The American Religious Debate Over Birth Control, 1907-1937

by Kathleen A. Tobin

The ongoing debates on the morality of artificial birth control sparked a heated public debate in the early twentieth century in an already religiously fragmented United States. Many denominations took part in the deliberations both publicly and privately. In examining the ideas about contraception and birth control at that time, this book considers the cultural environment, religion and its connection to the roots of birth control, the questioning of religious doctrine, the Protestants' view of birth control, the Lambeth conferences of 1930, the influence of conservatives, and the influence of Catholics. Also discussed is the historical context of fundamentalists versus modernists, neo-Malthusianism, eugenics, immigration, the movement for legalization organized by Margaret Sanger, and how the Catholic Church came to lead religious resistance to artificial birth control.

232 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2001

Reviews

[Hortensia]

This book was excellent and extremely readable. Another page turner. In fact, it will be one of the most powerful books I read in 2010.

The author makes the simple and extremely important point that the majority of Americans went from being very suspicious of birth control in 1910 to being pretty comfortable with it as a fact of life by the late 1920s. Religious institutions were the most discouraging of discussion on these new methods, and the heart of these tensions was the purpose of marriage (for raising kids, or for being in love?). Tobin traces the way social changed happened through newspaper reporting in both radical (feminist) newspapers and church records. The book left me staring at the ceiling for days, contemplating the profound power of birth control in the untold revolutions of the 1920s.