![Ethel Higgins Byrne](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Ethel_Higgins_Byrne.png)
Ethel Byrne ( Higgins; 18831955) was an American
Progressive Era
The Progressive Era (late 1890s – late 1910s) was a period of widespread social activism and political reform across the United States focused on defeating corruption, monopoly, waste and inefficiency. The main themes ended during Am ...
radical feminist
Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a Political radicalism, radical re-ordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts, while recognizing that women's experiences are al ...
. She was the younger sister of
birth control
Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth contr ...
activist
Margaret Sanger
Margaret Higgins Sanger (born Margaret Louise Higgins; September 14, 1879September 6, 1966), also known as Margaret Sanger Slee, was an American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. Sanger popularized the term "birth control ...
, and assisted her in this work.
Background
Ethel and Margaret were two out of eleven children of an
Irish American
, image = Irish ancestry in the USA 2018; Where Irish eyes are Smiling.png
, image_caption = Irish Americans, % of population by state
, caption = Notable Irish Americans
, population =
36,115,472 (10.9%) alone ...
family founded by Michael Hennessey Higgins and Anne Higgins. It has been noted that Anne Higgins gave preferential treatment to Ethel, much to the dismay of Margaret, and that caused a rift in their relationship.
Ethel had a short and unhappy marriage to Jack Byrne, a glassworker. They had two children, Jack and
Olive
The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'', meaning 'European olive' in Latin, is a species of small tree or shrub in the family Oleaceae, found traditionally in the Mediterranean Basin. When in shrub form, it is known as ''Olea europaea'' ...
. In 1906, Ethel left her children in the care of their paternal grandparents to protect them from their abusive father; Ethel only visited her daughter once in sixteen years. Olive grew up to become an important muse to the creator of
Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman is a superhero created by the American psychologist and writer William Moulton Marston (pen name: Charles Moulton), and artist Harry G. Peter. Marston's wife, Elizabeth Holloway Marston, Elizabeth, and their life partner, Olive Byr ...
,
William Moulton Marston
William Moulton Marston (May 9, 1893 – May 2, 1947), also known by the pen name Charles Moulton (), was an American psychologist who, with his wife Elizabeth Holloway Marston, Elizabeth Holloway, invented an early prototype of the lie detector ...
, and more details of Ethel Byrne's life came to light when
Jill Lepore
Jill Lepore is an American historian and journalist. She is the David Woods Kemper '41 Professor of American History at Harvard University and a staff writer at ''The New Yorker'', where she has contributed since 2005. She writes about American ...
wrote about the superheroine character in 2014.
Ethel Byrne's background in nursing was pivotal to her activism and directly contributed to her desire to make birth control accessible to women of varying socio-economic backgrounds. She was a trained nurse who assisted immigrant women in need of medical care in the
Brownsville area of Brooklyn, New York in 1916.
Birth control activism
The two sisters and theatre artist
Fania Mindell
Fania Esiah Mindell (December 15, 1894July 18, 1969) was an American feminist, activist, and theater artist.
__TOC__
Life and career
Mindell was born in Minsk, Russia on December 15, 1894. She emigrated to Brooklyn, New York in 1906 with ...
opened a birth control clinic in Brooklyn in October 1916. The three feminist activists advertised the services offered by the clinic by passing out flyers in different languages, including English, Yiddish and Italian. Although Byrne is not widely known today, her early activism had long lasting impact on raising awareness of the importance of access to information about birth control. The arrest of Ethel Byrne compelled a group of politically active New York women to ask for a meeting with President
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
to request that he contribute to overturning laws criminalizing distribution of birth control.
Arrest and hunger strike
The clinic was highly controversial due to the enforcement of the
Comstock Laws
The Comstock laws were a set of federal acts passed by the United States Congress under the Grant administration along with related state laws.Dennett p.9 The "parent" act (Sect. 211) was passed on March 3, 1873, as the Act for the Suppression of ...
. Byrne and Sanger distributed
pessaries
A pessary is a prosthetic device inserted into the vagina for structural and pharmaceutical purposes. It is most commonly used to treat stress urinary incontinence to stop urinary leakage and to treat pelvic organ prolapse to maintain the locati ...
and would show their clients how to use this method of contraception in direct violation of these laws.
This was the first birth control clinic in the United States. The clinic caused an immediate sensation in the press, getting national attention, and all three women were arrested and tried for "distributing obscene materials".
:"The police monitored the Clinic from its opening and sent in a female undercover agent to purchase contraceptive supplies. On October 26 (1916) an undercover police woman and vice-squad officers raided the clinic, confiscated an assortment of contraceptives from pessaries to condoms, along with 20 'books on young women', and arrested Sanger, Byrne and Mindell. After being arraigned, Sanger and Mindell spent the night in the Raymond Street jail, Byrne at the Liberty Avenue station. All were released the next morning on $500.00 bail."
All three women were found guilty, but eventually the verdicts were overturned, and their campaign was ultimately successful, leading to major changes in social policy and to the laws governing birth control and sex education around the world.
[ The clinic closed but later became the basis for what was to become known as ]Planned Parenthood
The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. (PPFA), or simply Planned Parenthood, is a nonprofit organization that provides reproductive health care in the United States and globally. It is a tax-exempt corporation under Internal Reve ...
.
After being arrested for distribution of information about birth control, Byrne was sentenced to 30 days in Blackwell's Island prison. She was jailed at Blackwell Island workhouse
In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse'' ...
on January 22, 1917 for her activism in advocating for the legalization of birth control and subsequently went on a hunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke a feeling of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most ...
. Sanger was concerned her sister would lose her life as a result of this hunger strike and Byrne was force fed while serving her sentence after 185 hours without food or water. As historian Jill Lepore reports in ''The Secret History of Wonder Woman,'' Ethel Byrne was the first female political prisoner in the United States to be subjected to force feeding
Force-feeding is the practice of feeding a human or animal against their will. The term ''gavage'' (, , ) refers to supplying a substance by means of a small plastic feeding tube passed through the nose ( nasogastric) or mouth (orogastric) into t ...
. Mrs. Byrne was prepared to starve herself to death in support of her cause. Her case was the first of a group of cases known as the "Sanger cases" to be brought to trial.
Sanger supported Byrne's activism and was quoted as saying "I didn't advise her to undertake this hunger strike, but I certainly would not tell her to end it now." Although they had a falling out after this arrest, their confinement helped bring national attention to their push for the legalization of birth control. It also hurt their relationship as Sanger's notoriety grew after this arrest and she was sometimes known to take credit for Ethel's infamous hunger strike.
Later years
Although her sister went on to become world-famous for her advocacy of birth control, Byrne's legacy is not well known. This is apparent on the Planned Parenthood
The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. (PPFA), or simply Planned Parenthood, is a nonprofit organization that provides reproductive health care in the United States and globally. It is a tax-exempt corporation under Internal Reve ...
website, as it is noted Sanger opened her 1916 clinic with "her sister". Ethel is not even mentioned by name and unlike her older sister is not a household name.
Ethel Byrne had a stroke and died in 1955, aged 71-72. She did not live to see the legalization of the birth control pill
The combined oral contraceptive pill (COCP), often referred to as the birth control pill or colloquially as "the pill", is a type of birth control that is designed to be taken orally by women. The pill contains two important hormones: progest ...
, as she died five years before it received FDA
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a federal agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of food ...
approval.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Byrne, Ethel
American nurses
American women nurses
1955 deaths
1883 births
American feminists