Herstory
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Here at MEI, we want to honor the women that risked it all
These are their stories
Margaret Sanger
1879 - 1966
Margaret Sanger was born on September 14, 1879 in Corning, New York. Her mother died when Sanger was young due to the physical effects of enduring eleven pregnancies. Sanger became a nurse after completing the White Plains Hospital nursing program. She married William Sanger and had three children. Having moved to New York City in 1910, Sanger became a member of the Women’s Committee of the New York chapter of the Socialist Party. Working as a visiting nurse, she often visited the homes of poor immigrants with large families whose wives were ill from too many pregnancies and miscarriages, encouraging Sanger to open the first birth control clinic in 1916. She was arrested and spent one month in jail. She appealed her conviction, however, the courts ruled that contraceptives could only be prescribed for medical reasons, allowing her to open a clinic in 1923 staffed by female doctors which later became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Sanger worked with Katharine McCormick to develop the first oral contraceptive, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1960. At the age of 86, Sanger died in 1966 from congestive heart failure. Image: https://digital.library.ucla.edu/catalog/ark:/21198/zz002j7fwk Bio: https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/margaret-sanger
Founder of the birth control movement
Katharine McCormick
1865 - 1967
Katharine Dexter McCormick was born on August 27, 1875 in Dexter, Michigan. McCormick was one of the first women to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1904, earning a degree in biology. In the early 1910s, McCormick became interested in birth control after learning of Margaret Sanger, a feminist leader who had been jailed for opening the nation’s first birth control clinic. The two created a plan to smuggle diaphragms into the United States under their shared belief that women should be able to access contraception. From 1922 to 1925, McCormick smuggled over one thousand diaphragms into Sanger’s clinics. After her husband died in 1947, McCormick used the inheritance money to provide the majority of funding required to research and develop the first birth control pill, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1960. McCormick funded the first on-campus residence for women at MIT, naming the hall after her late husband. McCormick passed away on December 28. 1967 due to a stroke. In her will, she left a generous $5 million to the Planned Parenthood Federation and $1 million to various laboratories. Image: https://tinyurl.com/Katharine-McCormick-Photo Bio: https://tinyurl.com/Katharine-McCormick
Financed the development of the first birth control pill
Elizabeth Blackwell
1821 - 1910
Elizabeth Blackwell was born on February 3, 1821, near Bristol, England, and moved with her family to Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1832. After her father’s death, she worked as a teacher before studying medicine, graduating first in her class from Geneva Medical College in 1849 as the first woman in America to earn a medical degree. She continued her training in London and Paris, where she focused on hygiene and preventative care. In 1851 Blackwell returned to New York and opened a clinic for poor women. In 1857, she co-founded the New York Infirmary for Women and Children with her sister Emily Blackwell and Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, and during the Civil War she helped train nurses for Union hospitals. In 1868 she opened a women’s medical college in New York, and later became a professor of gynecology at the London School of Medicine for Women. She also co-founded the National Health Society and published several books, including her autobiography Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women. Blackwell died in 1910 at the age of 89. Image: https://www.biography.com/scientist/elizabeth-blackwell Bio: https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/elizabeth-blackwell
First woman to earn a medical degree in the United States
Helen Rodríguez Trías
1929 - 2001
Helen Rodríguez Trías was born in New York in 1929 and spent part of her childhood in Puerto Rico before returning to New York at age ten. She graduated from the University of Puerto Rico in 1957 and earned her medical degree with highest honors in 1960. During her residency she founded the first center for newborn care in Puerto Rico, cutting infant mortality rates in half. After returning to New York in 1970, she became head of pediatrics at Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx, where she worked to improve health care for low-income communities while also teaching at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Throughout the 1970s she emerged as a leader in the women’s health movement, co-founding organizations to fight sterilization abuse and helping draft federal guidelines in 1979 that required informed consent for sterilization procedures. In the 1980s she served as medical director of the New York State Department of Health AIDS Institute, focusing on women with HIV, and in the 1990s she co-directed the Pacific Institute for Women’s Health to advance reproductive health worldwide. Rodriguez-Trias later became the first Latina president of the American Public Health Association, received the Presidential Citizen’s Medal in 2001, and died later that year from cancer. Image: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1447119/pdf/0920566.pdf Bio: https://cfmedicine.nlm.nih.gov/physicians/biography_273.html
First Latina director of the American Public Health Association
Byllye Avery
1937 - present
Byllye Yvone Avery was born on October 20, 1937 in Waynesville, Georgia and grew up in DeLand, Florida. She earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Talladega College and a master’s degree in special education from the University of Florida in 1969. After the sudden death of her husband in 1970, she dedicated her life to improving health care in the Black community. In 1974 Avery co-founded the Gainesville Women’s Health Center, followed by Birthplace, an alternative birthing center, in 1978. She organized the first national conference on Black women’s health at Spelman College in 1983, which led to the founding of the National Black Women’s Health Project, now the Black Women’s Health Imperative, the first national organization devoted to the health of Black women. From 1991 to 1993 she was a visiting fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health and later taught reproductive health and advocacy at Columbia University. Avery has received numerous awards for her work, including a MacArthur Fellowship, the Essence Award for Community Service, and the UCSF Medal. She is retired and lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts, with her wife Ngina Lythcott. Image: https://foundation.sph.cuny.edu/priorities-and-partners/byllye-avery/ Bio: https://tinyurl.com/Byllye-Yvone-Avery