Flyer for the Brownsville Birth Control Clinic, 1916.
Item
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Title
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Flyer for the Brownsville Birth Control Clinic, 1916.
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Creator
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Unknown
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Description
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According to Margaret Sanger Papers Project – a historical editing project sponsored by the Department of History at New York University formed by Dr. Esther Katz in 1985 to locate, arrange, edit, research, and publish the papers of the noted birth control pioneer – the country’s first ever birth control clinic opened on October 16, 1916. Located on 46 Amboy Street, in Brooklyn, New York, one of the city’s then burgeoning neighborhoods, the clinic’s promotional flier is directed at mothers and addresses them directly by posing questions about their financial ability to care for a large family and whether or not they might be interested in family planning.
In three different languages – English, Yiddish, and Italian – the clinic offers all mothers to access information about birth control. The advertisment reads, in all three languages, the following: “Mothers! Can you afford to have a large family? Do you want any more children? If not, why do you have them? Do not kill, Do not take life, but Prevent. Safe, Harmless Information can be obtained of trained Nurses at 46 Amboy Street…All Mothers Welcome”.
In just a little over a 100 years since its printing and the clinic’s opening, the inferences that this flier offers us now about early twentieth century New York City are many and worth investigating with respect to the City’s broader history of informative access to birth control resources.
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Publisher
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Unknown
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Date
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1916
Sanger’s First Clinic