Newsletter #11 (Winter 1995)
Margaret Sanger and Eleanor Roosevelt – The Burden of Public Life
They were two of the most notable women of their era, eulogized as great humanitarians of the 20th century, who struggled with the demands of public and private life. Margaret Sanger and Eleanor Roosevelt came from very different backgrounds – Sanger from Irish working-class roots and Roosevelt from old New York aristocracy. Yet they lived oddly parallel lives. Their fathers were alcoholics and their mothers succumbed to fatal illness at an early age. Neither found happiness in marriage, and each sought intimacy apart from their spouses. Both women experienced the joys and pains of motherhood and each was criticized for being a less than a perfect mother. Most significantly, Sanger and Roosevelt also shared a commitment to enhancing the status of women in America. And both endured the hardships that attended women who sought to change society's view of women's proper place.
Both of these remarkable women, pulled by cause and circumstance into public life, displayed the ability to define a public role and agenda without teams of advisors and media specialists. Sanger's uncanny ability to create media events, whether by sitting on a Boston podium with her mouth taped shut to protest censorship or by getting arrested for opening an illegal clinic, publicized the issue of birth control and made it a respectable subject of public debate. As First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt's regular press conferences with women reporters, her ubiquitous newspaper columns, and her willingness to use media coverage of her own achievements on behalf of the social causes she espoused enabled her to change public expectations not only about the role of the First Lady, but about the presence of women in public life. Roosevelt and Sanger's success, however, came at a cost. Their public activities prompted frequent and often vitriolic personal attacks that revealed the depth and persistence of hostility to women in public life, and as public figures they had to be careful about what they said and did.
Before Eleanor Roosevelt entered the White House, few women received as much
public scrutiny or repelled as many attacks upon their character and motives as did
Margaret Sanger who was regularly castigated as a "nationally-known defender of
vice" and by one opponent a "neurotic, immoral allegedly Christian woman," for her
promotion of birth control. (Massachusetts Mother's Health Council Statement
"Concerning the Holyoke Situation," October 23, 1940, Sophia Smith Collection-PPFA,
Box 39 and Buffalo Echo, January 25, 1936). As one editorial noted "Pretty nearly
everything and everyone has been against her – pulpits and legislatures and
newspapers, public men and private citizens, and whole regiments of the prejudices,
fears, bogies and dragons that still infest the mind of civilized man." (New York Herald
Tribune</em>, November 13, 1931) When the sexist chides were not made to her face,
they were communicated to others associated with her work. One paper reported that during her husband William
Sanger's 1915 trial for selling a copy of her Family Limitation pamphlet, the judge told
him, "If you and your ilk would marry decent women, you would not have time to
think of such worthless projects." (The Masses, September 17, 1915) </p>
While the mainstream press seldom resorted to name calling or offensive
insinuations about Sanger's morals, it was often condescending and remained
remarkably gender conscious. Journalists seemed preoccupied with Sanger's
appearance and demeanor: "...she seems about as dangerous as a little brown wren.
Perhaps you have noticed, however, that her full, firm lips press shut in an upward
curve, so that her face in repose seems almost smiling – the expression of one who
bites off nails with all the amiability in the world." (The New Yorker, July 5, 1930)
Or as another reporter noted: "...there is nothing of the fighter in Mrs. Sanger's
appearance. Mild in manner and calm even while discussing the most turbulent of her
experiences, she is the antithesis of the proverbial feminine champion of Amazonian
proportions, booming voice and mannish attire." (Washington Post, February 9, 1935)
The reporter then proceeded to describe Sanger's clothing in great detail. Another
columnist noted "I expected to meet a pugnacious, assertive, positive type of woman
– loud, big-boned, and large. What a surprise and pleasure to find a diminutive
soft-cornered gentle looking woman... How could such a tiny figure be such a
powerful leader among womankind." (Los Angeles Times Mirror, June 8, 1934, p. 21) As its main spokesperson, it was Sanger who provided the face for the birth
control movement. Never a reluctant belligerent, Sanger vigorously fought all efforts
to undermine her message. At the same time she believed the movement's success
required broader spectrums of support and allowed herself to be publicly distanced
from many of the radical ideas that had driven her to found the movement. Her
involvement with the Socialist Party and the International Workers of the World, as
well as her strongest feminist statements were muted once the birth control
movement began to seek "respectable" supporters among women's organizations and
the medical profession. Sanger also tried to keep her personal
affairs out of the press: announcements about her divorce from William Sanger and
remarriage to J. Noah Slee came years after the events. If Eleanor Roosevelt seldom faced the angry, fruit-throwing response that Sanger,
the professional propagandist for birth control, engendered with her direct-action
tactics, she too was cruelly denigrated and harshly judged. Criticized for transforming
the role of First Lady from a purely social office to a powerful political and civic one,
Roosevelt was regularly attacked for being overzealous, for exercising a degree of
power inappropriate for a woman, and most of all for operating beyond the context
of her husband. If Sanger's feminine appearance received excessive emphasis in the
press, Eleanor Roosevelt's femininity was regularly assaulted with reports criticizing
her appearance, dress, voice and behavior. And Catholic opponents like Cardinal
Spellman, also a frequent antagonist of Sanger's, denounced Roosevelt for her support
of supposed leftist causes and proclaimed her record "unworthy of an American
mother." (quoted in Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor: The Years Alone, 1972, p. 158) Yet
Eleanor Roosevelt emerged as an overwhelmingly popular American figure, for even
as she tread new territory as a First Lady, she also embodied a traditional image of
womanly duty and morality. As Sanger's public agenda was
increasingly defined by her desire to court
mainstream support for birth control,
Eleanor Roosevelt was constrained by her
husband's political aspirations and she had
to choose carefully the issues with which
she allowed herself to be publicly identified.
Evidently an advocate of birth control during
the 1920s, Roosevelt had chaired the
Legislative Committee of the influential
Women's City Club, which supported
Sanger's effort to gain passage of a birth
control law. In 1928 she joined the Board
of Directors of the American Birth Control
League. Though her active participation in
the ABCL was minimal, her willingness to
lend her name to it surely added a
significant dose of respectability to that organization. However once FDR entered the White House Eleanor Roosevelt's public support
for birth control became problematic. As FDR's administration was unwilling to
support birth control, Eleanor Roosevelt muted her own opinion. As Hazel Moore of
the National Committee for Federal Legislation on Birth Control observed, "Press asked
Eleanor Roosevelt her position on narcotics, Hauptman case, appropriation for schools
and then after she freely discussed all that ...[they] asked her 'What is your opinion
on Birth Control and the need of changing Federal Laws.' 'That is something I never
discuss,' said she." (Hazel Moore to Margaret Sanger, February 1935, LCM,
68:396) It was not until 1940 that Eleanor Roosevelt made even a mild public
statement on birth control when, in response to a reporter's question, she indicated
that she was not opposed to the "planning of children," but did not seek to impress
her views upon others. (New York Times, January 17, 1940). Whatever her disappointments about the New Deal's failure to support birth
control, Margaret Sanger evidently understood the political constraints under which
Eleanor Roosevelt operated. Beginning in 1940 Sanger had several private meetings
with the First Lady, both at the White House and at Roosevelt's home in Hyde Park.
In 1946, Sanger hosted a reception in Eleanor Roosevelt's honor when she visited
Tucson to deliver a speech to the University of Arizona. While there is not a great
deal of correspondence between the two, Sanger clearly admired Roosevelt, remarking
to a friend: "She is an extraordinarily intelligent & capable personality....I've always
liked her courage but close up you like her maternal nature, & dignity...." (Sanger to
Juliet Rublee, July 12, 1945, MSM-C) The experiences of Sanger and Roosevelt as female public figures have influenced
the way American women negotiate public life. Though vilified for their public roles
and their tireless advocacy of women's empowerment, each argued for women's
advancement by defining and celebrating women's difference from men. Yet both
women lived lives that demanded that their difference not impede their right to be
treated with the respect, dignity and attention accorded to men in public life. And
both paid a price. Friends of Margaret Sanger and Eleanor Roosevelt campaigned to
have the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to each in 1960 and 1961 (Roosevelt's
supporters attempted to obtain a posthumous Nobel prize for her in 1963-1965 as
well). Not surprisingly, neither one of these outspoken, controversial women of
achievement ever received the award.