Nursing, social contexts, and ideologies in the early United States birth control movement *

Abstract

Using historical discourse analysis, this study provides a thematic analysis of writings of nursing and birth control as found in The Birth Control Review from 1917 to 1927. The author contrasts this publication with the official journal of the American Nurses Association, the American Journal of Nursing from the same years to explore nursing voices and silences in early birth control stories. In dialogue with social contexts, nursing endeavors and inactivity have played important yet conflicting roles in the birth control movement in the United States. Nursing writings from the early twentieth century reflect eugenic beliefs, national fears of immigrants, and ambivalence about women's roles in society and the home. Nurses simultaneously empowered women to choose when to become pregnant and reinforced nativist and paternalistic views of the poor.

Ethical vulnerabilities in nursing history: Conflicting loyalties and the patient as ‘other’

“…A secondary discourse analysis was conducted of primary texts examined in prior published studies, with sensitivity to patterns of ethical concerns and distinct failings. The earlier studies focused on nursing care for the Navajo at a missionary hospital in southwestern USA in the first half of the twentieth century, 3,4 nursing during the early birth control movement in the USA, 5 nursing involvement in Germany's Third Reich in the 1930s and 1940s, 6,7 and US nursing's response (or lack of response) to nursing in the Third Reich. 8,9 Primary texts…”

“…It was the official publication of the American Nurses Association until 2006. 5 Margaret Sanger (1879Sanger ( -1966, the sixth of 11 children in a low-income family, associated large families with poverty. She learned to value social activism from her father, a labor organizer.…”

Beyond Rights and Virtues as Foundation for Women's Agency: Emma Goldman's Rhetoric of Free Love

“…Race and nationality were believed to be key physical indicators of these negative characteristics (Hasain, 1996), which included a propensity to commit ''crimes of larceny, kidnapping, assault, murder, rape and sex-immorality'' (Getz, 2001, p. 27). In order to promote a ''healthier'' population, the eugenics movement focused on immigration reforms and sterilization measures for individuals who were judged to be mentally or physically unfit (Lagerwey, 1999;Quinn, 2003). The movement also advocated for educating the ''healthy'' upper classes on how to conceive and bear children, to prevent what some considered ''race suicide'' resulting from ''choosing social life over motherhood'' (Lagerwey, 1999, p. 252).…”

“…Upper-class women only needed to sustain their appearance of feminine virtue. For instance, upper-class women had greater access to information about birth control: For them, ''voluntary motherhood'' literally referred to the ability to choose when to have children (Lagerwey, 1999). Goldman (2008) suggested that the rich woman ''has one consolation, and that is, that society allows more freedom of action to a married woman and should she be disappointed in marriage she will be in a position to gratify her wishes otherwise'' (p. 270).…”