| Abstract |
This collection includes documents from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, dating from its founding in the early part of the twentieth century to 1974. Today, Planned Parenthood is the nation's largest provider of reproductive health-care services. Meeting minutes, articles, speeches, and other media reflect the early history of the birth-control movement in the United States with files from the archives of several of Planned Parenthood's forerunners, including the American Birth Control League and the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau. These two organizations merged in 1939 to form the Birth Control Federation of America, which in 1942 was renamed the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA). This organizational history is traced in detail in this collection. Legal materials--briefs, decisions, correspondence, memoranda, and reports--document the organization's efforts from 1931 to 1941 to educate the public and to legalize birth control. Meeting minutes, conference notes, and administrative files from 1943 to 1947 shed light on how the PPFA reorganized and adjusted its mission to meet the changing needs of Americans following the Second World War. Also included here are the PPFA's correspondence, mailings and subject files. These files depict the workings of the birth control movement in the 1930s and 1940s as the organization sought out the assistance of other agencies, many of which were reluctant to publicly collaborate. Materials include abstracted articles on maternal health from 1937 to 1947, as well as subject files on the organization's pursuit of more effective and affordable means of birth control. The correspondence files offer insight into the people behind the policies and how programs were established. Administrative records from the archives of a variety of related organizations, such as the National Committee on Material Health and the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control, reveal the inner workings of PPFA's collaborators and forerunners. The records in this collection provide unique insight into the founding of PPFA and how it competed and cooperated with other family-planning organizations, government agencies, corporate enterprises, and individuals throughout the twentieth century. |
