Birth Control.

Item Details

Chicago, [Medical Bureaus of Information on Birth Control, Lanteen Laboratories,], [n.d., early 1930s]., Wrappers

Very good.

6 ½ x 4 ½ in. 3–10, [4],11–18 pp. With illustrations, printed in blue as well as full color.

Original blue wrappers, stapled, printed with color text and a portrait of Norman Carr. Full-color wrapper interiors. Mild rubbing to exterior edges of wrappers. Slight scratching to back wrapper. Interior text and images very bright and clean. A very good + copy of a scarce item.

OCLC records numerous editions published throughout the 1930s.

The present work advocates for the use of birth control methods like diaphragms, spermicide, and sponges. These methods were often considered at the time to be “unnatural” (i.e., containing synthetic materials) and thus disruptive to bodily functions. They were distributed discreetly by Lanteen Laboratories to circumvent the laws that prohibited the sale of birth control outside of medical clinics. This text debunks myths about ineffective birth control methods, asserts the safety and reliability of proper birth control, and promotes the Medical Bureau clinics, which employed only women physicians.

The Comstock Act of 1873 made it illegal to sell, give away, or possess “obscene” material, which included any information on birth control or abortion. Many physicians were arrested and convicted for distributing medical material before Margaret Sanger and other feminists lobbied for its repeal in 1936.

We could not locate much information on Norman Carr (which may have been a pseudonym). He wrote several other booklets on birth control that promoted the Lanteen Laboratories brand.

Comstock Act entry in The First Amendment Encyclopedia (webpage). Middle Tennessee State University website.

Eisenstein, Lea. From Icon to Bygone: the Rise and Fall of the Diaphragm in Twentieth-Century America (2019), pp. 63-65.