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A black and white photograph of the clinic exterior, a three-story building.
The Margaret Sanger Clinic. (Photo: Smith College Special Collections)

Margaret Sanger founds the American Birth Control League, and opens the first contraceptive clinic in the U.S.

1916

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The Margaret Sanger Clinic. (Photo: Smith College Special Collections)

Together with her sister, Ethel Byrne, and fellow activist, Fania Mindell, Margaret Sanger opens a birth control clinic in Brownsville, Brooklyn in October 1916. Nine days after the clinic is opened, police raid and shut it down, charging all three women with crimes related to providing birth control.

Sanger is a huge proponent for eugenics, which is rooted in racist and ableist ideas. She promotes the use of "negative eugenics" to remove "undesirable traits," which she uses to refer to mental and physical disabilities.