Margaret Sanger fuels the fire in 1920

When Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, blazed through Pennsylvania throughout the 1920s on her birth control crusade, she ignited the passions of visionary women and men wherever she spoke. Together these courageous individuals picked up Sanger’s banner and carried it forward in the battle against ignorance, prejudice and outmoded law.

Meeting in private homes when rental halls refused her, Sanger’s converts gathered to hear of her experiences and to debate the issues of the day: Is birth control right and moral? Do the working classes really need birth control? Can the legislature be persuaded to allow physicians to dispense contraceptive advice?

Fueled by their compassion for women absolutely desperate to put an end to relentless childbearing and to the poverty and ill health which went hand in hand, they first defied public opinion, then swayed it.

What began January 10, 1922, when the Berks County Branch of the Pennsylvania Birth Control Federation organized to bring Mrs. Sanger’s message "every child, a wanted child" to the community, and what continues today in Planned Parenthood of North East Pennsylvania, is the embodiment of a deep concern for the health and welfare of women and families.