2. Data and methods

#### 2.1. The sample

This dataset this study is drawn from includes 31 initially distinct religious denominations (please see [1] for more information on the complete sample). This paper focuses on the "early liberalizers" who promoted contraceptives for eugenics reasons in the early 1930s and how their views on birth control evolved over the next 30 years, once the pill was invented and had received FDA approval in 1960 [2]. This paper focuses on what happened to these groups, who were originally nine in number but, because of mergers, were only seven distinct denominations by the time the pill was approved.

An early liberalizer is defined as any American religious groups that promulgated an official statement in support of birth control between the peak years of the first wave of liberalization (1929–1934). All also promoted legalization in their periodicals during this time. Constituting America's most prominent religious denominations, Table 1 demonstrates that only three of the original denominations made it through the next three decades relatively intact: the Protestant Episcopal Church, the Reform Jews, and the Society of Friends (now called the Friends General Conference).<sup>1</sup>

The Unitarian Universalist Church formed from a merger between two early liberalizers—the

The United Presbyterian Church in the USA was formed in 1958 as the result of a merger between an early liberalizer, the Presbyterian Church in the USA, and an unofficial supporter,

American Unitarian Association and the Universalist General Convention in 1961.

the United Presbyterian Church in North America.

Table 1. America's early religious advocates of contraception.

Denomination Periodicals<sup>i</sup>

• Universalist General Convention (Universalist Church of America after

• Congregational Christian Churches (1931) - Christian Church, General Convention - Congregational Churches, General


• United Presbyterian Church in the USA

iiiNow, the Friends General Conference.

Presbyterian Church (USA) (1983)

1942)

Council

(1958)

i

Reform Judaism AJC Yearbook 1929

• American Unitarian Association The Christian Register (1919–1961) 1930

United Church of Christ (1957) United Church Herald (1958–1965) .

(1918–1932)

• Evangelical and Reformed Church (1934) The Messenger (1936–1958) . - Reformed Church in the United States Reformed Church Messenger (1919–1932) .

United Methodist Church (1968)ii The Christian Advocate (1919–1965) 1968 Methodist Church (1939) . - Methodist Episcopal Church 1931


• Presbyterian Church in the USA Presbyterian Survey (1919–1965) 1960

Protestant Episcopal Church The Living Church 1934

Presbyterian Life (1955–1958)

The Friend's Journal (1965)

Other Periodicals Researched: Birth Control Review (1912–1940); Christianity Today (1956–present); Ecumenical Review. iiThe Methodist Church merged with the Evangelical United Brethren Church to form the United Methodist Church in 1968.



Society of Friends (Orthodox)iii The Friend (1945–1955)

The Advance (1934–1958)

The Christian Leader (1926–1945) The Universalist Leader (1953–1961)

The Congregationalist and Herald of Gospel Liberty

Presbyterian Life (1958–1965) 1959

Unitarian Universalist Association (1961) The Unitarian Universalist Register-Leader (1961–1965)

and years available for analysis (1919–1965) Date

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.72378

From Eugenicists to Family Planners: America's Religious Promoters of Contraception

liberalized

15

1929

1931 1931

1931

1933

<sup>1</sup> The Society of Friends reunified with Hicksite Friends (to become Friends General Conference) in 1955.


i Other Periodicals Researched: Birth Control Review (1912–1940); Christianity Today (1956–present); Ecumenical Review. iiThe Methodist Church merged with the Evangelical United Brethren Church to form the United Methodist Church in 1968. iiiNow, the Friends General Conference.

Table 1. America's early religious advocates of contraception.

This paper is structured as follows: it first gives the reader an introduction to the connections between the eugenics movement and progressive Protestantism in the USA in the early twentieth century. While research on both movements is well established, little research until now has examined the connections between the two. Likewise, there has been no investigation into what happened to believers in eugenics when the movement was forced underground with the advent of WWII and the eventual realization of the horrors that Nazi belief in eugenics wrought. After this historical overview, the paper then describes the data and methods we used to examine the seven American denominations that constituted America's staunchest advocates of contraception between 1930 and 1965. The groups we focus on in this paper are listed on Table 1, which provides information about mergers, name changes, the dates of their pronouncements on birth control (from the earliest to the latest liberalization), any precursor's early stance on birth control

if it was not an early liberalizer, and the periodicals examined for each denomination.

on the poor in the Third World and the "inner cities" of the USA.

2. Data and methods

tions by the time the pill was approved.

2.1. The sample

14 Family Planning

General Conference).<sup>1</sup>

1

After describing the data and methods we used, the paper then turns to the chronological story, first demonstrating to the reader the strong and open promotion of eugenics each of these groups made in the 1920s and 1930s and then demonstrating that the most explicit talk of eugenics had waned by 1935, even among groups who initially supported Hitler openly. The fact that eugenic talk disappeared, however, does not mean that eugenic beliefs had. The next section of the paper juxtaposes the groups' earlier openly eugenicist reasons for promoting birth control with their later reasons. It demonstrates that the promoters of contraception remained concerned about the fertility of poor and nonwhite populations—with a new focus

This dataset this study is drawn from includes 31 initially distinct religious denominations (please see [1] for more information on the complete sample). This paper focuses on the "early liberalizers" who promoted contraceptives for eugenics reasons in the early 1930s and how their views on birth control evolved over the next 30 years, once the pill was invented and had received FDA approval in 1960 [2]. This paper focuses on what happened to these groups, who were originally nine in number but, because of mergers, were only seven distinct denomina-

An early liberalizer is defined as any American religious groups that promulgated an official statement in support of birth control between the peak years of the first wave of liberalization (1929–1934). All also promoted legalization in their periodicals during this time. Constituting America's most prominent religious denominations, Table 1 demonstrates that only three of the original denominations made it through the next three decades relatively intact: the Protestant Episcopal Church, the Reform Jews, and the Society of Friends (now called the Friends

The Society of Friends reunified with Hicksite Friends (to become Friends General Conference) in 1955.

The Unitarian Universalist Church formed from a merger between two early liberalizers—the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist General Convention in 1961.

The United Presbyterian Church in the USA was formed in 1958 as the result of a merger between an early liberalizer, the Presbyterian Church in the USA, and an unofficial supporter, the United Presbyterian Church in North America.

The Methodist Church was formed in 1939 as a result of a merger between the eugenicist early liberalizer of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the silent Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

The United Church of Christ (UCC) is the most complicated denomination examined in this paper. Unlike the other denominations analyzed here, it includes a precursor denomination that was an outspoken critic of eugenics, the Reformed Church in the US, which merged in 1957 with two other denominations, the early liberalizer the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical Synod of North America.

In sum, of the seven remaining distinct denominations, three remained intact, three resulted from mergers of like-minded fellow eugenicist groups, and one, the UCC, resulted from a merger of a wider variety of denominations.<sup>2</sup>

#### 2.2. Periodical research

The primary data presented here come from an analysis of each denomination's periodical between 1919 and 1965.3 Although there was some unavoidable variation in the periodicals, in general, they were remarkably comparable. Two-thirds of the periodicals were weeklies, and all but two of the periodicals were popularly oriented and written for a general, lay audience.<sup>4</sup>

With the rare exception of those that were electronically searchable, research assistants examined each of the periodicals by hand and gathered all articles that mentioned the keywords listed in Table 2, which varied by time period, and were added inductively as the research progressed.

On average, about 250 articles were summarized, coded, and analyzed for 50 different periodicals, for a total of about 10,000 articles, about one-third of which we draw on for this paper.5
