NPG director Martin Sullivan discusses a sculpture of Margaret Sanger by Joy Buba, on view at the National Portrait Gallery in the exhibition "20th Century Americans"
NPG director Martin Sullivan discusses a sculpture of Margaret Sanger by Joy Buba, on view at the National Portrait Gallery in the exhibition "20th Century Americans." As a visiting nurse among the immigrants of New York City's Lower East Side in the early 1900s, Margaret Sanger was profoundly affected by the physical and mental toll exacted on women by frequent childbirth, miscarriage, and self-induced abortion. Sanger declared that "no woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother." She spent the rest of her life promoting the availability and use of birth control and is recognized nationally and internationally as a leader in the field. Recorded at NPG, July 9, 2009. Image info:
Margaret Higgins Sanger / Joy Buba / Bronze, 1972 cast after 1964 original / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Mrs. Cordelia Scaife May