Talk:Margaret Sanger

Claim of membership in the KKK and Nazi Party

Margaret Sanger was given life membership in 1926 to the New Jersey woman's Auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan. She was a proud member until her death in 1966. She was also given full membership into the Nazi party on the orders of Adolf Hitler in 1937 she did not reject this membership until January of 1942 . — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:805:4201:2640:65CC:2606:58EE:39D0 (talk) 02:59, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Do you have any sources to back up your claim? The Banner talk 20:39, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Just the notes and the highlights of the Klan meeting of her speech. Where they cheered her statements that abortion be used on black babies and other undesirable races. They were so happy with her speech they gave her full life membership. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:805:4200:C4C0:9C86:614F:52F:A152 (talk) 11:32, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

So, no evidence? The Banner talk 22:00, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

AFAIK the only source of info about her KKK speech was her own autobiography, in which she says she didn't even dare to mention abortion. MFNickster (talk) 00:25, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

I believe this is the passage to which you are referring:

All the world over, in Penang and Skagway, in El Paso and Helsingfors, I have found women’s psychology in the matter of childbearing essentially the same, no matter what the class, I accepted an invitation to talk to the women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan at Silver Lake, New Jersey, one of the weirdest experiences I had in lecturing.

My letter of instruction told me what train to take, to walk from the station two blocks straight ahead, then two to the left. I would see a sedan parked in front of a restaurant. If I wished I could have ten minutes for a cup of coffee or bite to eat, because no supper would be served later.

I obeyed orders implicitly, walked the blocks, saw the car, found the restaurant, went in and ordered some cocoa, stayed my allotted ten minutes, then approached the car hesitatingly and spoke to the driver. I received no reply. She might have been totally deaf as far as I was concerned. Mustering up my courage, I climbed in and settled back. Without a turn of the head, a smile, or a word to let me know I was right, she minutes we wound around the streets. It must have been towards six in the afternoon. We took this lonely lane and that through the woods, and an hour later pulled up in a vacant space near a body of water beside a large, unpainted, barnish building.

My driver got out, talked with several other women, then said to me severely, “Wait here. We will come for you.” She disappeared. More cars buzzed up the dusty road into the parking place. Occasionally men dropped wives who walked hurriedly and silently within. This went on mystically until night closed down and I was alone in the dark. A few gleams came through chinks in the window curtains. Even though it was May, I grew chillier and chillier.

After three hours I was summoned at last and entered a bright corridor filled with wraps. As someone came out of the hall I saw through the door dim figures parading with banners and illuminated crosses. I waited another twenty on, the audience seated itself, and I was escorted to the platform, was introduced, and began to speak.

Never before had I looked into a sea of faces like these. I was sure that if I uttered one word, such as abortion, outside the usual vocabulary of these women they would go off into hysteria. And so my address that night had to be in the most elementary terms, as though I were trying to make children understand.

In the end, through simple illustrations I believed I had accomplished my purpose. A dozen invitations to speak to similar groups were proffered. The conversation went on and on, and when we were finally through it was too late to return to New York. Under a curfew law everything in Silver Lake shut at nine o’clock. I could not even send a telegram to let my family know whether I had been thrown in the river or was being held incommunicado. It was nearly the night in a hotel. Sanger, Margaret (1938). Margaret Sanger; an autobiography. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 400–402.

According to this, she did not mention abortion at this speech. If she did, she would likely have nothing but negative things to say. See her own words on abortion. My article also briefly touches on the accusations of wanting to exterminate ethnic groups, which began way back in 1917. It's both remarkable and troubling that lies spread about you a hundred years later still resurface long after you are dead. FecundityBlog (talk) 02:59, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Indeed, we just had a lengthy discussion earlier this year about whether Margaret Sanger ever endorsed abortion as a method of family limitation. Any citable sources in this regard would be be greatly appreciated. FecundityBlog (talk) 18:49, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

Anytime I try to post the documents they are blocked and removed by the fans of planned parenthood and other unqualified people who want to protect the image of this 40 year member of the KKK and 4 year member of the NAZI party. TRUTH is not relevant and facts are not allowed on this Margaret Sanger site. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:805:4200:C4C0:9DF7:F3A4:5CB8:FDE5 (talk) 10:52, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Where and when did you try to post them? Please link the edit(s). MFNickster (talk) 12:25, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

(incidentally, fact checkers at Politifact rate the claim as "false" MFNickster (talk) 18:01, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

@MFNickster: I reverted this edit alleging she was KKK back in October. No references were provided, even to fringe sources. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:26, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Look at the quote in her own words above. She was offered to speak to many KKK groups. She gave many speeches to Klan groups why? Because she was a 40 year member of the KKK that's WHY! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:805:4200:C4C0:CC0C:2E0A:FBD8:576 (talk) 04:17, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

She said offers were extended, not that she accepted them. If you have any further documentation, please point to it now or there is no point continuing this debate. As this is a controversial article, ALL additions need to be referenced. MFNickster (talk) 04:31, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Also: even if she gave more speeches, that does NOT support your assertion that she was a member of the Klan, or the Nazi Party. You need a reliable source that backs it up (and after years of searching for something like that, I highly doubt it exists). MFNickster (talk) 01:35, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Anytime I post facts they are removed by the unqualified under the claim of original research. Sanger was directly tied in to the Nazi party and given full membership along with Lothrop Stoddard in 1937. Stoddard was good friends with Heinrich Himmler who recommended to Hitler to make them full members of the Nazi Party and he did. Stoddard later met Hitler in 1940 directly. On December 11,1941 Hitler declared war on the USA. Sanger renounced her Nazi membership in January of 1942 to stay out of trouble with the US government. The name of her group was changed to plan parenthood in 1942 to distance the group from Sanger and her KKK and Nazi ties. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:805:4200:C4C0:CC0C:2E0A:FBD8:576 (talk) 06:17, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Ok, I can't tell if you've edited the article since you're not logged in, but I have reviewed every edit made in the past year, and of the edits attempting to link Sanger to the Klan or Nazis, not a single one has included a source (reliable or otherwise) backing it up. So I can only conclude that you are not editing in good faith, and are merely pushing POV. Please prove me wrong! MFNickster (talk) 04:05, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

What you unqualified people need to do is use the freedom of information act to get the FBI file on Sanger and read the file for yourselves. Or is that to much original research for you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:805:4200:C4C0:CC0C:2E0A:FBD8:576 (talk) 06:57, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Mildly, what you need to do is provide reliable sources for your proposed additions to the article. Absent any sources, your claims re the KKK and Nazi Party will not be included in the article. -- Euryalus (talk) 07:47, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Did you mean this FBI file? Because I couldn't find any others. Again, please provide a link. There's no reason not to include such material if it's factual, but I strongly suspect the docs you're referring to, if they exist, will turn out to be bogus. MFNickster (talk) 19:47, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

No you dumbass the file from the FBI way later than that one. You must request it under the freedom of information act. Do it yourself unless your just plain lazy . — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:805:4200:C4C0:FC23:45C4:9B9B:B1C (talk) 11:50, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Ok, I have been more than patient and it's clear that you are not serious about improving the article. I should have known better from past experience. Sanger had nothing to do with Hitler or the Nazis. Please stop this ridiculous smear campaign. MFNickster (talk) 12:49, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Shouting, roaring and insulting is not going to help you at all. Just give reliable sources for your statements. The Banner talk 12:52, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

For what it's worth I did submit a FOIA request to the FBI for materials on Sanger and they replied that their search returned no results. I'm looking into other avenues since Ellen Chesler's book does make mention of compiled FBI documents, but I'm not expecting this to turn up anything significant. MFNickster (talk) 12:43, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Margaret Sanger as a Eugenicist

There's been some disagreements on whether or not Margaret Sanger can be labeled as a Eugenicist in the intro paragraph of the article. I believe this is an accurate label to present of her. We know from the article section, and the sources presented therein, that Sanger was a proponent of Negative Eugenics. Her standing as a significant member in the Eugenics movement in the United States means it's not inappropriate to put this label in the introductory paragraph.

The Best joke (talk) 21:29, 8 May 2019 (COT)

Margaret Sanger is not noted for being an eugenicist, therefore I think it is largely inappropriate for the lead as per MOS:LEADREL due to its undue weight. I think that putting it in the lead would be pushing a point of view implying that being an eugenicist was the reason behind her advocacy of birth control, whereas it is obvious that her feminism was her first & foremost motivation. Eugenics is a small part of her story, & covering it in the body gives it the appropriate due weight. Peaceray (talk) 03:49, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

There is an entire subsection under "Views," boldly and clearly titled "Eugenics." I don't think there's any need to go beyond that. MFNickster (talk) 03:20, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Due to several pieces of literature authored by her, I feel it would be appropriate to add the title of a eugenicist. For example, in The Birth Control Review 1921 issue, she creates a specific section called "Birth Control: To Create a Race of Thoroughbreds a term started by a physicist by the name of Edward Kempf who was a known supporter of eugenics. She spoke at several eugenics conferences, making statements such as "the process of weeding out the unfit [and] of preventing the birth of defectives." She even once wrote and I quote "consequences of breeding from stock lacking human vitality always will give us social problems and perpetuate institutions of charity and crime." In her speech "My Way to Peace" she talks about the compulsory sterilization of people with disabilities. “The first step would be to control the intake and output on morons, mental defectives, epileptics.”(My Way to Peace). In her letter to Clarence Gamble, she goes as far as explaining her dealings in the African-American community “The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to get out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” These are all inherently eugenics based statements. The willful neglect to include this in one of her many titles shows the POV of the authors of this page being imposed on readers. I have to agree with the section talking about the bias in this page and within the editing team. You fail to acknowledge any stance other than your own and censor those that go against your belief. As someone who is new to the Wiki community but has engaged in investigative journalism for almost 4 years now, this is unacceptable. Cwpom (talk) 09:20, 13 Aug 2019 (EST)

So you have no proof that she was an eugenicist but you call her a eugenicist based on some dodgy research? That fact that she speaks with or has partly the same ideas as known eugenicist, does not make her an eugenicist.

Conform that tradition of Wikipedia, you have to come with reliable, neutral sources that explicitly name her as an eugenicist. The Banner talk 14:49, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Ow, and we do acknowledge your point of view but we also acknowledge the fact that it an opinion based on own research, not backed up by sources. The Banner talk 14:53, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

+

Ow, and we do acknowledge your point of view but we also acknowledge the fact that it an opinion based on own research, not backed up by sources. The Banner talk 14:53, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

@Cwpom:, we don't engage in original research here. Bit I appreciate you trying to discuss this rather than edit warring. – Muboshgu (talk) 14:56, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

It's clear that she supported eugenics to some degree (not 'positive' eugenics, which she called a 'cradle competition' between classes), but that doesn't mean it should be listed under "occupation." It was not her primary avocation at any point. MFNickster (talk) 23:40, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

I was going to say this. There is an entire section under "Views" for "Eugenics," and "eugenicist" isn't a job title any more than "constitutional strict constructionalist" or "Neo-Kantian categorical imperativist" are jobs. This seems fatuous. FecundityBlog (talk) 18:50, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

I agree with The Banner and FecundityBlog, eugenist should not appear in the lede.Fred (talk) 22:42, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Can anyone verify whether Sanger was a Neo-Kantian categorical imperativist? MFNickster (talk) 03:43, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Lol. I was just throwing those out as examples of things that are views, but not jobs. I have no reason to believe that Sanger was either a constitutional strict constructionalist or Neo-Kantian categorical imperativist. FecundityBlog (talk) 03:49, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Please, also keep an eye on Negro Project where someone is depicting Sanger as an eugenist. The Banner talk 00:47, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

@The Banner:, You deleted a complete section on the controversy within the eugenics scholarship on the Negro Project, not just the references to Sanger. I'd like to suggest that we restore the references to the historiographical controversy, though we can remove the references to Sanger as a eugenicist. DrBorg (talk) 20:45, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Sanger was a eugenicist by definition https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/eugenicistOverseer19XX (talk)

Claim that Sanger supported under the counter abortions

There was a statement added to the article that Margaret Sanger supported under the counter abortions in private, while publicly condemning abortion. The only reference given for this claim was broken, so I have removed this claim.

(As an aside, when I clicked the broken reference link, it directed me to a different reference in the bibliography, and so I just spent the past half hour or so going down a wild goose chase.)

Also, the second sentence in the paragraph of the abortion section is now a sentence fragment. I'll fix that now. FecundityBlog (talk)

Suthec2197 reverted my edit with the commit message "Your concern is appreciated, but if you have problems with the way I cite, my suggestion is that you fix that first." For the reference of editors of this article, a controversial claim was added to the article, I attempted to verify this claim by consulting the reference for the controversial claim, the reference was broken and so I could not verify the reference, and I therefore removed the claim. From WP:WHYCITE, "sources are required for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged – if reliable sources cannot be found for challenged material, it is likely to be removed from the article," and from WP:BURDEN, "All content must be verifiable. The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution." Now that an actual reference has been provided, I will attempt to verify the reference. FecundityBlog (talk)

Here is a link to pages 300-301 of Chesler's book. MFNickster (talk) 08:04, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. I think I see what's going on here. This is going to take a longer time to tease out than I thought. I'll check back when I have time with an itemized list. FecundityBlog (talk) 14:16, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Here is a list of the pertinent claims from pp. 300-301 of Chesler:

1. In 1929, memorandum from Dr. Hannah Stone instructed physicians in what would in those days have been called the Clinical Research Bureau to refuse any patient requesting a pregnancy examination. The reference interprets this as Dr. Stone’s desire to avoid the Bureau from being associated with abortions. Already registered patients could continue to get pregnancy examinations.
2. In 1932, Margaret Sanger directed Dr. Stone to remove restrictions on pregnancy examinations for new patients and to make referrals to hospitals when therapeutic abortions were indicated by the examining physician.
3. Margaret Sanger also created a fund “to pay for the laboratory costs of these procedures.” It is not not clear if by “laboratory costs of these procedures” the reference means the costs of the pregnancy examinations, the therapeutic abortions, or both. “Laboratory costs” seems to have connotations of the former.
4. In reaction to increasing numbers of therapeutic abortions, in the early 1940s, legislation was unsuccessfully introduced to the New York State legislature to ban therapeutic abortions outright.
5. Memoranda were circulated three times throughout the Clinical Research Bureau clarifying the official position of the Bureau prohibiting physicians from prohibiting patients for abortion. The reference is not clear if this included therapeutic abortions or not. Also, the reference interprets this as evidence that abortion referral was common enough to prompt memoranda.
6. In one case in 1932, a physician referred a woman for abortion to a “Dr. Seigal” and wrote a letter to Margaret Sanger in which this was described as part of an “exceptional type of the class where you and I felt an exception could be made.” It is not clear exactly what the previous discussion between the author and Margaret Sanger included.

Generally, all of these claims (with the possible exception of #6) are consistent with public speeches and writings of Margaret Sanger. She condemned abortion as a method of family limitation, not therapeutic abortion, e.g., “Although abortion may be resorted to in order to save the life of the mother, the practice of it merely for limitation of offspring is dangerous and vicious.”

Furthermore, Margaret Sanger openly discussed therapeutic abortion, for instance, in this article. As she discussed, it had become routine for physicians to prescribe therapeutic abortions for many conditions, and she lived in a situation where one could openly have abortion induced in the case of, say, tuberculosis, but could not legally acquire contraception to prevent pregnancy in the first place.

Granted, exactly what constitutes a “therapeutic abortion” is a whole mess in and of itself, since the definition seems to vary from person to person, but whatever a therapeutic abortion is, it was not the same as what Margaret Sanger was publicly condemning.

With regard to the claim that Sanger “directly ordered her staff to refer women who came to her clinics asking for abortions to underground abortionists.” This is not supported by the reference:

• The reference says women were referred to hospitals and doctors, not underground abortionists.
• The reference says women were referred when therapeutic abortion was indicated by a physician.

With regard to the claim that “Several times, [Margaret Sanger] herself paid for the abortions out of her own pocket so that these women would not have to pay.” This is not supported by the reference:

• The reference says she set up a fund for laboratory procedures, not that she paid for procedures out of pocket.
• Also, the reference is not clear if the fund was used for therapeutic abortions, for pregnancy tests, for both.

With regard to the the claim that “This was while the practice was illegal and widely considered immoral.” This is not supported by the reference:

• The reference implies that therapeutic abortions were legal in New York State at the time by the fact that there was an attempt to make them illegal in the 1940s. Therapeutic abortions were legal in many states in those days. New York State’s specific laws are probably worth looking into more.

I have changed the text of the article to more accurately report the facts in the reference and added additional material to give it context. FecundityBlog (talk) 19:42, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Primary source plus reader-interpretation in "Eugenics" section

As it now stands, the "Eugenics" section includes the following:

She was closely associated with one of the most influential and extreme racist[REFERENCE 124] authors in America in the 1920s and 1930s, the Klansman and Nazi sympathizer Lothrop Stoddard.

I have no problem with saying that she was associated with Stoddard, since that claim has a source, and I don't dispute that Stoddard was dreadfully racist. The problem is that the source for the phrase "extreme racist" (Reference 124, currently) is one of Stoddard's own books describing his beliefs. Unless he specifically states that he is an "extreme racist", isn't the editor who put this in taking his (the editor's) own inference for granted? My understanding is that if you're gonna state that Stoddard was an extreme racist, you should cite a source which says that he was an extreme racist (perhaps in other wording), not cite his own book and invite the reader to infer that he was, from reading his book. Isn't that one of the points in WP:PRIMARY?

Accordingly, I'm putting in a tag.

Best wishes, HandsomeMrToad (talk) 06:35, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Hmmm, I don't think his mention is relevant here. The Banner talk 09:04, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

HandsomeMrToad: Would it be okay to replace it with the following referenced text?

She was closely associated with one of the most influential racist authors in America in the 1920s and 1930s, the Klansman and Nazi sympathizer Lothrop Stoddard.

NightHeron (talk) 18:05, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Well, I'm not a Wikipedia officer and I have no authority to make a decision like that, but, to me your book-sources look good. The only no-no is linking to an example rather than a source. The earlier version "He was an extreme racist" supported by a link to a book by him which expresses his racism is too much like if someone were to put "The sky is blue" and try to support it by linking to a photograph of a blue sky. (Long ago, I actually saw a Wikipedia article about a famous conductor who liked to play everything very slowly, and the editor tried to source this observation with some links to audio-files of the conductor's concerts in which he took very slow tempos. That's what's no good, and that's what I was objecting to.)

I do wonder, though, how "closely" she was associated with Stoddard? He was on the board of directors of the American Birth Control League (precursor of Planned Parenthood), but is that really a "close" association? Eleanor Roosevelt and Kathrine Hepburn were on the board too (!) but I don't think I'd call her association with either of them "close". One thing about Margaret Sanger which I've thought about trying to add to the article, but it's kind of difficult to find a source for, is: she was very good at finding commonalities with many different kinds of people. She focused on areas of agreement rather than conflict. She was a serial bridge-builder, and it was integral to her success. So she gave a lecture to the Women's Auxiliary Branch of KKK, and also worked with black activists like WEB DuBois and Adam Clayton Powell.

I'd also like to know, WHEN was she associated with Stoddard? A lot of people didn't realize how dangerous some of that Nazi and eugenic stuff was, until the 1930s. Margaret Sanger was worried about the Nazis in Germany as early as 1933, the same year Hitler became Chancellor and established the Third Reich, when many people hadn't clued in yet. See, for instance, here: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/03/early-warnings-how-american-journalists-reported-the-rise-of-hitler/254146/

Anyway, that's enough from me for now, I suppose. HandsomeMrToad (talk) 20:35, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Why is it relevant to mention this guy? The Banner talk 18:28, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

The reference (p. 173 of the book about Sanger by the journalist and reproductive rights advocate Lawrence Lader) describes Sanger's association with Stoddard as follows. When Sanger's planned speech in New York City was canceled, "Dr. Lothrop Stoddard" (Lader's respectful way of referring to him) used his influence to intercede on Sanger's behalf so that she could give her talk. As historians of the 1920s know, the progressives of the period (meaning those who favored women's rights and social welfare legislation) often had eugenic sympathies and saw nothing wrong with forming alliances with known racists for certain purposes. In the next sentence of the article, we quote Sanger's biographer Ellen Chesler essentially saying this in reference to Sanger. NightHeron (talk) 19:22, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

It may be my shortcoming but I still fail to see the relevance of mentioning him. The Banner talk 20:46, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

And, does the fact that he stopped someone from cancelling one of her speeches, and wrote occasionally for her journal Birth Control Review, and was a member of the board of directors of the American Birth Control League, really justify calling their association a "close" association? If these three facts are the only justification, that sounds to me more like an "occasional" association. In my vocabulary, a "close association" would mean if they had collaborated on numerous articles, or worked in the same office for a long time, or had an affair, or something like that. Maybe this is a quibble, but I think it's a significant one, especially in view of the fake-history people slandering her as a Nazi-sympathizer or a member of KKK or a white supremacist or a proponent of forced sterilization based on race or ethnicity. (On the other hand, maybe her association with Stoddard really was a close association and I'm just not aware of it. Well, if you know more, please share!)

Thanks, HandsomeMrToad (talk) 21:02, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

HandsomeMrToad: Thanks, you make good points. I'm not sure of the exact dates, but her association with Stoddard seems to have been mainly or entirely in the 1920s, before Stoddard's pro-Nazi activities. However, he was definitely a Klansman during that time. How about dropping the Nazi reference in the sentence (and also "and 1930s"), and also replacing "was closely associated with" to "sought the support of"? The sentence would then read: She sought the support of one of the most influential racist authors in America in the 1920s, the Klansman[1][2] Lothrop Stoddard.[4]

The Banner: I think having two examples of association with racists is necessary to contextualize the Chesler quote. It was more than just the decision to speak to the Women's Auxiliary of the KKK. It's important to acknowledge Sanger's association with racists and eugenicists while at the same time pointing out that, according to her biographer, she was not a racist herself. (The material elsewhere in the article about her collaboration with African American leaders also supports this point.) NightHeron (talk) 21:57, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

NightHeron: And was Stoddard really "one of the most influential racist authors in America in the 1920s"? He was certainly very racist, but there were a lot of very very racist authors in the decades around the turn of the century, from the 1890s through the 1930s, in Britain and in USA. The culture was different from now, you know. If you read the popular books of the time-- the ones read by just about everyone who read books at all-- you can see racism which today is very shocking: Arthur Conan Doyle (inventor of Sherlock Holmes-- read, for instance, the 1926 short story "The Adventure of the Three Gables", which was later re-published in The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes), Jack London (who wrote in horribly racist terms about the upcoming mega-fight between boxers Jack Johnson and Jim Jeffries, urging Jeffries to "reclaim the heavyweight championship for the White race"), Hugh Lofting who wrote the original "Doctor Doolittle" books, which are just amazingly racist, even L. Frank Baum, author of the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, later re-published as The Wizard of Oz, on which the movie The Wizard of Oz is based, had called in a journal editorial for total extermination of "Indian tribes", meaning the people we now call Native Americans. Also, watch the silent-movie comedies (and early "talkies") of Buster Keaton, WC Fields, even Charlie Chaplin, and pay attention to the (few) black characters. People generally believed in the cliches about race the same way they believed in the cliches about "national character": passionate Italians, sensual French, stolid, rational Englishmen, morose, drunken Russians, inscrutable "Orientals", and so on. Stoddard believed in an extreme form of racism and was influential, but I'm not sure he was "one of the most" influential. How about, instead of calling him "one of the most influential", call him "one of the most racist"? Also, instead of "she sought the support of", maybe "she was supported by" or "she enjoyed the support of" Then you'd have She was supported by one of the most racist authors in America in the 1920s, the Klansman[1][2] Lothrop Stoddard.[4]

Hoping this is helpful, HandsomeMrToad (talk) 03:04, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

HandsomeMrToad Okay, thanks. I'll make those changes. NightHeron (talk) 10:59, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

HandsomeMrToad: Thinking more about the revised wording, I'm concerned that the passive "was supported by" allows for the possibility that Sanger had no ties with Stoddard and did not welcome his support. To clarify that this was not the case, would it be okay to add the following text at the end of that sentence?

who was a founding member of the Board of Directors of Sanger's American Birth Control League.

Thanks. NightHeron (talk) 16:45, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

You start to sound pushy... The Banner talk 17:00, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

The Banner: Could you explain what you mean by "pushy," which is generally a term of insult? NightHeron (talk) 18:54, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Off course. In fact you are completely ignoring my doubts about the relevance of Stoddard. You only come with rewrites to keep him in. Without the slightest explanation why he should be mentioned. The Banner talk 18:59, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

No, I directly responded to your question above, and pinged you. As I said, the mention of the talk to the Women's Auxiliary of the KKK is not enough to explain why Sanger's biographer found it necessary to explain what to a modern reader would seem to be racism. We give the Chesler quote defending Sanger, and so the context is important. I'm not trying to give undue emphasis to Stoddard. For example, I'm not proposing including the fact that he wrote for Sanger's Birth Control Review and on one occasion used his influence so that her speaking engagement in New York City would not be canceled. I still don't understand your use of the word "pushy" for wanting to add a short phrase to the effect that Stoddard was on her Board of Directors. NightHeron (talk) 19:10, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

The Banner - I guess I'm confused with your POV. You were fine with the the sentence RE: Stoddard until it was brought up in Talk to be revised??? The mention of Stoddard isn't a new insertion. Why the push back now? It appears that your sole input to this page is to get on Talk and defend Sanger's honor against attacks, which is fine, but if the inclusion of Stoddard is not relevant why have you not worked to remove it from the main page? It seems to me you are stonewalling unnecessarily - what's your suggested rewrite if Stoddard "isn't relevant"? Ckruschke (talk) 19:22, 23 April 2020 (UTC)Ckruschke

I did not notice, sorry. But in fact, my proposal for a rewrite of that sectis to reduce it to "Sanger justified her decision to speak to a women's auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan group by explaining, "to me any aroused group is a good group."[123]:366–367 " The Banner talk 20:48, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Most likely the four editors who are commenting on this section can all agree that Stoddard should not be given undue emphasis. But your "rewrite" removing mention of him entirely is not likely to get a consensus. He was one of only 6 people on the Board of Directors of Sanger's organization. He was certainly an associate of hers, although User:HandsomeMrToad is correct that "close associate" might be an overstatement. NightHeron (talk) 21:23, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

References for Primary source plus reader-interpretation in "Eugenics" section

Resolving inconsistent citation style

There are inconsistent citation styles that I propose to resolve. Specifically,

• One linked shortened footnote
• Over thirty unlinked shortened footnotes. Nearly all these shortened footnotes have corresponding citations in the Bibliography section
• The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger volume 1 has seven distinct entries in the reference section and an entry in the Bibliography section. This one in particular is ripe for linked shortened footnotes. Done

Except for the The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger changes that should be done together, I would do this at a slow pace, maybe one a day at most, so that editors will have a chance to see & review each change.

Peaceray (talk) 17:35, 10 May 2020 (UTC)