The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution by Jonathan Eig

Illustrations

    Margaret Sanger, shown here in 1922, became one of the country’s first crusaders for contraception and sexual freedom. She longed for a “magic pill” that would separate sex from reproduction. (Margaret Sanger Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass.)

    In this edition of Sanger’s Birth Control Review , from 1923, she illustrated with little subtlety her view of the impact of unplanned pregnancies. (Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass.)

    A beautiful beginning: Katharine and Stanley McCormick pose at the site of their wedding in Switzerland, 1904. (Courtesy MIT Museum)

    In 1925, Sanger and Charles V. Drysdale of London led the Sixth International Neo-Malthusian and Birth Control Conference, where they promoted contraception as a means for checking overpopulation, preventing war, and extending the span of life.

    In 1929, Gregory Pincus appeared poised for a brilliant career at Harvard. (Courtesy of Laura Bernard)

    Katharine McCormick not only donated money to her favorite causes but also took to the streets, in this case with the National American Woman Suffrage Association. (Courtesy MIT Museum)

    McCormick in 1914. (Courtesy MIT Museum)

    After World War II, birth control became more socially acceptable, thanks in part to advertisements such as this one from Planned Parenthood suggesting smaller families made the nation stronger. (Margaret Sanger Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass.)

    After being dismissed by Harvard, Pincus teamed with Hudson Hoagland, pictured here in 1945, to launch the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology. (University of Massachusetts Medical School Archives, Lamar Soutter Library, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Mass.)

    The Worcester Foundation made its home in a converted residence in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. Pincus had his office in the garage. (University of Massachusetts Medical School Archives, Lamar Soutter Library, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Mass.)

    While living in his laboratory, biologist M. C. Chang conducted some key work in the development of the first oral contraceptive for humans. (University of Massachusetts Medical School Archives, Lamar Soutter Library, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Mass.)

    Pincus conducted many of his early progesterone experiments on rabbits at the Worcester Foundation. (University of Massachusetts Medical School Archives, Lamar Soutter Library, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Mass.)

    Lizzie Pincus, Goody’s wife, was a brilliant and sharp-tongued woman frustrated at times by the limited career opportunities for women in the 1950s. (Courtesy of Laura Bernard)

    Alfred Kinsey—shown here conducting an interview in 1953—changed American views on sexuality with his large-scale studies on human sexual behavior. (Courtesy of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction)

    Hugh Hefner published the first edition of Playboy in 1953, using the furniture in his Chicago apartment as collateral to obtain a bank loan. (Courtesy of The Playboy Enterprises)

    Large families such as this one—from Tucson, Arizona—were more common before the pill. In 1957, the average American mother had 3.7 children; today she has fewer than two. (Margaret Sanger Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass.)

    John Rock, shown here on a visit to the Kinsey Institute in 1956, was a faithful Catholic but pushed the Church to reconsider its stance on birth control. (Courtesy of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction)

    Pincus chose Puerto Rico to test his new pill because the island was poor, crowded, and had a large number of contraceptive clinics, including this one at the El Ejemplo sugar plantation. (The Harvard Medical Library in the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine)

    Pincus confers with Drs.