"The Sex Side of Life": Mary Ware Dennett's Pioneering Battle for Birth Control and Sex Education.

I for one Think the country would be better run, If Mary Ware Dennett Explained things to the Senate.

So wrote Ogden Nash of this suffragette, leading figure of the American Arts and Crafts Movement, prominent peace activist, crusader for the right to obtain and distribute information about contraception, and author of the sex-education pamphlet "The Sex Side of Life: An Explanation for Young People." This 21-page pamphlet, which was written in 1915 for Dennett's adolescent sons (and is included in its entirety in this book), would come to be used by organizations such as the YMCA, parent-teacher groups, and even medical society publications.

Dennett believed that sex was a marvelous activity that required guidance to be ennobling to the human being. Her pamphlet contained diagrams that were physiologically accurate and a text that was factual. However, in 1929 she was charged with obscenity in a high-profile case that became a landmark in censorship law. Despite attempts by "vice hunters" to force the pamphlet out of circulation, it is still in use today.

During her extraordinary career, Dennett fought for a bill to make birth control available to everyone. This was in opposition to Margaret Sanger's "doctor only" bill, which Dennett called "class legislation." Under Sanger's plan, only rich educated women could continue to find ways of gaining access to birth control. Dennett, who saw poor women weakened by having as many as 10 infants before the age of 30 and unable to feed their children adequately, viewed the Sanger program as elitist and intolerable. Dennett viewed birth control as a humanitarian and not a "feminist" issue as Margaret Sanger claimed. According to Dennett, since it takes two people to create a child, both are jointly responsible for birth control.

Dennett's life of public service was informed by her personal experiences, which included a sensational divorce and custody battle. Chen documents these events and Dennett's rich professional life in a compelling and instructive manner. I highly recommend this book and, along with the author, hope that with its publication "Dennett will emerge from the footnotes of history to take her place with Margaret Sanger, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton as one of the most influential women in this country's history."

Martin H. Levinson, Ph.D.