1879-1929

In 1873, a New Yorker named Anthony Comstock brought to Congress a bill that declared contraceptives "articles for immoral use" and any literature describing contraception as "obscene." The bill passed Congress in the waning moments of the congressional session, signaling the opening act in a drama that has been played out in every corner of this country for over a century.

Six years later, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts passed an even more repressive version of the Comstock Act. Through the "Crimes Against Chastity, Morality, Decency and Good Order" law, the legislature prohibited selling, lending, giving away or exhibiting contraceptives or abortifacients. In the matter of reproductive freedom, Massachusetts became the most restrictive state in the nation. However, these laws did not prevent access to birth control in the Commonwealth-they simply insured that it would be available only to the few who could afford accommodating private physicians. Poor women and families were effectively cut off from planning for their health and future.

As opposition to the Comstock Act flourished, an activist named Margaret Sanger began building a national movement for family planning, advocating for the rights of all women and families to have control over their reproductive lives. In Massachusetts, activists began to organize to fight the laws of this state. A small group of social reformers, led by suffragists Blanche Ames Ames and her sister Jessie Ames Marshall, determined to loosen the Commonwealth's stranglehold on family planning information and services. In May of 1916, they adopted the name the Birth Control League of Massachusetts and a mission of "promoting rational parenthood."

Shortly after the League's creation, a young man with no affiliation to the group was arrested for distributing family planning pamphlets to workers at Boston's North End Candy factory. His name was Van Kleek Allison, and the League sprang into action to help him. By the fall, they had sent out over 1,000 letters appealing for citizens to join their cause and to contribute funds to Allison's defense. Despite their best efforts, Allison was found guilty and appeals proved useless. He was sentenced to two months in prison.

The next few years were turbulent ones for the BCLM. Organizers of the League developed ambitious and far-reaching plans, only to meet with frustration. After changing the name of the group and its fundamental strategy several times, they voted in 1920 to disband. It would be a very brief hiatus.

In February of 1928, one of the original members of the BCLM printed up a flyer inviting interested women to her house for a discussion and demonstration of contraceptives. Arrested on the evening of the meeting, Dr. Antoinette Konikow was charged with violating Massachusetts' law against "advertising" or "exhibiting" contraceptives. Again, the members of the old BCLM sprang into action, and this time their efforts were successful. Dr. Konikow was acquitted on the grounds that she was not "exhibiting and advertising [contraception] in the legal sense."

Times had changed for the League. City leaders went to court, seeking and receiving an injunction barring Margaret Sanger from speaking at Boston's Ford Hall Forum. Not to be deterred, on the evening of April 16, 1929 Sanger sat on the stage of Ford Hall, her mouth covered with tape, while Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. read the speech she planned to deliver.

Sanger strongly supported the efforts of the League and encouraged their activism. She advised the League that they needed to make themselves heard in Boston: "As to the question of a small, active group accomplishing more quietly than a large noisy group, I am rather inclined to believe that noise is necessary. I think it would be best to gather to your group numbers as fast as they can be corralled."

The League heeded her advice, and within two short years had grown in size sufficiently to hire a social worker for the purpose of educating families about birth spacing and planning. They opened their first office in the field secretary's home on Joy Street in Boston.

With these resources in place, the origins of the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts found root, sprung from the fertile soil of socially active women who believed the future lay in teaching society how to make "every child a wanted child."