On May 9, 1960, the FDA announced its approval of the contraceptive pill. Soon after, the first birth control pill, Enovid, released by G.D. Searle, hit the market in the United States.
The Birth of the Pill by Jonathan Eig traces the fascinating history of its development. The genesis involved tireless efforts by feminist Margaret Sanger, the wealthy Katherine McCormick, Dr. Frankenstein-like biologist Gregory Pincus and Catholic gynecologist John Rock.
While there would be people who would hate the four crusaders, others would benefit from the freedom the pill provided them. In the pilot episode of Mad Men, which vividly depicted the year 1960, Peggy Olsen visits a gynecologist and gets a prescription for Enovid.
Talk by Linda Rosenkrantz nicely captures conversations about sex, psychedelics, books and sculptures among three artistic friends in the summer of 1965, post-pill, before Girls and Broad City.
In The Girls Who Went Away, Ann Fessler explores the devastating impact of the lack of information women were provided about their bodies and the lack of access to birth control. She shares the experiences of young single women who were forced to give up their children for adoption between 1945 and 1973.
My favorite factoid during this era is the connection between the man behind Wonder Woman and Margaret Sanger. While doing her research about the history of Planned Parenthood, New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore uncovered that Wonder Woman creator William Moulton Marston was inspired by the women's suffrage movement and Margaret Sanger, who happened to be his mistress's aunt. She reveals more in The Secret History of Wonder Woman.
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