Margaret Sanger : Her Life in Her Words

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Summary: Margaret Sanger continues to inspire
Review: A beautifully written, passionate, intimate look at a seminal figure in America's history. While Sanger has been justly honored as an early 20th century feminist icon, her fight to publicize the importance of family planning and legalized birth control have shaped rights and institutions we take for granted today. Miriam Reed has crafted an excellent new resource for anyone interested in learning more about this fascinating woman. Good job!

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Summary: A Great Book
Review: An interesting book on early 20th century America that many of the recent immigrants like me are not aware of. It is fascinating and I highly recommend it.

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Summary: All the truth, painful or not
Review: First, I'm a Margaret Sanger fan. Her work did as much to ultimately liberate women as did the right to vote and the attempted passage of the ERA. I love this book because Dr. Reed has read every single piece of primary research available on Sanger, and then overlaid it with her own (Reed's) summations and conclusions. It is deeply researched, has the blessings of the Sanger family, and provides a non-biased look at a woman, though changing the world, who still had personal flaws and failings. It's arranged chronologically and also contains short biographies of each soul mentioned in the book, an in-depth section of footnotes, a thorough bibliography, and a complete index. This was not Dr. Reed's disseratation -- but it certainly could have been.

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Summary: Sanger's Life NOT in Her Own Words
Review: Miriam Reed's biography of Margaret Sanger is a book that is hard to lay aside until the last page and hard to forget. Reed details the most dramatic episodes of Margaret Sanger which are enriched by private papers from Sanger's family. How I would love to see author/actress Reed on stage in a monologue as Margaret Sanger!

This is an honest and inspiring biography of a woman who literally changed the attitude of the world toward planning a family, inspired research, and established centers. Perhaps this book could help clear up the emotional reactions of current religious and political forces against planned births.

Reed presents Margaret Sanger's life in "her own words" using letters and other papers revealing the passion with which Sanger attempted to give birth control information to desperate American wives and mothers. Such mothers as those who had up to 15 children, half of whom were still living, begged Mrs. Sanger for help. M. Sanger was sent to prison over and over for demanding the right to discuss birth control at a time when the Dutch had had birth control clinics for 30 years and the French enjoyed the most modern birth control methods.

I highly recommend this biography for anyone who is even vaguely aware of the pathetic situation of thousands upon thousands of home abortions so common before Sanger's work, many of which resulted in death. This practice is still widespread in countries without the funds for planned parenthood clinics.