American Birth Control League

The American Birth Control League (ABCL) was an organization founded in 1921 by Margaret Sanger to promote the ideas of birth control.^[1] The League consisted of other similar organizations, such as the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau (BCCRB) and the Clinical Research Bureau (CRB).^[2]

Among the prominent early leaders of the ABCL were Katharine Hepburn, Lothrop Stoddard, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Sanger herself.^[3] Stoddard, a prominent leader among eugenists, was a close personal friend of Sanger.^[4][5][6]

Several notable people were in leadership positions of the ABCL, many of who were staunch believers in eugenics, such as C. C. Little, Board of Directors for the ABCL^[7] and President of the American Eugenics Society;^[8] Adolf Meyer, Advisory Board of the ABCL^[9] and member of the Eugenic American Breeders Association;^[10] Harry H. Laughlin, Board of Directors for the ABCL^[11] and Director of the Eugenics Record Office; Edward Murray East, Advisory Board of the ABCL^[12] and author of the 1927 eugenic work Heredity and Human Affairs; Raymond Pearl, Advisory Board of the ABCL^[13] - Pearl later repudiated his earlier eugenic views.^[14][15]