The Discipline and Disciplining of Margaret Sanger: US Birth Control Rhetoric in the Early Twentieth Century C
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2004 The discipline and disciplining of Margaret Sanger: US birth control rhetoric in the early twentieth century C. Wesley Buerkle Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Communication Commons Recommended Citation Buerkle, C. Wesley, "The discipline and disciplining of Margaret Sanger: US birth control rhetoric in the early twentieth century" (2004). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 1297. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/1297 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. THE DISCIPLINE AND DISCIPLINING OF MARGARET SANGER: US BIRTH CONTROL RHETORIC IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Communication Studies by C. Wesley Buerkle BA, Biola University, 1997 MA, Arizona State University, 2000 December 2004 ©Copyright 2004 Carl Wesley Buerkle, II All Rights Reserved ii To my foremothers. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I could not have completed this project had I not enjoyed the support of my committee, my friends, research resources, and my family. First and foremost, I must thank my adviser, Laura Sells. Across six years and two states you have mentored me with a persisting diligence to my academic and emotional well being. I have the greatest respect for your skilled editing hand and trained critical eye. You have been my teacher and my friend, and I thank you. I also want to thank my entire committee for their encouragement and advice in this process. Andy King, you dutifully accepted advising responsibilities when I arrived at LSU and have been an ongoing source of warmth. Our esoteric banter has brightened many dull days. Josh Gunn, I have been enriched and inspired in the two, short, yet full, years that I have known you. Thank you for setting the bar so high. Ruth Laurion Bowman, you have been my teacher, director, and friend, sometimes filling all three offices at once. Your ability to show me goodness in all things has touched me deeply. When shall we speak again of “walruses and whales”? Michelle Massé, the depth and breadth of your comments on drafts has motivated me to do better than I otherwise could. Meanwhile, your kindness and support have been so utterly humane, I am doubly in your debt. Following your advice, I shall not try to repay it but pay it forward. Les Wade, I have come to realize what a rare pleasure it is to have a dean’s representative take interest in a project and offer such useful advice. Thank you for doing your job and then more. Beyond my official committee, others have been there to guide me and move the process along. Loretta Pecchioni, you have offered your friendship, wise counsel, and a home for Thanksgiving dinners. When the tunnel was dark, you held a light at the end, and you never gave me a much needed kick when I was being a grouch. You have always pushed me to be a better person, as you always try to be. Thank you for your friendship; it has sustained me these last four iv years. Greg and Jenny Cavenaugh, thank you for opening your hearts and your home to me on so many occasions to let me complain and then to brighten my spirits. Kristin Hanson, you helped keep me sane in the last stretch of this project, in part by getting me to take a break using the persuasive refrain, “Well, you have to eat.” I also wish to recognize the kindness and support of my graduate school colleagues, especially, Joe Mitchell, Valerie Holliday, Shaun Treat, Christi Moss, Dan Grano, and, the late, Jon Birdnow. On a more technical note, I wish to acknowledge those who provided the resources necessary to complete this project. Thank you to Kevin McClearey for providing Margaret Sanger speech materials and your well-researched manuscript. Harold Mixon, thank you for lending your wise, public-address advice and for gifting to me your sixty volumes of the Quarterly Journal of Speech. I also wish to recognize librarians’ work at the Interlibrary Borrowing office of Middleton Library at Louisiana State University, Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College, and Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan for helping me obtain the necessary materials for analysis. Also, thank you to the Margaret Sanger Papers Project for preserving a feminist hero’s work. Last, but never least, I wish to thank my family for their continuing support of my goals. Mom, thank you for teaching me to read and encouraging me to go from there. Dad, thank you for reminding me that things of value and importance often take time. You both have taught me anything worth doing is worth doing well. Karen, as my older, wiser sister you have always paved the way for me and kept me balanced. Without you, I would have no center. Thank you also to my entire family—especially my siblings and my late grandparents—for always offering their silent, enduring support. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................................................................................... iv ABSTRACT................................................................................................................................. viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: “I DO NOT THINK SHE IS QUITE NORMAL”.........................................................1 Rationale for the Study ............................................................................................4 Genealogy as History.......................................................................................10 Power as Productive.........................................................................................11 Previous Studies of Sanger and Her Rhetoric........................................................14 The Biographical and Interpretivist Truth of Margaret Sanger .......................16 Complicating Our Understanding of Sanger....................................................23 From “The Anti-Conception Art” to “Sangerism” ................................................31 The Scattered Start of a Movement .................................................................32 The Woman at the Center of the Movement....................................................36 My Entry into the Discussion ................................................................................45 2 THE TERRAIN OF FEMINIST RHETORIC: MAPPING PREVIOUS STUDIES..............................................................................49 Women in the Public (Speaking) Sphere...............................................................52 A Case by Case Look at Feminist Rhetoric...........................................................61 “Great ‘Women’ Speakers” .............................................................................63 An Awakening to Gender ................................................................................71 Nineteenth-Century Feminist Movements.......................................................79 A Matter of Theory ................................................................................................89 Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and Feminine Style...................................................91 An Invitation for Foucault ...............................................................................96 3 GENEALOGICAL INTERPRETATION: THE MARRIAGE OF STRANGE BEDFELLOWS ..................................................99 The Nature of Genealogical Interpretation ..........................................................100 Power as Productive.......................................................................................102 Discipline Is as Discipline Does ....................................................................109 How We Write History ..................................................................................114 The Death of the Rhetor(?) ............................................................................121 Some Nuts and Bolts of Genealogical Interpretation ..........................................126 Why Genealogical Interpretation? .......................................................................133 4 “A PROFUSION OF ENTANGLED EVENTS”: MARGARET SANGER AS A NEXUS OF DISCOURSES ....................................137 The Disciplining of Feminist Rhetors..................................................................140 The Industrial Discipline of Women’s Bodies.....................................................150 “The Sex Side of Life” in Late- and Post- Victorian US.....................................159 vi Saving Society by Opposing/ Supporting Birth Control .....................................167 Saving Society by Controlling Desire............................................................168 Saving Society by Controlling Breeding .......................................................175 Looking at the Nexus...........................................................................................189 5 BIRTH CONTROL AS WOMEN’S RIGHT AND RESPONSIBILITY: EARLY THEMES