(1883-1966)
As the one of 11 children born into a poor family, Sanger experienced first hand the toll that too many pregnancies took on women
Margaret Sanger gained worldwide renown, respect, and admiration for founding the American birth control movement
Sanger's movement spurred a change in the way that religions viewed birth control. Her actions challenged the traditional way of thought and introduced concepts that shifted the course of American society
Sanger helped establish the contemporary American model for the protection of civil rights through nonviolent civil disobedience — a model that later propelled the civil rights, anti-war, women's rights, and AIDS-action movements
Sanger and her sister Ethel Byrne, also a nurse, opened the first birth control clinic in the United States
When Margaret Sanger opened her first clinic in 1916, the infant mortality rate in New York City was 88.2 per thousand births. By the time of Sanger's death in 1966, the rate was 24.9. By 1973, the rate was down to 19.9. Today, it is 7.8