Woman and the New Race.
Sanger, Margaret. Woman and the New Race. With a Preface by Havelock Ellis. New York: Truth Publishing Company, 1920.
8vo.; black and white photographic frontispiece of Sanger and her two sons; light blue cloth; extremities lightly bumped; spine slightly shaken and cocked; orange dust-jacket, scarce and fragile with heavy edgewear.
First “cheap” edition of one of Sanger’s foundational publications, originally published in 1919, advocating birth control. Among her rationales for the generous distribution of contraception and literature on the subject, is the insistence that control birth represents women’s freedom: a fissure from “her historical place in society and the family through the maternal functions of her nature.” Sanger argues that in giving women the freedom to “choose” motherhood, the passivity of women’s reproductive nature and the consequences of excessive childbearing are abated:
Underneath each woman is the feminine urge to complete freedom. Millions of women are asserting their right to voluntary motherhood. They are determined to decide for themselves whether they shall become mothers, under what condition and when. It is for women the key to the temple of liberty.
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