--- title: Why Planned Parenthood Founder Margaret Sanger Went to Jail description: Oct. 16, 1916: Margaret Sanger opens America’s first family planning clinic canonical: https://time.com/4065338/margaret-sanger-clinic-history/ author: Jennifer Latson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-16T14:30:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:57:33.125Z article:section: History og:title: Why Planned Parenthood Founder Margaret Sanger Went to Jail og:description: Oct. 16, 1916: Margaret Sanger opens America’s first family planning clinic og:url: https://time.com/4065338/margaret-sanger-clinic-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blteab8a8580abbc05b/69886752a988cabc906b4b76/sanger.jpeg?branch=production&width=646&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 646 og:image:height: 363 og:image:alt: Margaret Sanger og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why Planned Parenthood Founder Margaret Sanger Went to Jail twitter:description: Oct. 16, 1916: Margaret Sanger opens America’s first family planning clinic twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blteab8a8580abbc05b/69886752a988cabc906b4b76/sanger.jpeg?branch=production&width=646&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why Birth Control Pioneer Margaret Sanger Kept Getting Arrested > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-sub-2026q3/newsletters?i=c8db450a-f9f1-4625-83e7-d02b3e863687&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) * TIME Subscriptions: [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-sub-2026q3/subscribe?i=c8db450a-f9f1-4625-83e7-d02b3e863687&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The History of Birth Control [Watch (HLS stream): The History of Birth Control](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/4oCau3Jn.m3u8) (3:12)  _Published 2015-01-22. For as long as men and women have been having children, they’ve been trying to figure out how not to. Artifacts dating back to ancient times have shown that contraceptives have been used for thousands of years._ by [Jennifer Latson](https://time.com/author/jennifer-latson/) ## Jennifer Latson Oct 16, 2015 2:30 PM UTC  American birth control activist Margaret Sanger (1879 - 1966) standing in a train station in Chicago, 1917. American birth control activist Margaret Sanger (1879 - 1966) standing in a train station in Chicago, 1917. Chicago History Museum / Getty Images by [Jennifer Latson](https://time.com/author/jennifer-latson/) ## Jennifer Latson Oct 16, 2015 2:30 PM UTC The recent crusade against Planned Parenthood, sparked by an infiltrator’s [stealth video](http://time.com/4047842/the-abortion-debate/), would have seemed somewhat familiar to the organization’s founder, Margaret Sanger, who faced criminal accusations from a number of undercover operatives during her campaign to bring birth control to the public. At a time when it was a [federal crime](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,787784-1,00.html) merely to publish pamphlets on the topic, Sanger published many. A 1912 anatomical guide, “[What Every Girl Should Know](https://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/webedition/app/documents/show.php?sangerDoc=304533.xml),” boldly stated that “every girl should first understand herself: she should know her anatomy, including sex anatomy.” A 1917 pamphlet, “[Family Limitation](http://archive.lib.msu.edu/DMC/AmRad/familylimitations.pdf),” was even more direct. In it, Sanger wrote: --- > “” --- But she did more than write about the subject. On this day, Oct. 16, in 1916, Sanger opened the country’s first family planning clinic, in the [Brownsville neighborhood](http://time.com/3785609/brownsville-brooklyn/) of Brooklyn. There, for ten cents, any woman who wanted it could get information from a trained nurse that was nearly impossible to find anywhere else: a medically accurate explanation of how the reproductive system works, and instructions on using contraceptives. It was certainly illegal, but the clinic was hardly a secret. Sanger wanted to provide access to as many women as she could reach. [A flyer](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/filmmore/ps%5Fnotice.html) printed in English, Yiddish, and Italian proclaimed: “Mothers! Can you afford to have a large family? Do you want any more children? If not, why do you have them?” It listed the clinic’s address along with the exhortation, “Tell your friends and neighbors.” Someone told the police—who sent an undercover (female) officer to investigate, and 10 days after it opened, the clinic was raided. Sanger and her staff were arrested. Undeterred, Sanger reopened the clinic after her release from jail. She was arrested again and charged with “maintaining a public nuisance,” [according to the Margaret Sanger Papers Project](https://sangerpapers.wordpress.com/2010/10/26/sangers-first-clinic/). Then she reopened it a third time, at which point the police forced her landlord to evict her. The clinic closed for good on November 16, its one-month anniversary. At her trial, she was given the option of a suspended sentence in exchange for a promise never to repeat her offense. She refused the deal, and served a 30-day jail sentence instead. It was the beginning of a long acquaintance with law enforcement, although as [TIME reported](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,748484,00.html), “she became cautious in her public activities” after this first encounter. In 1929, Sanger’s Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau, a slightly more secret clinic in the basement of a Manhattan brownstone, was raided after another undercover policewoman reported that it “was giving out demoralizing information and advice,” [per TIME](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,769202-1,00.html). But TIME noted that eight years had passed since she’d last been “given a ride” by the police—when, in 1921, New York’s Catholic archbishop had had her arrested for giving a public lecture on birth control. **_Read more about Margaret Sanger’s efforts to legalize birth control, here in the TIME archives:_** [Birth Control Hearing](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,930381,00.html) ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] For as long as men and women have been having children, they've been trying to figure out how not to. Artifacts dating back to ancient times have shown that contraceptives have been used for thousands of years. Unsurprisingly, not every method was all that effective. In ancient China, concubines would drink a cocktail of lead and mercury. Unfortunately, the side effects included sterility, brain damage. Kidney failure and death. Ancient Egyptian women would mix honey, sodium carbonate, and crocodile dung into a thick paste they would insert into themselves before having sex. In Greece in the year 200 a gynecologist named Soranus. Advised women to hold their breathe during intercourse and sneeze afterward. [ SNEEZE ] And in the Middle Ages in Europe, women believed tying weasel testicles to their thighs or around their necks during sex would prevent pregnancy. Huh? But it wasn't all a shot in the dark. Many modern forms of contraception have roots in the ancient past. For example, ancient cave drawings found in France appear to show an early version of the condom and a prototype of the cervical cap has been used since Casanova's days. In his memoirs written in the 18th century he describes using partially squeezed lemon halves to do the trick. [ MUSIC ] The modern history of not having babies begins in the mid 1800's. When vulcanized rubber was patented and condoms could be mass produced. [ MUSIC ] Yet for much of the 19th and early 20th centuries women had a hard time getting their hands on effective contraception. Contraception. Anti- obscenity laws in the US restricted anyone, including doctors, from spreading information about it. But that didn't stop women from trying to prevent pregnancy. Many women would use household products, such as Lysol or Coca- Cola, which they believed would kill sperm. [ MUSIC ] Advertisements for Lysol even endorsed the product as a way for women to protect their married happiness. All of that changed in 1960 when the FDA approved an oral contraceptive pill thanks to the tireless efforts of activist Margaret Sanger. And a team of doctors. Within five years millions of American women had prescriptions for the pill. In the following decades other forms of reliable contraception appeared, including IUD's. Safe and effective birth control still isn't a universal privilege. A 2013 report found that 222 million women from developing countries around the world. Said they wanted to use birth control but didn't have access to it. But in the US, a whopping 99 % of women of child bearing age say that they've used some form of contraception. No crocodile dung required. 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