American Birth Control League records

The bulk of this collection contains the files of the New York Office of the ABCL from its founding in 1921 to Margaret Sanger's withdrawal from the organization in 1928. The collection embraces the time period 1917-1934, however, and includes birth-control-related materials created before the founding of the League, as well as materials generated and collected after Sanger resigned. The bulk of the collection is correspondence and office files of the workers, both paid and volunteer, who staffed the New York Office.

The papers were received as a permanent deposit in the Harvard College Library in 1932 from the American Birth Control League through Norman Edwin Himes (a historian of birth control). Some of the papers are stamped on the verso with this information. They were originally classified in the Harvard College Library as Soc 5362.110* - 5362.110.15*. In 1994-95 they were recataloged and arranged into a chronological sequence. The papers relating to the two major conferences have been left in their original groupings, as have the clippings from newspapers.

Topics generally relate to the business of the ABCL office, including the following: doctors and the general public in search of information on birth control; letters documenting the plight of women with no access to birth control; establishment of lecture engagements and travel reservations for ABCL workers (particularly Dr. James Fryer Cooper); organizing of branch offices of the ABCL; organizing American and international conferences relating to birth control and population; financial matters; statistics; efforts to change the birth control laws in various states and on the federal level; numerous lists of supporters and doctors; requests for financial support; press releases; and form letters. There are also records concerning the Clinical Research Bureau of the ABCL [but no medical records], the Washington, D.C. Office of the ABCL [administered by Anne Kennedy, Executive and Legislative Secretary], and some materials relating to the Birth Control Review and the Speaker's Bureau of the ABCL. There are no photographs in the collection, although the clippings contain newsprint photographs. There is no systematic file of reports or minutes of the ABCL. Many of the materials are annotated by James S. Cooper, Anne Kennedy (Executive Secretary of the ABCL), by Margaret Sanger, or others. See notes under series headings for further summary description.