Skip to main content

The timeline can be navigated with the “Scroll Left” and “Scroll Right” buttons or by dragging the pointer to a date on the timeline waveform (located at the bottom of the screen on the desktop version and on the left of the screen on mobile). To filter by a particular topic and see a smaller section of the data, make a selection on the dropdown “Filters” menu or click “Search” to do a keyword search. Hover over the abbreviated filter tags in the blue boxes to see the complete name of the filter, or click a filter to display all the data with this tag. If you want to take a deeper dive into a specific topic by viewing a narrative essay page and a curated timeline, click on “Stories.”

Read More
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

RHRR
EUG
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.