What Every Girl Should Know

pamphlet by Sanger

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June 17, 2026

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"What Every Girl Should Know" was a pamphlet published by Margaret Sanger in 1914 for the New York Call. It was part of her broader effort to provide sex education and advocate for birth control in the United States. Sanger, a nurse, was motivated by witnessing the detrimental effects of uncontrolled fertility on women and families, including poverty, high mortality rates, and deaths from illegal abortions.12

The pamphlet aimed to educate young women about reproductive health and contraception, challenging the legal barriers that prevented such information from being widely disseminated. Sanger's work in this area led to her arrest and imprisonment, but it also helped to galvanize public support for the birth control movement, eventually leading to legal reforms that allowed physicians to prescribe contraceptives.12

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Margaret Sanger
…on the topics, including “What Every Girl Should Know” for the New York Call. In 1914 she issued a short-lived magazine, The Woman Rebel, and distributed a pamphlet, Family Limitation, advocating her views. She was indicted for mailing materials advocating birth control, but the charges were dropped in 1916.…
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…on the topics, including “What Every Girl Should Know” for the New York Call. In 1914 she issued a short-lived magazine, The Woman Rebel, and distributed a pamphlet, Family Limitation, advocating her views. She was indicted for mailing materials advocating birth control, but the charges were dropped in 1916.…
Read More