Women’s Reproductive Rights and Margaret Sanger’s Federal Birth Control Lobbying Letter to Ruth Albert, 1931

Margaret Sanger

Manuscript & Autographs

Sanger, Margaret, typed letter signed to Ruth Albert, March 9, 1931, documents the personal networks that sustained organized birth-control advocacy during Sanger’s federal campaign to change contraception law. Written on Committee on Federal Legislation letterhead, the letter belongs to Sanger’s National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control campaign, which sought to amend federal laws that treated contraceptive information and supplies as obscene and restricted their circulation through the mails and interstate commerce. The committee operated through lobbying, public education, endorsements, press work, circulars, hearings, and correspondence, revealing how birth-control reform depended on both formal legislative pressure and durable relationships among women who had built the movement’s publication and distribution infrastructure.

Sanger, Margaret. Typed letter signed to Ruth Albert. March 9, 1931. 1 page. 8.5 x 11 inches. Boldly signed “Margaret” on letterhead for the Committee on Federal Legislation. Sanger writes to “Beloved Ruth” and thanks Albert for sending silver tongs, praising them as “so graceful and strong.” Although domestic and affectionate in immediate subject, the letter’s recipient and stationery place it within the working world of the birth-control movement: Ruth Albert had worked with Sanger as circulation manager of The Birth Control Review, the periodical Sanger founded in 1917 to advance “intelligent and voluntary motherhood” and to build a national readership for contraception reform. The letter therefore offers evidence of the social ties behind Sanger’s organizing, showing the informal bonds among women whose labor connected publication, fundraising, distribution, and legislative reform.

The March 1931 date falls during Sanger’s concentrated work with the National Committee, a period when she shifted much of her attention to federal lobbying while maintaining links to clinics, publications, and supporters. The committee’s campaign continued through the 1930s but failed to secure congressional repeal; broader legal change came through the courts, especially the 1936 United States v. One Package decision, which opened a path for physicians to import and prescribe contraceptives. Two horizontal fold lines and one vertical crease, very light toning along verso left edge, and light soiling along verso creases; near fine. A warm personal letter with institutional value, preserving the interpersonal texture of the women-led networks that supported Sanger’s federal birth-control campaign.

Item #16243

Price: $480.00