Overview

• Introduction
  • This website provides an overview of Women’s Rights and Womens Health.  You’ll find information about Eugenics and Forced Sterilization, Sheppard-Towner Act, Nervous Disorders, and Birth Control and Abortion.
    • Eugenics and Forced Sterlization or Sub-Topic 1 discusses the rise of eugenics in the United States, the main founders of the movement, as well as specific laws put in place during the early 20th century.
    • The Sheppard-Towner Act or Sub-topic 2 addresses _______________________________.
    • Female Nervous Disorders: Hysteria and Neurasthenia or Subtopic 3 covers _________________________.
    • Finally, Birth Control and Abortion or Sub-topic 4 will provide an overview of the availability of contraceptives, Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement, and abortion up to the 1930s.

•  
• A link to a fun video that provides an overview of our topics!
• A timeline of significant events:
  • Early 1800s
    • discovery of condoms 
  • Late 1800s
    • Francis Galton coins the term “Eugenics.”
    • 1873 the Comstock Law was passed that restricted use of contraceptives and abortion methods.
  • 1907
    • The first eugenics and sterlization law is passed in Indiana.
  • 1909
    • The first IUD discovered. 
  • 1910
    • Inspired by Galton’s work, the Eugenics Record Office or “ERO” is founded by Charles Davenport & Henry Laughlin and the term “Eugenics” is popularized.  
  • 1912
    • Henry H. Goddard publishes “The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness” which introduces terms such as “idiot”, “imbecile”, and “moron” as well as a chart that explains the believed steps of mental development at the time. 
  • 1915
    • The National Birth Control League formed
  • 1916
    • The first abortion clinic founded by Margaret Sanger.
  • 1927
    • Buck vs Bell Supreme Court Case – declared sterlization of the “feeble-minded” and “unfit” legal. 
  • 1939
    • The ERO shuts down.