A collection of letters and other material related to the promotion of access to birth control during the 1930s and early 1940s. The collection features material from the papers of Ethel Remington Hepburn, including eleven letters signed by Margaret Sanger. It contains 83 pieces dating from 1933-1941, largely signed, typed letters, but also telegrams, article reprints and material generated by the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control and its successors. In addition to the Sanger letters, there is also material signed by such notable early advocates for access to birth control as Stella Hanau, Dr. Marie Pichel Warner, Dr. Clarence Gamble, Caroline K. Simon, and Florence Rose, Margaret Sanger's secretary who later emerged to be quite influential in her own right in the birth control movement and the fight against world hunger.
Much of the correspondence regards attempts to arrange lectures by Hepburn, requests for information for articles on the subject, and proposals for additional articles, including one particular effort by Dr. Gamble to place an article in the "true confessions" market. One segment of the collection also deals with Hepburn's relationship with Dr. Ellaine Elmore, a popular lecturer and radio host on the subject of motherhood during the 1930s, who later went on to author a number of works on psychic phenomena.
Ethel Remington Hepburn's early career was on the vaudeville stage, where she formed a lifelong friendship with legendary performer Eva Tanguay. She later became a professional writer, as well as the mother of ten children. She was a long-time supporter of access to birth control.
Ethel Remington Hepburn papers, #7759. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.