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Marie Stopes and the History of Birth Control Book Collection.
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Book Collection
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Name of creator
Biographical history
Marie Charlotte Carmichael Stopes was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1880 and died there in 1958. Educated in Edinburgh, London and graduated with her Ph.D. from Munich, she was the first woman appointed to the science staff at the University of Manchester in 1904. Jointly with her husband H.V. Roe she founded the Mother's Clinic for Constructive Birth Control in 1921. It was the first birth control clinic in the world. She also published two books, "Married Love" and "Wise Parenthood: a Book for Married People."
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Scope and content
This collection, funded by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Kaufman Footwear of Kitchener, Ont., consists of about 400 items published between 1906 and the 1980's related to the British birth control pioneer, Dr. Marie Stopes. A collection of archival material, the Marie Stopes archive, complements the book collection.
Included are first and scarce editions of Marie Stopes' writings on contraception, her early works in the fields of botany and geology, as well as much of her literary output. First and variant editions of her best-known books, Married Love, and Wise Parenthood, both published in 1918, are also present. The collection includes first editions of Stopes' first two published works, The Study of Plant Life for Young People (London, 1906, call number F9984), and Ancient Plants (London, 1910, call number G7956).
The collection contains an extensive selection of supporting materials about contraception and family planning by other authors. Highlights include Annie Besant's pamphlet, Law of Population (London: n.d., call number F11010), early issues of the journal, Birth Control News (call number HQ763.B46x), L. Darwin's What is Eugenics (1932, call number F9966), and W. J. Robinson's Fewer and Better Babies (New York: 1934, call number F10053).