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The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution
We know it simply as "the pill," yet its genesis was anything but simple. Jonathan Eig's masterful narrative revolves around four principal characters: the fiery feminist Margaret Sanger, who was a champion of birth control in her campaign for the rights of women but neglected her own children in pursuit of free love; the beautiful Katharine McCormick, who owed her fortune to her wealthy husband, the son of the founder of International Harvester and a schizophrenic; the visionary scientist Gregory Pincus, who was dismissed by Harvard in the 1930s as a result of his experimentation with in vitro fertilization but who, after he was approached by Sanger and McCormick, grew obsessed with the idea of inventing a drug that could stop ovulation; and the telegenic John Rock, a Catholic doctor from Boston who battled his own church to become an enormously effective advocate in the effort to win public approval for the drug that would be marketed by Searle as Enovid.
Spanning the years from Sanger’s heady Greenwich Village days in the early twentieth century to trial tests in Puerto Rico in the 1950s to the cusp of the sexual revolution in the 1960s, this is a grand story of radical feminist politics, scientific ingenuity, establishment opposition, and, ultimately, a sea change in social attitudes. Brilliantly researched and briskly written, The Birth of the Pill is gripping social, cultural, and scientific history.
Spanning the years from Sanger’s heady Greenwich Village days in the early twentieth century to trial tests in Puerto Rico in the 1950s to the cusp of the sexual revolution in the 1960s, this is a grand story of radical feminist politics, scientific ingenuity, establishment opposition, and, ultimately, a sea change in social attitudes. Brilliantly researched and briskly written, The Birth of the Pill is gripping social, cultural, and scientific history.
416 pages, Paperback
First published October 13, 2014
264 people are currently reading
9854 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Eig
24 books629 followersJonathan Eig is the author of six books, four of them New York Times best sellers, as well as four books for children. He is a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal. His works have been translated into more than a dozen languages.
His most recent book is "King: A Life." His previous book, Ali: A Life," was the winner of the PEN Award and hailed as an "epic" by Joyce Carol Oates in her New York Times review.
His other books are: "Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig;" "Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season;" "Get Capone;" and "The Birth of the Pill."
Jonathan served as consulting producer on the Ken Burns PBS documentary on Muhammad Ali.
His most recent book is "King: A Life." His previous book, Ali: A Life," was the winner of the PEN Award and hailed as an "epic" by Joyce Carol Oates in her New York Times review.
His other books are: "Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig;" "Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season;" "Get Capone;" and "The Birth of the Pill."
Jonathan served as consulting producer on the Ken Burns PBS documentary on Muhammad Ali.
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November 28, 2014
In early 2012, Mitt Romney got blindsided. Not by a question on the national debt, Iran, or immigration. One of the panelists at a Republican primary debates asked Mitt if he favored banning birth control. Mitt looked stunned. "I thought that was settled," he said. "Who raised the question," or some such thing.
One can hardly fault Mitt. To those of us old enough to have lived through the development of The Pill and all it signified, these issues seemed politically and culturally set in place by the late sixties - early seventies. Few gave them much thought, though abortion roiled more than ever. But Mitt didn't know what was coming. Rush Limbaugh would trash Sandra Fluke, Rick Santorum would say contraception was wrong, and by 2014 Hobby Lobby would be a hot button issue. Not something anyone expected, though it now seems inevitable: the twenty-first century decided to repeal the twentieth, or at least a certain loudmouthed minority has made it their program.
In light of this, Jonathan Eig's book could hardly be more timely. He takes us back to the beginning. The beginning is all about one woman, Maggie Higgins, or as she would become known to the world, Margaret Sanger. Eig puts Sanger in the context of her time, which makes her seem even more remarkable than we usually think. The sixth of eleven children in a Catholic family, Sanger's radicalism stemmed from her strong identification with her father, who had no fear of standing up to the parish priest, and the death of her mother after child #11. She became a nurse on the lower east side, and saw the pain and suffering of immigrant women with large families. In Eig's account, there's Sanger may have been the single most important radical of the twentieth century, because she had a vision of true women's liberation and the indefatigable will to promote it no matter what obstacles she faced. Without her, it's impossible to imagine the world we live in, whether one exalts of vilifies her.
Sanger is not really the main character in Eig's book, important role though she plays. That honor is reserved for Gregory Pincus, a brilliant, quirky scientist whose own radicalism began when he got dumped by Harvard for being too outspoken about his studies of infertility. Eig's scientific creativity and idealism joined with Sanger's passion, and oral contraceptive for women was on the way. The two other characters in Eig's Big Four are John Rock, the Catholic physician most closely associated with the birth of The Pill, and Katherine McCormick, the multi-millionaire who bankrolled both Sanger and PIncus, without whom their work would not have gotten off the ground. These four had two things in common: they were fierce in their independence, the belief in the rightness of their cause, and they centered on the dream of women taking charge of their lives by gaining control of reproduction. Otherwise, they were as different as four human beings can be. It's this, more than anything, that makes The Birth of the Pill a great read: Eig has done enormous research on these people and their work, and he presents all four in their individualistic, sometimes maddening glory. The book also has the virtue of being scientifically detailed without dragging the read down in technicalities. The best introduction to where we are today, and how we got there.
One can hardly fault Mitt. To those of us old enough to have lived through the development of The Pill and all it signified, these issues seemed politically and culturally set in place by the late sixties - early seventies. Few gave them much thought, though abortion roiled more than ever. But Mitt didn't know what was coming. Rush Limbaugh would trash Sandra Fluke, Rick Santorum would say contraception was wrong, and by 2014 Hobby Lobby would be a hot button issue. Not something anyone expected, though it now seems inevitable: the twenty-first century decided to repeal the twentieth, or at least a certain loudmouthed minority has made it their program.
In light of this, Jonathan Eig's book could hardly be more timely. He takes us back to the beginning. The beginning is all about one woman, Maggie Higgins, or as she would become known to the world, Margaret Sanger. Eig puts Sanger in the context of her time, which makes her seem even more remarkable than we usually think. The sixth of eleven children in a Catholic family, Sanger's radicalism stemmed from her strong identification with her father, who had no fear of standing up to the parish priest, and the death of her mother after child #11. She became a nurse on the lower east side, and saw the pain and suffering of immigrant women with large families. In Eig's account, there's Sanger may have been the single most important radical of the twentieth century, because she had a vision of true women's liberation and the indefatigable will to promote it no matter what obstacles she faced. Without her, it's impossible to imagine the world we live in, whether one exalts of vilifies her.
Sanger is not really the main character in Eig's book, important role though she plays. That honor is reserved for Gregory Pincus, a brilliant, quirky scientist whose own radicalism began when he got dumped by Harvard for being too outspoken about his studies of infertility. Eig's scientific creativity and idealism joined with Sanger's passion, and oral contraceptive for women was on the way. The two other characters in Eig's Big Four are John Rock, the Catholic physician most closely associated with the birth of The Pill, and Katherine McCormick, the multi-millionaire who bankrolled both Sanger and PIncus, without whom their work would not have gotten off the ground. These four had two things in common: they were fierce in their independence, the belief in the rightness of their cause, and they centered on the dream of women taking charge of their lives by gaining control of reproduction. Otherwise, they were as different as four human beings can be. It's this, more than anything, that makes The Birth of the Pill a great read: Eig has done enormous research on these people and their work, and he presents all four in their individualistic, sometimes maddening glory. The book also has the virtue of being scientifically detailed without dragging the read down in technicalities. The best introduction to where we are today, and how we got there.
June 29, 2021
A book that makes you yearn for the days when the rich used their money for philanthropic reasons rather than use their wealth to indulge their every whim (Musk and Bezos space travel anyone?).
This book really brought home how much the world changed in the century from 1920 to now not just the mores and the social constructs but the actual make up of the planet. What is mind boggling is that the fear of a population explosion that would create global instability in the battle for resources was more of a driver in the acceptance of the pill than the welfare of women and children (not so surprising you may say). Considering the concern was over reaching 3 billion and today we are nudging 8 we can only see the pill as a success in terms of women being freed from repeated pregnancies.
Eig has written an engaging book that tells of how four disparate pioneers came together (with very different motivations) to produce the holy grail of birth control. There’s Margaret Sanger a woman who was motivated by the desire to allow women to enjoy sex free from the fear of pregnancy, Katherine McCormick a vastly wealthy woman who never had sex and who looked initially into hormone research as a possible cure for her severely schizophrenic husband and was drawn to the idea of the pill as the thought of her having a child inflicted with the same disease as her husband was too tragic to contemplate, John Rock a Catholic obstetrician who somehow managed to square his religion with his belief in the necessity of the pill and the true hero, Gregory Pincus the scientist who put the discovery before financial success. Eig tells the stories of these people so well I felt I knew them and I felt their disappointments at every stage while willing them on.
An accessible book that was an enjoyable and eye-opening read on a topic that directly, or indirectly, has had a profound impact on all our lives.
This book really brought home how much the world changed in the century from 1920 to now not just the mores and the social constructs but the actual make up of the planet. What is mind boggling is that the fear of a population explosion that would create global instability in the battle for resources was more of a driver in the acceptance of the pill than the welfare of women and children (not so surprising you may say). Considering the concern was over reaching 3 billion and today we are nudging 8 we can only see the pill as a success in terms of women being freed from repeated pregnancies.
Eig has written an engaging book that tells of how four disparate pioneers came together (with very different motivations) to produce the holy grail of birth control. There’s Margaret Sanger a woman who was motivated by the desire to allow women to enjoy sex free from the fear of pregnancy, Katherine McCormick a vastly wealthy woman who never had sex and who looked initially into hormone research as a possible cure for her severely schizophrenic husband and was drawn to the idea of the pill as the thought of her having a child inflicted with the same disease as her husband was too tragic to contemplate, John Rock a Catholic obstetrician who somehow managed to square his religion with his belief in the necessity of the pill and the true hero, Gregory Pincus the scientist who put the discovery before financial success. Eig tells the stories of these people so well I felt I knew them and I felt their disappointments at every stage while willing them on.
An accessible book that was an enjoyable and eye-opening read on a topic that directly, or indirectly, has had a profound impact on all our lives.
April 6, 2015
This is an epic adventure starring four unlikely heroes: two middle-aged doctors, Gregory Pincus, fired by Harvard, and John Rock, a Catholic; and two older ladies, Margaret Sanger, who left her first husband and family and grew increasingly addicted to alcohol and prescription pills, and Katharine McCormick, whose mentally ill husband died and left her with a huge fortune she dug into the birth control movement.
From testing progesterone on rabbits to the desperate hunt for human test subjects in Puerto Rico and in a Massachusetts mental hospital, it is a tale full of surprises. When first presented to American doctors and the FDA, the contraceptive pill – then known as Enovid – was billed as an infertility drug: It regulated periods to make it more likely that women would then get pregnant after going off it. Pincus et al. conveniently failed to mention that it also prevented ovulation. I never would have expected a Trojan horse story.
Margaret Sanger was given a hero’s welcome on every trip to Japan, but she also had an unfortunate association with the eugenics movement – an inevitable offshoot of concerns about overpopulation? She once said that parents should have to apply for the right to have children just like immigrants have to apply for visas. The best random piece of trivia I came across here was that Prescott S. Bush, father of George and grandfather of Dubya, was the treasurer for Planned Parenthood’s first nationwide fundraising campaign in 1947. You can bet the Bush family has tried to cover that one up!
“Religion is a very poor scientist,” John Rock was known to say. The fight to have the Catholic Church change its position on birth control is an important background narrative in this book. The sexual revolution and the personal decision to contravene Catholic doctrine regarding contraception is also a major component of Quite a Good Time to Be Born, David Lodge’s recent memoir. It’s always fun when similar ideas come up in multiple books at the same time.
Jonathan Eig was previously known for his sports biographies, and there’s plenty of action and narrative here. Like the best science writers (Rebecca Skloot in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, David Quammen in Spillover, Atul Gawande in Being Mortal, or Siddhartha Mukherjee in The Emperor of All Maladies), he tells a story rich with three-dimensional characters.
We have a family legend about a Swiss ancestor who admitted herself to a mental asylum (then euphemistically called a sanatorium) in upstate New York in 1922 rather than have more children. She already had nine kids (one more died in infancy); she was tired and overworked. If this was what it took to keep her husband from making her pregnant again, so be it. She and thousands of housewives like her never could have guessed that one day (in 1960, to be precise) a simple pill could limit their family size. This is what this book is all about: the quest to give women control over their lives.
(Originally published with images at my blog, Bookish Beck.)
From testing progesterone on rabbits to the desperate hunt for human test subjects in Puerto Rico and in a Massachusetts mental hospital, it is a tale full of surprises. When first presented to American doctors and the FDA, the contraceptive pill – then known as Enovid – was billed as an infertility drug: It regulated periods to make it more likely that women would then get pregnant after going off it. Pincus et al. conveniently failed to mention that it also prevented ovulation. I never would have expected a Trojan horse story.
Margaret Sanger was given a hero’s welcome on every trip to Japan, but she also had an unfortunate association with the eugenics movement – an inevitable offshoot of concerns about overpopulation? She once said that parents should have to apply for the right to have children just like immigrants have to apply for visas. The best random piece of trivia I came across here was that Prescott S. Bush, father of George and grandfather of Dubya, was the treasurer for Planned Parenthood’s first nationwide fundraising campaign in 1947. You can bet the Bush family has tried to cover that one up!
“Religion is a very poor scientist,” John Rock was known to say. The fight to have the Catholic Church change its position on birth control is an important background narrative in this book. The sexual revolution and the personal decision to contravene Catholic doctrine regarding contraception is also a major component of Quite a Good Time to Be Born, David Lodge’s recent memoir. It’s always fun when similar ideas come up in multiple books at the same time.
Jonathan Eig was previously known for his sports biographies, and there’s plenty of action and narrative here. Like the best science writers (Rebecca Skloot in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, David Quammen in Spillover, Atul Gawande in Being Mortal, or Siddhartha Mukherjee in The Emperor of All Maladies), he tells a story rich with three-dimensional characters.
We have a family legend about a Swiss ancestor who admitted herself to a mental asylum (then euphemistically called a sanatorium) in upstate New York in 1922 rather than have more children. She already had nine kids (one more died in infancy); she was tired and overworked. If this was what it took to keep her husband from making her pregnant again, so be it. She and thousands of housewives like her never could have guessed that one day (in 1960, to be precise) a simple pill could limit their family size. This is what this book is all about: the quest to give women control over their lives.
(Originally published with images at my blog, Bookish Beck.)
April 4, 2015
This book was really interesting, but it also felt somewhat disingenuous. The author tried to turn the four "crusaders" into hero figures, but none of them, except for the Catholic O.B., even seemed like nice people. And the author really downplayed Margaret Sanger's Eugenics beliefs in order to make her more palatable as the heroine of the story. Basically, though, she wanted birth control in part to control the undesirables (blacks, poor people, etc.) from continuing to populate the earth. The author rightly points out that it wasn't an uncommon belief at the time.
The most interesting thing to me was how (relatively) easy it was to approve new medications back then. The author alludes to the Thalidomine crisis that happened a few years after the birth control pill was approved, implying that had the birth defects it caused happened just a few years before, the whole process would not have gone so smoothly.
I was also shocked by how loose and glib the researchers were with their test subjects (with the exception of Dr. John Glib, who hoped that using birth control pills might help "reset" his clients who could not conceive. He seemed to really care about who and how he tested the pills). Hey, we don't have any long-term data on whether this is safe or not, but let's go to Puerto Rico anyway and convince thousands of women to try it with very little information about how it works or what it might do to their bodies!
I was also shocked that the pill was approved, first as a menstrual cycle control method, and only later as a form of birth control, with no studies about possible long-term effects. As I recall, no test subjects had been studied for longer than a year or two when it was approved.
The most interesting thing to me was how (relatively) easy it was to approve new medications back then. The author alludes to the Thalidomine crisis that happened a few years after the birth control pill was approved, implying that had the birth defects it caused happened just a few years before, the whole process would not have gone so smoothly.
I was also shocked by how loose and glib the researchers were with their test subjects (with the exception of Dr. John Glib, who hoped that using birth control pills might help "reset" his clients who could not conceive. He seemed to really care about who and how he tested the pills). Hey, we don't have any long-term data on whether this is safe or not, but let's go to Puerto Rico anyway and convince thousands of women to try it with very little information about how it works or what it might do to their bodies!
I was also shocked that the pill was approved, first as a menstrual cycle control method, and only later as a form of birth control, with no studies about possible long-term effects. As I recall, no test subjects had been studied for longer than a year or two when it was approved.
March 13, 2025
In a captivating and unique biography, Jonathan Eig develops this piece on the history of the birth control pill. Fueled by the passion of a woman who wanted others have the freedom to express themselves sexually without the need for worry, Eig shows the extent to which a movement started scientific experimentation to see if a simple pill could ensure women were not shackled to parenthood by being sexually active. Eye-opening in its delivery and in-depth history, Eig delivers a gripping narrative and entertaining book for the non-prudish reader to enjoy.
While the discussion of women’s sexuality makes some a little uncomfortable, it is well within the important topics worthy of exploration. Jonathan Eig provides the groundwork for his biography by focusing on the work of Margaret Sanger, a no-nonsense feminist seeking to advance the rights of women and provide them the chance to explore or scratch the itch of their own sexuality without worrying about pregnancy. She sought the scientific mind of Gregory Pincus, who had long been willing to push the limits, though he was seen as a pariah in the academic community. Working together, Sanger and Pincus began trying to find answers that were both easy to access and simple to take.
As Eig explores, there were multiple hurdles along the way. Social and religious groups sought to push back and vilify those who would try to intentionally stop fertility and ‘a woman’s primary role’, Sanger and Pincus had to work harder and with more discretion. Past items related to contraception were either clunky or hard to obtain, forcing women to suffer in silence or being shamed for their desires. Still, there was a passion to get answers and ensure that women were given options.
Even after identifying a potential drug that could help, initial animal trials proved somewhat effective. Successes were countered with struggles to get funding and ongoing support for the possibilities. This led to Pincus’ decision to head to Puerto Rico for human trials, where he would try to hone the medication and ensure that it was effective. As Eig mentions, the mentality of trying to push a drug on a woman who was not sick proved harder than might be first seen. This was less a hurdle than a slight delay. Sanger was hopefully that she would live long enough to see the contraceptive to come to fruition.
Two others played a prominent role in the book and the movement. Katherine McCormick was left a significant amount of money when he husband passed. As a diagnosed schizophrenic, McCormick had a special concern about the mentally ill, specially those who were confined. Pregnancy levels were high and problematic for those mentally ill women who were in hospitals, leaving McCormick to want to find these new trials to help women not get pregnant with ease. The other key player, John Rock, a Catholic obstetrician who had been working with Planned Parenthood. He had a desire to help women whose pregnancies caused them significant concern, feeling that his own church would soon see the error of their ways and allow something that was found in nature and could help protect women. Working alongside Pincus and Sanger, Rock and McCormick sought to ensure the new oral contraceptives made their way onto the market as soon as possible. What followed would be a whirlwind of controversy, excitement, and pave the way towards medical advancements that put women in the driver’s seat.
Jonathan Eig provides the reader with a stunning book, as educational as it is entertaining. While not what some would call a biography, Eig delivers a great view over time of four key characters and the history of contraception. Each chapter proves highly educational, seeking to explain the advancements and regression in the development of oral contraception, while also highlighting the key needs for such a drug in the 1950s. Eig pulled out all the stops and refuses to turn prudish on the topic. The discussions, while scientific at times, proved easy to comprehend and keep the lay reader from drowning. I learned so much and have even more questions, which will ensure I look for more reading on the subject matter. One of the best non-human biographies I have read in a long time and it has me eager to see what else Jonathan Eig has in the realm of biographies. A must-read for anyone who wants to learn and can keep from being too prudish!
Kudos, Mr. Eig, for opening my mind to so much in this single tome.
Love/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at: http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/
While the discussion of women’s sexuality makes some a little uncomfortable, it is well within the important topics worthy of exploration. Jonathan Eig provides the groundwork for his biography by focusing on the work of Margaret Sanger, a no-nonsense feminist seeking to advance the rights of women and provide them the chance to explore or scratch the itch of their own sexuality without worrying about pregnancy. She sought the scientific mind of Gregory Pincus, who had long been willing to push the limits, though he was seen as a pariah in the academic community. Working together, Sanger and Pincus began trying to find answers that were both easy to access and simple to take.
As Eig explores, there were multiple hurdles along the way. Social and religious groups sought to push back and vilify those who would try to intentionally stop fertility and ‘a woman’s primary role’, Sanger and Pincus had to work harder and with more discretion. Past items related to contraception were either clunky or hard to obtain, forcing women to suffer in silence or being shamed for their desires. Still, there was a passion to get answers and ensure that women were given options.
Even after identifying a potential drug that could help, initial animal trials proved somewhat effective. Successes were countered with struggles to get funding and ongoing support for the possibilities. This led to Pincus’ decision to head to Puerto Rico for human trials, where he would try to hone the medication and ensure that it was effective. As Eig mentions, the mentality of trying to push a drug on a woman who was not sick proved harder than might be first seen. This was less a hurdle than a slight delay. Sanger was hopefully that she would live long enough to see the contraceptive to come to fruition.
Two others played a prominent role in the book and the movement. Katherine McCormick was left a significant amount of money when he husband passed. As a diagnosed schizophrenic, McCormick had a special concern about the mentally ill, specially those who were confined. Pregnancy levels were high and problematic for those mentally ill women who were in hospitals, leaving McCormick to want to find these new trials to help women not get pregnant with ease. The other key player, John Rock, a Catholic obstetrician who had been working with Planned Parenthood. He had a desire to help women whose pregnancies caused them significant concern, feeling that his own church would soon see the error of their ways and allow something that was found in nature and could help protect women. Working alongside Pincus and Sanger, Rock and McCormick sought to ensure the new oral contraceptives made their way onto the market as soon as possible. What followed would be a whirlwind of controversy, excitement, and pave the way towards medical advancements that put women in the driver’s seat.
Jonathan Eig provides the reader with a stunning book, as educational as it is entertaining. While not what some would call a biography, Eig delivers a great view over time of four key characters and the history of contraception. Each chapter proves highly educational, seeking to explain the advancements and regression in the development of oral contraception, while also highlighting the key needs for such a drug in the 1950s. Eig pulled out all the stops and refuses to turn prudish on the topic. The discussions, while scientific at times, proved easy to comprehend and keep the lay reader from drowning. I learned so much and have even more questions, which will ensure I look for more reading on the subject matter. One of the best non-human biographies I have read in a long time and it has me eager to see what else Jonathan Eig has in the realm of biographies. A must-read for anyone who wants to learn and can keep from being too prudish!
Kudos, Mr. Eig, for opening my mind to so much in this single tome.
Love/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at: http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/
August 9, 2015
It's always a joy to find a non-fiction book that's both engaging and informative.
Reading The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution reminded me very much of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks; chances are if you liked that book, you'll enjoy this one. In telling the story of the various people and processes that came together in order to introduce the birth control pill, Jonathan Eig offers a well-written, interesting narrative that fleshes out the various characters involved as well as the many challenges they faced. He also discusses the pill, and resistance to the pill, as a social phenomenon which is the piece that interested me most.
It's always interesting to think about social norms we take for granted, and how different things were just a couple of decades ago. Although Jonathan Eig acknowledges that the pill was as much a symptom of preexisting societal change as it was a catalyst for this change, it clearly played a definitive role in revolutionizing women's lives. I also thought it was fascinating to consider a point he made very briefly -- that although part of Margaret Sanger's agenda in pushing for the pill was to improve marriages, the divorce rate has shot up in the decades following the introduction of the pill. Although correlation is not causation, it's an interesting irony to contemplate.
Reading The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution reminded me very much of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks; chances are if you liked that book, you'll enjoy this one. In telling the story of the various people and processes that came together in order to introduce the birth control pill, Jonathan Eig offers a well-written, interesting narrative that fleshes out the various characters involved as well as the many challenges they faced. He also discusses the pill, and resistance to the pill, as a social phenomenon which is the piece that interested me most.
It's always interesting to think about social norms we take for granted, and how different things were just a couple of decades ago. Although Jonathan Eig acknowledges that the pill was as much a symptom of preexisting societal change as it was a catalyst for this change, it clearly played a definitive role in revolutionizing women's lives. I also thought it was fascinating to consider a point he made very briefly -- that although part of Margaret Sanger's agenda in pushing for the pill was to improve marriages, the divorce rate has shot up in the decades following the introduction of the pill. Although correlation is not causation, it's an interesting irony to contemplate.
March 17, 2017
Okay, this is one of the most interesting non-fiction books I have ever read. It felt like every fact that was brought up (which there are a lot of), I wanted to write down to save and remember. I even started to do that, but there's so many more that I am already forgetting. Not only is it interesting from a feminist perspective, I also thought the narrative of scientific experiments and trials, as well as the interaction that the development of the pill had with culture and eugenics, to be fascinating. This reads, in some ways, more like a story than a factual book, which makes it easy to get through. Margaret Sanger, Katharine McCormick, Gregory Pincus, and John Rock are all heroes in their own right, and their achievements with the pill has certainly had a long lasting impact. The development of new contraceptives and fertility treatments today are still being based off of Pincus' work.
I loved this book for a lot of reasons. The insight it gave into Margaret Sanger's original vision - women being able to have control over their bodies - as well as the shocking reality of what many women faced in the first half of the 20th century without control...the full impact of that hits while reading this book. Women that had no choice but to continue having children, even when it was at serious risk to their health, husbands who truthfully were unconcerned about that fact, and the choices they had to make, how much they suffered. It's terrifying to think of a time where womanhood was defined entirely by motherhood, and how many children one had. And when a woman had that many children, how much of a toll that took. In terms of interesting facts, we also see a side of Sanger as someone who was inconsiderate and heartless to an extent - Sanger believed that people should have to apply to the government in order to have children, and wished to sterilize unfit parents. (Yikes...) However, the transition of Sanger's perspective and women's reproductive rights from radical to more mainstream was interesting to read about.
I even found the scientific aspect to it (the initial experiments and trials, the manipulation of estrogen and progesterone) quite insightful to read about. It's quite something to read about a time when they didn't know much about how female hormones worked, and yet through scientific study with no legitimate funds from a medical or scientific establishment, they were able to figure it out and come up with a pill that inhibited conception. I developed quite a soft spot for John Rock, the Catholic doctor who was in charge of initial testing of the pill - the guy injected the progesterone combination into himself before starting the treatments on his patients, just so he could tell his patients how it would feel. Considering the fact that many of the male scientists and doctors didn't think the side effects were that big of a deal, since they wouldn't experience them themselves, this guy was hardcore. And in regards to random facts, my favourite was the fact that George H.W. Bush's father was the treasurer for Planned Parenthood in the 1940s - not only this, he was also a huge supporter of making birth control legal, and lost his first run in the Senate because of it. (This is hilarious to me, considering how much this guy's grandsons have appealed to the religious right against education on reproductive health).
Anyways, if this is a topic that's somewhat interesting to you at all, I'd definitely recommend!
I loved this book for a lot of reasons. The insight it gave into Margaret Sanger's original vision - women being able to have control over their bodies - as well as the shocking reality of what many women faced in the first half of the 20th century without control...the full impact of that hits while reading this book. Women that had no choice but to continue having children, even when it was at serious risk to their health, husbands who truthfully were unconcerned about that fact, and the choices they had to make, how much they suffered. It's terrifying to think of a time where womanhood was defined entirely by motherhood, and how many children one had. And when a woman had that many children, how much of a toll that took. In terms of interesting facts, we also see a side of Sanger as someone who was inconsiderate and heartless to an extent - Sanger believed that people should have to apply to the government in order to have children, and wished to sterilize unfit parents. (Yikes...) However, the transition of Sanger's perspective and women's reproductive rights from radical to more mainstream was interesting to read about.
I even found the scientific aspect to it (the initial experiments and trials, the manipulation of estrogen and progesterone) quite insightful to read about. It's quite something to read about a time when they didn't know much about how female hormones worked, and yet through scientific study with no legitimate funds from a medical or scientific establishment, they were able to figure it out and come up with a pill that inhibited conception. I developed quite a soft spot for John Rock, the Catholic doctor who was in charge of initial testing of the pill - the guy injected the progesterone combination into himself before starting the treatments on his patients, just so he could tell his patients how it would feel. Considering the fact that many of the male scientists and doctors didn't think the side effects were that big of a deal, since they wouldn't experience them themselves, this guy was hardcore. And in regards to random facts, my favourite was the fact that George H.W. Bush's father was the treasurer for Planned Parenthood in the 1940s - not only this, he was also a huge supporter of making birth control legal, and lost his first run in the Senate because of it. (This is hilarious to me, considering how much this guy's grandsons have appealed to the religious right against education on reproductive health).
Anyways, if this is a topic that's somewhat interesting to you at all, I'd definitely recommend!
November 12, 2014
This may be one of the (if not the) best micro-history non-fiction books I've ever read. This was fantastic.
A well-written page turner, with just enough heart and historical context to make it a truly understandable read. I'm not sure I can recommend this enough.
Eig focuses on 4 of the main actors in the search for the creation of a science-based, pill form of birth control. There is Margaret Sanger, the aging founder of Planned Parenthood; Katherine McCormick, one of the first women to graduate from MIT and the sole receiver of her husband's fortune; Dr. John Rock, a Catholic ob-gyn who also thought that birth control was not against church teachings, and also happened to be considered one of the best doctors in America; and Dr. Gregory Pincus, a Jewish scientist who was kicked out of Harvard for his experiments with in-vitro fertilization.
Eig brings all of these characters to life, along with snapshots of life in the 20's, 30's, 40's, 50's and 60's - adding just enough historical context so you understand the struggles these folks encountered, without adding in any snide remarks about how backwards thinking was back then.
I'm still always amazed today at the lack of knowledge we have about hormones, how they interact with the body, what their complete roles are and how each one affects other bodily processes, but can you image trying to create a hormonal birth control pill without knowing anything about how the processes worked? Pincus began work on the pill in the 1950's. And the experiments he did to prove the efficacy of the pill, by simply giving it to women would never pass any ethics committees today, but back then it was ok to randomly give asylum patients drugs that you had no idea of the effects of.
Still, it was really the four people that Eig focuses on that made this happen - without Pincus' scientific drive, without McCormick's money, without Rock's demeanour to prove the pill was safe, and without Sanger fighting for women's rights in the 1920's and beyond this never would have happened.
A truly fantastic and riveting read!
A well-written page turner, with just enough heart and historical context to make it a truly understandable read. I'm not sure I can recommend this enough.
Eig focuses on 4 of the main actors in the search for the creation of a science-based, pill form of birth control. There is Margaret Sanger, the aging founder of Planned Parenthood; Katherine McCormick, one of the first women to graduate from MIT and the sole receiver of her husband's fortune; Dr. John Rock, a Catholic ob-gyn who also thought that birth control was not against church teachings, and also happened to be considered one of the best doctors in America; and Dr. Gregory Pincus, a Jewish scientist who was kicked out of Harvard for his experiments with in-vitro fertilization.
Eig brings all of these characters to life, along with snapshots of life in the 20's, 30's, 40's, 50's and 60's - adding just enough historical context so you understand the struggles these folks encountered, without adding in any snide remarks about how backwards thinking was back then.
I'm still always amazed today at the lack of knowledge we have about hormones, how they interact with the body, what their complete roles are and how each one affects other bodily processes, but can you image trying to create a hormonal birth control pill without knowing anything about how the processes worked? Pincus began work on the pill in the 1950's. And the experiments he did to prove the efficacy of the pill, by simply giving it to women would never pass any ethics committees today, but back then it was ok to randomly give asylum patients drugs that you had no idea of the effects of.
Still, it was really the four people that Eig focuses on that made this happen - without Pincus' scientific drive, without McCormick's money, without Rock's demeanour to prove the pill was safe, and without Sanger fighting for women's rights in the 1920's and beyond this never would have happened.
A truly fantastic and riveting read!
did-not-finish
February 16, 2016Made it to page 85 and I'm bored to tears. So far this is reading more like a way-too-detailed biography of one of the main scientists behind the creation of the pill and I'm getting bogged down my too much info I don't care about. On to the next one!
January 11, 2015
I heard author Eig on Book TV tell about this book and knew I simply had to read it. Little did I know that I would find myself is almost every chapter!
I graduated from high school in 1953, married in 1955, and had my 4th child in 1961. Babies just kept coming. In 1961 two things happened: my husband had a vasectomy AND he went to work for Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical as a "detail man." It was not until then that we knew that a "pill" was on its way. He had to keep abreast of where P-D's "Norlestrin" was in the scheme of things. I certainly didn't need it but as soon as it was ready for release it would hopefully help put food on our table. To say that my little family expected it to be a big seller was an understatement.
I found myself in this entire book...going back to my teen years and the mores and restrictions that were in place for females. Not a whiff of the "Feminine Mystique" or Women's Lib issues were in the air. Those young families whose men had just come home from Korea, women were just having babies, and buying houses were just exactly as portrayed in Eig's book. I was there. It is hard to remember now just how restrictive things were. We just did things because that is what almost everyone did. Most of us had no idea how much a single pill in the development stage was going to change our world.
The best thing that Eig does is to make the story of the pill's travails in getting developed and approved really readable by peopling the events with interesting, likeable folk, those who worked long and hard and just didn't quit. Eig writes so that scientifically-challened folk like me can understand - and truly enjoy - his book.
People of my generation will find themselves remembering....and younger generations will be saying, "You've got to be kidding!" Yep, it's all there. Great reading. Very interesting. Kudos to Eig for this great book.
I graduated from high school in 1953, married in 1955, and had my 4th child in 1961. Babies just kept coming. In 1961 two things happened: my husband had a vasectomy AND he went to work for Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical as a "detail man." It was not until then that we knew that a "pill" was on its way. He had to keep abreast of where P-D's "Norlestrin" was in the scheme of things. I certainly didn't need it but as soon as it was ready for release it would hopefully help put food on our table. To say that my little family expected it to be a big seller was an understatement.
I found myself in this entire book...going back to my teen years and the mores and restrictions that were in place for females. Not a whiff of the "Feminine Mystique" or Women's Lib issues were in the air. Those young families whose men had just come home from Korea, women were just having babies, and buying houses were just exactly as portrayed in Eig's book. I was there. It is hard to remember now just how restrictive things were. We just did things because that is what almost everyone did. Most of us had no idea how much a single pill in the development stage was going to change our world.
The best thing that Eig does is to make the story of the pill's travails in getting developed and approved really readable by peopling the events with interesting, likeable folk, those who worked long and hard and just didn't quit. Eig writes so that scientifically-challened folk like me can understand - and truly enjoy - his book.
People of my generation will find themselves remembering....and younger generations will be saying, "You've got to be kidding!" Yep, it's all there. Great reading. Very interesting. Kudos to Eig for this great book.
May 30, 2015
Straightforward, solidly-written and -researched history of the birth control pill. Eig brings together the major players, the culture at the time, and the salient facts that ultimately culminated in the pill being brought to market -- which includes some surprisingly shady behavior from those involved. The narrative is a bit bumpy with some confusing chronology and hamfisted attempts at cliffhangers, and there is nothing especially impressive about the prose. Once in a while, Eig’s own unconscious sexism shows, and there are a couple hanging questions -- did he interview any of the women involved with the “research” done on the pill? That seemed like an obvious missing piece. Nonetheless, this is an informative book about an interesting subject.
October 24, 2016
Quotable:
Sex for the pleasure of women? To many, that idea was as unthinkable in 1950 as putting a man on the moon or playing baseball on plastic grass. Worse, it was dangerous. What would happen to the institutions of marriage and family? What would happen to love? If women had the power to control their own bodies, if they had the ability to choose when and whether they got pregnant, what would they want next? Two thousand years of Christianity and three hundred years of American Puritanism would come undone in an explosion of uncontrollable desire. Marriage vows would lose their meaning. The rules and roles of gender would be revocable.
Sciences would do what law so far had not; it would give women the chance to become equal partners with men.
[W]hen it comes to sex, the human is a fantastically strange animal worth studying in fine detail. While most mammals use sex only for reproduction, humans, for reasons we still don’t fully understand, have evolved to use sex for recreation as well as procreation. And that has made our lives much more exciting than those of our ape cousins.
When critics attacked her for promoting promiscuity, [Margaret] Sanger said she was no more to blame than Henry Ford, whose automobiles made it easier for men and women to slip away to towns where they wouldn’t be recognized and commit adultery, often in the backseats of their cars.
In attempting to give women the power to rule their own bodies, [Margaret] Sanger was in fact launching a human rights campaign that would have a world-changing impact, reshaping everything, including family, politics, and the economy. Once they gained control of their reproductive systems, they would go the next step: They would declare their own identities. Womanhood would no longer mean the same thing as motherhood. Women would delay pregnancy to attend college, travel the world, start jobs, launch magazines, write books, record albums, make movies, or anything else they could imagine. Sanger knew what birth control might do – some of it, anyway. Neither she nor anyone else could have imagined how birth control would also contribute to the spread of divorce, infidelity, single parenthood, abortion, and pornography. Like any revolutionary, she was willing to tolerate a certain degree of chaos.
Prescott S. Bush, a Connecticut businessman whose son and grandson would both become U.S. presidents, served as treasurer for Planned Parenthood’s first national fundraising campaign in 1947.
“Religion,” he [John Rock] used to tell his daughter, “is a very poor scientist.”
To change a woman’s cycle, one Searle official said, perhaps sensitive to the concerns of the company’s Catholic customers, would be “going against Nature.” [refrigeration?]
Regardless of her motives, [Margaret] Sanger’s loyalty to the eugenicists presented a dilemma, because a birth-control pill was not really what the eugenicists wanted or needed. As some eugenicists were savvy enough to point out, a birth-control pill, no matter how inexpensive, would probably appeal most to well-educated and wealthy women. These were precisely the women that eugenicists wanted to see having more children, not fewer.
[H]e [Dr. Gregory Pincus] told his female students they were required as part of their coursework to enroll in the clinical trial and if any of them stopped taking the pills and submitting to the urine tests, temperature readings, and Pap smears, he would “hold it against her when considering grades.”
Diaphragms, condoms and IUDs did not cause nausea or other side effects, but they did cause pregnancy because they had such high failure rates, and pregnancy came with its own long list of serious side effects, including preeclampsia, diabetes, hypertension, and heart attack. To analyze the risks of the birth-control pill effectively, one had to factor in the complications for women not using it.
After weighing all those factors, [Dr. Edward] Tyler concluded that unwanted pregnancies would do more harm than the oil. He urged the FDA to approve it.
If sex for pleasure were permitted, Paul VI explained, moral standards would inevitable slide. Husbands would lose respect for their wives. Wives would lose respect for their husbands. Infidelity would flourish. The foundation of marriage would be weakened, perhaps catastrophically. Also, the pope said, if contraception became an accepted tool to control family size, oppressive governments might use it to coerce families to have fewer children.
Sex for the pleasure of women? To many, that idea was as unthinkable in 1950 as putting a man on the moon or playing baseball on plastic grass. Worse, it was dangerous. What would happen to the institutions of marriage and family? What would happen to love? If women had the power to control their own bodies, if they had the ability to choose when and whether they got pregnant, what would they want next? Two thousand years of Christianity and three hundred years of American Puritanism would come undone in an explosion of uncontrollable desire. Marriage vows would lose their meaning. The rules and roles of gender would be revocable.
Sciences would do what law so far had not; it would give women the chance to become equal partners with men.
[W]hen it comes to sex, the human is a fantastically strange animal worth studying in fine detail. While most mammals use sex only for reproduction, humans, for reasons we still don’t fully understand, have evolved to use sex for recreation as well as procreation. And that has made our lives much more exciting than those of our ape cousins.
When critics attacked her for promoting promiscuity, [Margaret] Sanger said she was no more to blame than Henry Ford, whose automobiles made it easier for men and women to slip away to towns where they wouldn’t be recognized and commit adultery, often in the backseats of their cars.
In attempting to give women the power to rule their own bodies, [Margaret] Sanger was in fact launching a human rights campaign that would have a world-changing impact, reshaping everything, including family, politics, and the economy. Once they gained control of their reproductive systems, they would go the next step: They would declare their own identities. Womanhood would no longer mean the same thing as motherhood. Women would delay pregnancy to attend college, travel the world, start jobs, launch magazines, write books, record albums, make movies, or anything else they could imagine. Sanger knew what birth control might do – some of it, anyway. Neither she nor anyone else could have imagined how birth control would also contribute to the spread of divorce, infidelity, single parenthood, abortion, and pornography. Like any revolutionary, she was willing to tolerate a certain degree of chaos.
Prescott S. Bush, a Connecticut businessman whose son and grandson would both become U.S. presidents, served as treasurer for Planned Parenthood’s first national fundraising campaign in 1947.
“Religion,” he [John Rock] used to tell his daughter, “is a very poor scientist.”
To change a woman’s cycle, one Searle official said, perhaps sensitive to the concerns of the company’s Catholic customers, would be “going against Nature.” [refrigeration?]
Regardless of her motives, [Margaret] Sanger’s loyalty to the eugenicists presented a dilemma, because a birth-control pill was not really what the eugenicists wanted or needed. As some eugenicists were savvy enough to point out, a birth-control pill, no matter how inexpensive, would probably appeal most to well-educated and wealthy women. These were precisely the women that eugenicists wanted to see having more children, not fewer.
[H]e [Dr. Gregory Pincus] told his female students they were required as part of their coursework to enroll in the clinical trial and if any of them stopped taking the pills and submitting to the urine tests, temperature readings, and Pap smears, he would “hold it against her when considering grades.”
Diaphragms, condoms and IUDs did not cause nausea or other side effects, but they did cause pregnancy because they had such high failure rates, and pregnancy came with its own long list of serious side effects, including preeclampsia, diabetes, hypertension, and heart attack. To analyze the risks of the birth-control pill effectively, one had to factor in the complications for women not using it.
After weighing all those factors, [Dr. Edward] Tyler concluded that unwanted pregnancies would do more harm than the oil. He urged the FDA to approve it.
If sex for pleasure were permitted, Paul VI explained, moral standards would inevitable slide. Husbands would lose respect for their wives. Wives would lose respect for their husbands. Infidelity would flourish. The foundation of marriage would be weakened, perhaps catastrophically. Also, the pope said, if contraception became an accepted tool to control family size, oppressive governments might use it to coerce families to have fewer children.
January 30, 2016
This book tells a moderately interesting story in a strong narrative voice.
Eig tells us of four people - - a feminist (Margaret Sanger), a millionaire, a researcher, and a Catholic doctor who have the goal of developing a pill that prevents pregnancy. Pincus, the researcher, is to me, the most interesting. He is a man who fails and fails (at multiple things) and yet never gives up his very pioneering spirit and ultimately achieves his goals. I found his story inspirational.
McCormick, a wealthy widow, also fascinated me. She was determined to do something amazing with her money, and she does. She is a person who truly empowered the creation of the pill. She was generous, curious, scientifically minded, but she also didn't put constraints on how her money was used and was willing to give more at every turn. I think more than anyone else, we owe her for the development of the pill.
One of the most intriguing parts to this tale is the fact that the development of the pill all took place during a period when birth control was not even legal. I have to confess that I didn't even birth control was illegal for as long as it was. Frightening really. Glad I was born in the 60's!
Eig has written a good read, but I notice his other two books are about baseball. Of which I am a big fan. So I'm inclined to try those out. This topic really isn't for everyone, but if you have an interest in feminism, I'd definitely recommend it as a great way to absorb some of the history of that movement.
Eig tells us of four people - - a feminist (Margaret Sanger), a millionaire, a researcher, and a Catholic doctor who have the goal of developing a pill that prevents pregnancy. Pincus, the researcher, is to me, the most interesting. He is a man who fails and fails (at multiple things) and yet never gives up his very pioneering spirit and ultimately achieves his goals. I found his story inspirational.
McCormick, a wealthy widow, also fascinated me. She was determined to do something amazing with her money, and she does. She is a person who truly empowered the creation of the pill. She was generous, curious, scientifically minded, but she also didn't put constraints on how her money was used and was willing to give more at every turn. I think more than anyone else, we owe her for the development of the pill.
One of the most intriguing parts to this tale is the fact that the development of the pill all took place during a period when birth control was not even legal. I have to confess that I didn't even birth control was illegal for as long as it was. Frightening really. Glad I was born in the 60's!
Eig has written a good read, but I notice his other two books are about baseball. Of which I am a big fan. So I'm inclined to try those out. This topic really isn't for everyone, but if you have an interest in feminism, I'd definitely recommend it as a great way to absorb some of the history of that movement.
December 22, 2017
This book contains a lot more information than I needed or wanted to know about the development of the birth control pill. It focuses on four people who were central in The effort. Most of the scientific research happened in the 1950s and involved very little money that mostly came from one woman. One of the interesting things is that there is not a patent on the pill as the major developer chose not to obtain one. Another interesting thing is that Planned Parenthood and its predecessors did not play a major role. They were not even particularly supportive. And of course there is the oppositional role of the Catholic Church.
The role of the FDA is also interesting and is explained in some detail. There was surprisingly little testing on humans and quite a bit of that was done in Puerto Rico. It is interesting to compare the regulation of the drug industry then as compared to present day. The approval of the pill happened rather quickly and was only initially approved for dealing with menstrual problems. The birth control aspect was a secondary usage.
As a person who came of age in the 60s, this book contained a good deal of informative details about an aspect of life contraception that was cloaked in mystery And even illegality for many years. How this drug was developed is a most interesting story. Considering the dramatic impact the birth control pill has had on the world, this book is written with surprisingly little drama and exclamation.
The role of the FDA is also interesting and is explained in some detail. There was surprisingly little testing on humans and quite a bit of that was done in Puerto Rico. It is interesting to compare the regulation of the drug industry then as compared to present day. The approval of the pill happened rather quickly and was only initially approved for dealing with menstrual problems. The birth control aspect was a secondary usage.
As a person who came of age in the 60s, this book contained a good deal of informative details about an aspect of life contraception that was cloaked in mystery And even illegality for many years. How this drug was developed is a most interesting story. Considering the dramatic impact the birth control pill has had on the world, this book is written with surprisingly little drama and exclamation.
July 27, 2022
Kind of an odd read. I might recommend this to someone interested in the history of birth control in the US, but I think I would lean towards something more like American and the Pill by Elaine Tyler May, rather than this text.
While this book is full of interesting information about how the creation of the birth control pill came about, after doing more research on the subject I would agree with other critics by saying that it seems to lack an intersectional lens. Like many books in this literature, I would say it leans toward a white, cishet, and middle-class recollection of historical events.
One clear issue was the failure to condemn Margaret Sanger's connections to eugenics at the time. While this is certainly a nuanced subject (eugenics was the most commonly upheld belief at the time, though that is no reason to endorse it as having any sort of legitimacy), Eig seems to breeze over this fact without elaboration longer than a couple of paragraphs. If Planned Parenthood has gone so far as to remove her name from the original clinic she founded because of her connections, Eig could have talked about the ethics of her involvement for more than a moment.
Additionally, this is more of an observation than a criticism, but Eig is a journalist, not a feminist historian, and a cisgender white man. I believe that this has greatly informed the text; unlike other books I've read on the subject (those written by feminist historians), I find that Eig lacks oral histories, a historically matrilineal way to convey information. He uses facts and historical documents to paint a picture for us, giving us imagined dialog from our main characters.
Overall, this text is a decent foundation, but I feel as though it lacks social context; the way black and brown people experience the changing scene of reproductive justice in America is vastly different from white women's experiences. Plus, queer and trans people have very different experiences as well. Simply, this book seems to lack that vital context.
September 19, 2016
It was rather horrifying to read about the plight of women in the early 20th century (and before), forced to have child after child because of a lack of understanding about the workings of human reproduction, with the additional taboo added on preventing women from even talking about such things, or suggesting that they have control over their own bodies. How heartbreaking to learn about woman after woman having 5 or 8 kids (or risking back alley abortions) because she couldn't say no to her husband, or because he refused to cooperate with her using the contraceptive methods available at the time. Even more distressing was the rise in dangerous hysterectomies because that was seen as the only sure-fire way to prevent pregnancy.
I really appreciated that Eig told this story, placing it within the context of the birth control movement and the sexual revolution, and shining the proper light on our intrepid scientists and the visionary heroines behind them. It is amazing that Pincus & Co succeeded in their quest, in spite of the morality and laws of the day, which basically made any sort of progress on a chemical method of birth control impossible.
Very rarely have I been more glad to be a modern woman than while reading this book. I have many forms of safe and effective birth control available to me, including the pill and others that are completely within my power (meaning that I can utilize them without requiring the cooperation of my partner). However, it's more than a bit infuriating to know that these options are still being restricted and attacked by politicians (mostly men, it seems).
I really appreciated that Eig told this story, placing it within the context of the birth control movement and the sexual revolution, and shining the proper light on our intrepid scientists and the visionary heroines behind them. It is amazing that Pincus & Co succeeded in their quest, in spite of the morality and laws of the day, which basically made any sort of progress on a chemical method of birth control impossible.
Very rarely have I been more glad to be a modern woman than while reading this book. I have many forms of safe and effective birth control available to me, including the pill and others that are completely within my power (meaning that I can utilize them without requiring the cooperation of my partner). However, it's more than a bit infuriating to know that these options are still being restricted and attacked by politicians (mostly men, it seems).
April 24, 2018
A reading group had picked this book for discussion and though I did not know very much about the history of the pill, it looked interesting and I love a good non-fiction book. Well, I was blown away at how well written and interesting this book was. The story revolves around the four main players in the development of the birth control pill. First, we have Margaret Sanger, well known women’s activist who opened the first birth control clinic and who brought in Katharine McCormick whose husband was the son of the founder of International Harvester and had deep pockets to fund the research. Gregory Pincus was the third player and was approached by the two women because as a scientist, he had experience in in vitro fertilization. Then there was the charismatic John Rock, physician and Catholic who was recruited to investigate the use of progesterone in developing a pill that could prevent ovulation. Between the four of them, the birth control pill eventually became a reality. Highly recommended!
January 23, 2017
(4.5/5)
The only criticisms I have have for this book are that at times it was a little repetitive, and I found the timeline jumped around a bit too much for my liking. That being said the story of the creation of the pill is truly fascinating and as a young woman in my twenties, the idea that the pill was at one point in time highly controversial had never really occurred to me until I heard of this book. Eig has done an amazing job of turning these four crucial figures into fully realised people, and not simply historical figures, and i'm honestly surprised I didn't know more about them until now. It's incredible to read about how one of the most important advancements for both women and science came from an unlikely group of people who simply refused to give up or take no for an answer.
The only criticisms I have have for this book are that at times it was a little repetitive, and I found the timeline jumped around a bit too much for my liking. That being said the story of the creation of the pill is truly fascinating and as a young woman in my twenties, the idea that the pill was at one point in time highly controversial had never really occurred to me until I heard of this book. Eig has done an amazing job of turning these four crucial figures into fully realised people, and not simply historical figures, and i'm honestly surprised I didn't know more about them until now. It's incredible to read about how one of the most important advancements for both women and science came from an unlikely group of people who simply refused to give up or take no for an answer.
October 23, 2017
I enjoyed reading about the history of the development of the birth control pill, but was disappointed by several tone-deaf moments in the book. There were small uncomfortable details, such as weird descriptions of women's sex lives or physical appearances, and larger oversights, such as Eig's failure to fully address the botched ethics of the whole endeavor (including but not limited to: paternalistic decision making, racism and ableism in subject selection, lack of informed consent from test subjects, false presentation of results, etc.) It was really important to learn about this chapter of history, but I don't think Eig did the material justice (I mean...his parenthetical about how Margaret Sanger wasn't racist?? REALLY?!) Unfortunately I just felt very conscious throughout that this book was written by a white man.
January 28, 2015
Pretty amazing details that I never knew - like the fact that research on the pill was basically funded and fueled by older, wealthy women! Plenty of great insights into something that profoundly changed the prospects for women -- and a rapid read, which was a pleasant surprise. An excellent read given today's political climate as well -- to remind us of what women have achieved.
November 4, 2016
So good to get back into reading non-fiction again. This is an educational and very readable history of the birth control pill, from its clinical development to its obstacles with the Catholic Church and its debate about its morality. But no one can argue that it hasn't made a huge difference in women's lives, rights, health, and ultimate sexual freedom.
January 1, 2022
Really interesting and I learned a lot, but didn’t feel like the treatment of the ethics (or lack thereof) of the Puerto Rico trials or Margaret Sanger’s views on eugenics were particularly strong
November 12, 2020
Niewiele osób zdaje sobie sprawę z przełomu, jaki przyniosło wynalezienie pigułki antykoncepcyjnej. Umożliwiła ona po raz pierwszy kobietom przejęcie kontroli nad własnym ciałem, a co za tym idzie - własnym życiem. Choć dziś jest ona prozaiczną częścią naszej codzienności na początku musiała zmierzyć się z wieloma trudnościami i społecznym oporem, który pokazuje autor "Narodzin pigułki" prowadząc nas od samego powstania pomysłu w głowie Margaret Sanger po wypuszczenie na rynek pierwszej tabletki w 1960 roku. Reportaż skupia się nie tylko badaniach i eksperymentach, jakie towarzyszyły jej przyjściu na świat, ale przybliża także społeczno-polityczne okoliczności oraz portretuje jej twórców. Choć bywa repetycyjna i ma skłonności do zagłębiania się w nieistotne dygresje to jednak jest to niesamowicie fascynująca lektura pokazująca, jak fundamentalne znaczenie miał ten "mały wynalazek", który całkowicie odmienił nasze społeczeństwo.
January 21, 2024
Johnathan Eig does his research and tells a good narrative. The pill coming about was a little bit of luck and whole lot of persistence in science. Margaret’s Sanger pushed the pill to allow women the choice to control their pregnancy. Although she buddied up a little too close to eugenics and left her own family she continued to push for this to be available. The Pill kickstarted a generation of women who wanted more control of themselves. The catholic church was very against any form of birth control and this was no exception. It’s also interesting to note that the FDA was dragging their feet on approving this for contraception control but not for menstrual irregularity. This is also the time when thalidomide was being given with little to know thought on side effects. Very interesting history here. This was a book of imperfect people trying to help woman each in their own way. It wasn’t perfect but important to each of the four people mentioned in the book
July 16, 2019
Would super recommend, but gets a little slow when talking about the pharmaceutical approval process
Worth remembering:
* Katherine McCormick, after financially supporting the entirety of birth control research, built an undergraduate dorm for women at MIT — she dedicated it to her late husband, Stanley McCormick, which makes me think of it like an ugly Taj Mahal
* George bush’s grandfather (George h.w. bush’s father!) was a huge proponent of planned parenthood and served as their first treasurer
Worth remembering:
* Katherine McCormick, after financially supporting the entirety of birth control research, built an undergraduate dorm for women at MIT — she dedicated it to her late husband, Stanley McCormick, which makes me think of it like an ugly Taj Mahal
* George bush’s grandfather (George h.w. bush’s father!) was a huge proponent of planned parenthood and served as their first treasurer
March 14, 2024
It was an easy read, which I consumed quite fast. However, initially I thought that I would get to know more about a pill itself, not authors of it. I should have known, after checking the list of books written by the author, that the plot would be actual different. Nevertheless, I learnt some new facts about contraception and, what is more important, vast possibilities to not having it yet until this day (what makes me feel awful). Last but not least, I do agree with other readers that the persona of Margaret Sanger i.e. her attitude towards eugenics ideas and her own family, was „whitened” by the author.
October 1, 2024
This book really rocked. I’m not a big nonfiction person but The Pill is so interesting and deeply relevant to our cesspool of a political climate. This book chronicles the grit of 4 folks who championed the creation of the birth control pill. These 4 folks really envisioned a future and MADE it be so. It’s enlightening and inspiring. It is hard, though, to even imagine a time where million/billionaires use their fortune to fund empowerment and access- like Katherine McCormick did to create the pill!!! Meanwhile we have the biggest dumpster fires spending their billions going to space pretending to be NASA. So annoying.But fun to read about a time where this wasn’t the case. And overall really informative and well written book. Would recommend !!!
July 21, 2024
3.5 stars. I feel like I learned a lot and honestly the story is pretty crazy, it’s also quite disturbing to know that the pill that I have taken and so many other woman have taken was tested on women in mental institutions with no choice and women in impoverished slums in puerto rico who felt like they had no choice. But the writing was not incredible, I felt that it was very winding and was often confused on the timeline. I would have preferred to read this as a long article.
November 7, 2014
The Birth of the Pill is an absolutely fascinating history of not only what must be the most important technical development of the 20th century, but a look at so many concepts that have changed over the last 60 years. The size and control of pharmaceutical companies. The lack of money involved except for Searle and Jack Searle who showed great bravery. I did not realize that in most parts of the world, birth control was illegal. Certainly in most states. I also did not realize that Margaret Sanger was really the crusader behind the development of a more effective birth control method. The pill would not have happened without Katherine McCormick who used her family money finance this development and not as an investment but as a way to free women from birthing unwanted children. That added to the fact that politically the Republicans tended to be behind this development (albeit for reasons of Eugenics). I had no idea what was going to fascinate me about this book was not the development of the pill but all the social and political forces this development sailed through. I read the book Polio which did the same thing to me, I read it to get technical info and got caught up in all the social history including the development of the first non-profit the March of Dimes and FDR's role. This is fascinating stuff. Kudos for the author for picking the topic, but he is pretty detailed and not always the best story teller. There are a few history writers I would have liked to see get hold of this story. That said, it is still a must and fascinating read.
August 3, 2023
I wasn't expecting to see any of my own experiences reflected in this book, a timely must-read on the history of the birth control pill. But indeed, the most valuable lesson I took from Jonathan Eig's fascinating and well-written story was that politics matters, science matters, and social justice matters. When I was a young woman in the 80s, I had a Catholic doctor who refused to prescribe the Pill even when there was a non-contraceptive medical need, forcing me to go to Planned Parenthood for a prescription. Today, that very Planned Parenthood in the Midwest is under constant assault.
As the country inexplicably continues to debate whether or not women should have easy access to birth control, in what form, and who pays for it, Eig's sensitive exploration of the important role that oral contraceptives can play in women's lives struck home. We are living in a scary time for women, especially low-income women, and this book shows that compassionately fighting for reproductive justice, by using science and clever politicking, can make a massive difference.
Having worked on addressing issues involving past government-sponsored human experiments, I also found the methods of testing the drugs without informed consent highly disturbing and am glad for the modern oversight system put into place since those days.
This book reads like a novel but is informative, politically important, and enlightening. Highly recommended.
As the country inexplicably continues to debate whether or not women should have easy access to birth control, in what form, and who pays for it, Eig's sensitive exploration of the important role that oral contraceptives can play in women's lives struck home. We are living in a scary time for women, especially low-income women, and this book shows that compassionately fighting for reproductive justice, by using science and clever politicking, can make a massive difference.
Having worked on addressing issues involving past government-sponsored human experiments, I also found the methods of testing the drugs without informed consent highly disturbing and am glad for the modern oversight system put into place since those days.
This book reads like a novel but is informative, politically important, and enlightening. Highly recommended.
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