In 1922, Gamble and another passenger sustained severe injuries in an airplane crash which killed the pilot; those who knew Gamble well commented that the injuries seemed to have contributed to a change in Gamble’s personality although later examination by psychiatrists at the Austen Riggs Center in 1928 disclosed no diagnosable disorders. His physical recovery from the accident took most of 1922. Gamble moved from Boston to Philadelphia in 1923 to work with A.N. Richards (1876-1966) in the pharmacology laboratory of the University of Pennsylvania. Richards set Gamble and another researcher, Issac Starr (1894-1989), to researching the details of cardiac output through experimentation on frogs.

In 1942, Gamble was appointed to his first academic position, as an instructor of physical diagnosis at Harvard Medical School; he held this position until 1945. He remained at the School as an unofficial research assistant for Professor George Wislocki (1892-1956); in 1958, Gamble became a research associate in population studies at the Harvard School of Public Health where he remained until 1962. When Harvard was unable to grant Gamble research space, he rented space above Sparr’s Drug Store just off the medical school campus. This space eventually became the first home of the Pathfinder Fund, Gamble’s independent funding organization.

It was during his time in Pennsylvania in the 1920s that Gamble first became involved with birth control issues. At the time, this included not only methods of contraception such as the diaphragm and condom, but also took in aspects of the popular contemporary eugenic movement such as sterilization of the “unfit” and the discouragement of reproduction among “indigent mothers” or “dependent” families. Gamble’s interest in eugenics was first spurred by classes he took at Princeton with Edwin Grant Conklin (1863-1952) and became a lifelong interest. Between 1945 and 1955, Gamble was a director of the Population Reference Bureau in Washington, DC, a clearinghouse of eugenic information on the population of the United States. Gamble’s eugenic activity probably peaked with his repeated attempts to encourage Ivy League graduates to have more children, offering at one point a cash prize for highest number of eugenically sound offspring.

Gamble met with Robert Latou Dickinson (1861-1950) in 1925 at Gamble’s request to discuss contraception; as Gamble had just married the previous year, it is unclear whether this was from personal or professional motives. Subsequently, Gamble did work with a Philadelphia birth control clinic and helped (financially) to establish a maternal health clinic in his hometown of Cincinnati. These early projects set the pattern for Gamble’s funding: he wanted to provide seed money for projects that would quickly become self-supporting.

Gamble's second stay at Harvard as a lecturer in physiology ran coincidentally with his ongoing autonomous birth control funding and project development activities. Gamble’s long-term role in birth control work was primarily financial and organizational, not scientific or medical; he provided seed funds for projects and paid for many field workers, chiefly women who made it their job to go into the community and try to supply the immediate need for birth control advice and devices. Edna McKinnon (1893-1978), Edith Gates, and Elsie Wulkop were among Gamble’s first workers and those who were associated with him the longest, McKinnon eventually taking on the role of Secretary to the Pathfinder Fund.

The National Committee on Maternal Health, Margaret Sanger’s Clinical Research Bureau (later the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau), and the American Birth Control League (later the Birth Control Federation of America and, in partnership with the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America), were Gamble’s chief organizational paths to donation although his requirements for donations as well as his habit of acting as an independent agent made for difficulties. Gamble avoided official appointments, memberships, or partnerships, preferring to keep total personal control of his donations and relations to field workers.

Gamble sponsored birth control studies and clinics in the United States (primarily in Michigan, North Carolina, and Kentucky), Japan, India (including Ceylon, now Sri Lanka), Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Africa (including Egypt, Kenya, and Nigeria), and Puerto Rico. His interest in Puerto Rico overlapped with that of John Rock (1890-1984) and his research colleagues testing oral contraceptives. Gamble was consistently interested in any methods that would be cheap, easy to use, and reliable, including spermicidal foams, powders, and jellies, sponges in various spermicidal solutions, diaphragms, condoms, and IUDs. He not only financially supported ongoing work done by others but also tried to establish studies of his own theories, primarily a sponge and saline solution combination which he thought would be an effective and inexpensive contraceptive; medical tests did not bear this out and many of the women involved reported unpleasant side effects, but Gamble continued to push for experimentation with salt-and-sponge combinations until the end of his life.

In 1957, Gamble created the Pathfinder Fund as a way for him to offer funding to birth control projects outside of other organizations, particularly Planned Parenthood which was by then becoming the major organizational player in the field. The Fund was also used as a front to import diaphragms and IUDs into the United States when they were technically illegal; Gamble and his staff then distributed the devices to field projects. Shortly before Gamble’s death in 1966, the Gamble children and Sarah Gamble came together to incorporate Pathfinder and ensure its continuation beyond Gamble’s lifetime. The Fund still exists, now as Pathfinder International [https://www.pathfinder.org/about-us/our-history/] and has widened their field to include sexual and reproductive health beyond contraception.

In 1924, Gamble married Sarah Merry Bradley (1898-1984); the couple had five children: Sarah Louise (1925-), Richard Bradley (1928-), Walter James (1930-), Mary Julia (1934-), and Robert David (1937-); a sixth and final pregnancy was a miscarriage. Gamble died in 1966 in Kennebec Point, Maine, of complications from leukemia.

Williams and Flint, Every Child a Wanted Child: Clarence James Gamble, M.D., and his Work in the Birth Control Movement (Boston: Countway Library Associates, 1978)

1894

born on January 10 at Cincinnati, Ohio

1910

graduated from Occidental Academy, Pasadena, California

1910-1911

spent freshman year at Occidental College

1911-1914

attended Princeton University and was awarded Litt. B. magna cum laude

1914-1915

worked for California State Commission on Immigrants and Housing

1915-1916

returned to Princeton University and received M.A. degree in the biological sciences

1916-1920

attended Harvard Medical School and was awarded M.D. degree

1920-1922

served 18-month internship under Dr. Richard C. Cabot at Massachusetts General Hospital

1922

suffered multiple injuries in private airplane crash in July

1923

began work in the Laboratory of Pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania under Dr. A. N. Richards

1924

married Sarah Bradley on June 21

1925-1928

worked with Dr. Isaac Starr, Jr., on studies of cardiac output

1929

beginning of birth control activities: became associated with Philadelphia clinic; helped to establish maternal Health Clinic and Committee in Cincinnati

1930

sent Elsie Wulkop to Detroit for birth control organization

1932-1933

served as chairman of the board of Philadelphia Maternal Health Centers

1933

began term as president of Pennsylvania Birth Control Federation

1934

provided funding for Standards Program of the National Committee for Maternal Health (NCMH)

1935

provided funding for the R.L. Dickinson Research Fellowship at New York University through NCMH; initiated contraceptive field test at Logan, West Virginia, under sponsorship of NCMH; became associated with the American Birth Control League

1936

sent Phyllis Page to Puerto Rico for birth control organization and to Berea, Kentucky, for contraceptive project

1937

became associated with Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau; began conducting spermicidal times laboratory tests with R.L. Brown

1938

moved from Philadelphia to Milton, Massachusetts; helped to initiate first state public health contraceptive program in North Carolina

1939-1941

served on Board of Directors and Executive Committee of Birth Control Federation of America

1942

continued service on Board of Directors and Executive Committee of Planned Parenthood Federation of America; appointed instructor in physical diagnosis at Harvard Medical School

1944

began work in behalf of sterilization as a means of birth control through Birthright, Inc.

1946

proposed experiment in population control in Puerto Rico; became director of the Population Reference Bureau's College Project

1947-1948

worked in behalf of sterilization through the Human Betterment Leagues of North Carolina and Iowa

1948

attended International Conference on Population and World Resources at Cheltenham, England

1949

established Human Betterment Federation for work in behalf of sterilization through state leagues; helped with family planning study initiated by Dr. Yoshio Koya in Japan

1950

publication of Human Sterilization (with Dr. R.L. Dickinson)

1951

proposed pilot study to test control of population growth in India (later known as India-Harvard-Ludhiana Project or Khanna Study)

1952

appointed research associate in anatomy at Harvard Medical School

1953-1954

first and second field trips by C.J. and R.B. Gamble

1954

sponsored tests of Dr. Sanyal's oral contraceptive in India; attempted to channel family planning efforts through the International Planned Parenthood Association (IPPF); hired Margaret Roots and Edith Gates as NCMH field representatives in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East

1956

helped arrange for oral contraceptive tests at Ryder Memorial Hospital, Humacao, Puerto Rico

1957-1958

established the Pathfinder Fund

1958

appointed research associate in population studies at Harvard School of Public Health

1961

IUD added to Ryder Hospital Project in Puerto Rico; separate department of population problems proposed at Harvard School of Public Health

1962

IUD mailings initiated by Pathfinder Fund

1964

David Burlson hired to supervise Pathfinder's worldwide IUD project

1965-1966

plans for future direction of Pathfinder Fund prompted by CJG's failing health

1966

died on July 15 at Kennebec Point, Maine