Women’s Rights
In the letter below
sent to Margaret Sanger, Emma
Goldman consoles
Sanger on the sudden death of her five-year-old
daughter Peggy, and urges her to gather her
strength and to continue her work on the
birth control question, which “has
taken hold of the public as never before.” Its
“hold” was
especially strong in the Lower East Side
immigrant community in which Sanger worked
as a visiting nurse.
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Emma
Goldman (1869-1940) to
Margaret Sanger (1879-1966).
Typescript letter, December 7, 1915.
Margaret Sanger Papers.
Manuscript Division |
The two Yiddish plays below — Birth
Control or Race Suicide and A
Woman's Duty in Birth Control — were
both submitted for copyright deposit at
the Library of Congress. Both plays were
written in the same year that Margaret
Sanger and others opened America's first
birth-control clinic in Brooklyn, New York.
Women were alerted to the clinic’s opening
through the distribution of five thousand
leaflets in English, Italian, and Yiddish.
Police closed the clinic within ten days. Birth
Control or Race Suicide,
by the prolific playwright Harry Kalmanowitz,
was performed in 1916 at New York's Roof
Garden Theater.
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Harry Kalmanowitz.
Geburth Kontrol, oder, Rassen zelbstmord
[Birth Control or Race Suicide], 1916.
Playscript, cast page.
Hebraic Section |
Samuel
B. Grossman.
Di
Flikhten fun a froy in geburt kontrol
[A Woman's Duty in Birth Control: A Drama in Four Acts].
Chicago, 1916.
Copy of playscript title page.
Hebraic
Section |
A leading American feminist and human rights
activist, Bella
Abzug (1920-1988) served
in Congress from 1970 to 1976. In the years
that followed, she headed the National Advisory
Committee on Women, founded Women, USA, and
co-founded the Women's Environment and Development
Organization.
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This
Woman's Place is in the House
-The House of Representatives! Bella
Abzug for Congress,
between 1971 and 1976
Offset lithograph poster
Yanker Poster Collection
Prints and Photographs
Division |
The handwritten draft resolution
below brought the National Council of Jewish
Women (NCJW) into existence at the conclusion
of the Jewish Women's Congress at the World
Parliament of Religions during the 1893 World’s
Columbian Exposition in Chicago. As outlined
in the resolution, the organization's purpose
was to “further the best and highest
interests of Judaism and humanity.” To that
end, the NCJW organized vocational and industrial
classes for immigrant children and sponsored
free libraries, employment bureaus, kindergartens,
and nurseries. With the influx of the great
wave of immigrants at the beginning of the
twentieth century, the NCJW focused its efforts
on caring for incoming single girls. The
Council maintained a presence at Ellis Island
and had representatives in some 250 cities
and European ports to assist the young women
when problems arose.
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Draft
Resolution establishing the
National Council of Jewish Women,
September 7, 1893.
Manuscript document.
Hannah G. Solomon Papers.
Manuscript Division
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Pictured on this postcard below are Hannah
Greenebaum Solomon (seated), her
daughter Helen S. Levy, and granddaughter
Frances Levy Angel. The lives of these three
activists illustrate the multigenerational
component of social reform work among women.
Hannah Solomon was the founder of the National
Council of Jewish Women. Her daughter Helen
Levy was also active in the NCJW and involved
in establishing day nurseries for working
mothers, promoting public education in Chicago,
and participating in the Women's International
League for Peace and Freedom. Frances Angel
founded the Charleston, West Virginia, section
of the NCJW, served on the Council's national
board, and promoted remedial reading programs
and public health initiatives.
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Hannah
Solomon and her daughter Helen
S. Levy and granddaughter Frances
Levy Angel.
Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1918. P
hotographic postcard.
Hannah G. Solomon Papers.
Manuscript Division
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Sources: Library
of Congress
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