IsisCB Explore

Thesis ID: CBB001561789

International Intercourse: Establishing a Transnational Discourse on Birth Control in the Interwar Era (2004)

Thomas, Julie L. (Author)

Indiana University
Allen, Judith A.

Publication Date: 2004
Edition Details: Advisor: Allen, Judith A.
Physical Details: 256 pp.
Language: English

Outside Links

Academia.edu

American birth control advocate Margaret Sanger (1884--1966) was instrumental in the development of an international birth control movement. This occurred, not after World War II as is commonly thought, but in the interwar era. Building upon existing _medical_ exchanges of information and materials in the global arena, she established a _social_ movement for birth control. While Sanger was not the only interwar---era figure involved in this endeavor, she was among the most active in pursuing an international agenda. A number of discursive themes emerge in the study of Sanger's interwar activities for the global provision of contraception: it would provide economic benefit to (individual) families and (collective) nations; family limitation would help avert the next war; and gendered ideas about contraceptive methods and its role in improving women's status. These themes are explored through an interrogation of Sanger's interactions with cohorts (travel and correspondence) in seven key nations in Europe, Asia and Southeast Asia, her role as founder and editor of the _Birth Control Review_, and lastly, as the organizer of three international birth control conferences (1925, 1927, 1930). The preoccupations established in these venues laid the foundation for the post-World War II international family planning movement. This dissertation project also challenges a prevailing assumption about the provision of birth control in the Soviet Union in the interwar era---that abortion was the only method available. An analysis of Soviet medical literature of the period reveals the existence of clinical and laboratory research on a range of contraceptive methods, and research on experimental methods. Curiously, medical advocates for birth control, and not Sanger, were the most active in efforts to exchange information with Soviet researchers. The explanation for this apparent anomaly underscores Sanger's goals and objectives as a social advocate for birth control in the global arena.

...More

Description Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 66/01 (2005): 379. UMI pub. no. 3162269.

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001561789/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Thesis Leslie M. Shapy; (2016)
A Close Reading and Concept-Oriented Rhetorical and Literary Analysis of Margaret Sanger's Eugenics-Based Discourse (/isis/citation/CBB353546662/)

Thesis Buerkle, C. Wesley; (2004)
The Discipline and Disciplining of Margaret Sanger: United States Birth Control Rhetoric in the Early Twentieth Century (/isis/citation/CBB001561768/)

Thesis Bone, Jennifer Emerling; (2007)
When Publics Collide: The Rhetorical Strategies of Margaret Sanger's EarlyArguments on Birth Control (/isis/citation/CBB001561337/)

Book Engelman, Peter; (2011)
A History of the Birth Control Movement in America (/isis/citation/CBB001213420/)

Book Moore, Gloria; Moore, Ronald; (1986)
Margaret Sanger and the birth control movement: A bibliography, 1911-1984 (/isis/citation/CBB000060530/)

Book Chesler, Ellen; (1992)
Woman of valor: Margaret Sanger and the birth control movement in America (/isis/citation/CBB000062053/)

Article Kenny, Michael G.; (2002)
A Darker Shade of Green: Medical Botany, Homeopathy, and Cultural Politics in Interwar Germany (/isis/citation/CBB000770483/)

Article Wanhalla, Angela; (2007)
To “Better the Breed of Men”: Women and Eugenics in New Zealand, 1900-1935 (/isis/citation/CBB001030828/)

Article Connor, Jennifer J.; (2009)
Stalwart Giants: Medical Cosmopolitanism, Canadian Authorship, and American Publishers (/isis/citation/CBB001032315/)

Article Mikanowski, Jacob; (2012)
Dr Hirszfeld's War: Tropical Medicine and the Invention of Sero-Anthropology on the Macedonian Front (/isis/citation/CBB001210687/)

Article Wyndham, Diana; (2003)
Versemaking and Lovemaking---W. B. Yeats' “Strange Second Puberty”: Norman Haire and the Steinach Rejuvenation Operation (/isis/citation/CBB000300878/)

Thesis Kim, Sonja Myung; (2008)
Contesting Bodies: Managing Population, Birthing, and Medicine in Korea, 1876--1945 (/isis/citation/CBB001561271/)

Article Viterbo, Paula; (2004)
I Got Rhythm: Gershwin and Birth Control in the 1930s (/isis/citation/CBB000610197/)

Article Eraso, Yolanda; (2007)
Biotypology, Endocrinology, and Sterilization: The Practice of Eugenics in the Treatment of Argentinian Women during the 1930s (/isis/citation/CBB000830252/)

Article Smith, Harold L.; (2011)
“All Good Things Start with the Women”: The Origin of the Texas Birth Control Movement, 1933--1945 (/isis/citation/CBB001231867/)

Article Sabine Hildebrandt; Susan Benedict; Erin Miller; Michael Gaffney; Michael A. Grodin; (2017)
“Forgotten” Chapters in the History of Transcervical Sterilization: Carl Clauberg and Hans-Joachim Lindemann (/isis/citation/CBB559171268/)

Article Sommer, Matthew H.; (2010)
Abortion in Late Imperial China: Routine Birth Control or Crisis Intervention? (/isis/citation/CBB001231845/)

Book Fangerau, Heiner; (2010)
Spinning the Scientific Web: Jacques Loeb (1859--1924) und sein Programm einer internationalen biomedizinischen Grundlagenforschung (/isis/citation/CBB001031899/)

Chapter Mazumdar, Pauline M. H.; (2008)
Antitoxin and Anatoxine: The League of Nations and the Institut Pasteur, 1920--1939 (/isis/citation/CBB000760341/)

Article Solomon, Susan Gross; (2003)
Knowing the “Local”: Rockefeller Foundation Officers' Site Visits to Russia in the 1920's (/isis/citation/CBB000321038/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}