Gertrude Aldredge Shelburne (1907-1993) was an American activist, philanthropist, and supporter of

contraceptive 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 ...

rights from

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County w ...

. She was a member of the

women's rights movement Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...

in Texas in the 1930s and '40s. In 1933, Shelburne joined forces with "an unlikely group of Dallas socialites drawn into the fledgling movement owknown as the Planned Parenthood Federation." She and other Dallas-area women worked with

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 ...

to distribute

contraceptives 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 ...

illicitly, with Sanger shipping diaphragms and condoms hidden in shirt boxes from New York for distribution to women in Texas. At the time, anti-contraception laws were the norm in the United States, and sharing information about contraception was prohibited by

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 ...

in many parts of the country. Shipping birth control across state lines was also against the law at the time. In honor of her work to expand access to

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 ...

in the Dallas area, Shelburne was made the eponym of a Greater Texas

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 ...

achievement award. Texans lost the right to abortion when the

Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

overturned Roe v. Wade ''Roe v. Wade'', 410 U.S. 113 (1973),. was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States conferred the right to have an abortion. The decision struck down many federal and st ...
and Texas criminalized

abortion Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pregn ...

. However, the right to

and

emergency contraception Emergency contraception (EC) is a birth control measure, used after sexual intercourse to prevent pregnancy. There are different forms of EC. Emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs), sometimes simply referred to as emergency contraceptives (ECs), o ...

(Plan B) still stands, with costs usually covered by health insurance plans under the

Affordable Care Act The Affordable Care Act (ACA), formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and colloquially known as Obamacare, is a landmark U.S. federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by Presid ...

Biography

Gertrude Terrell Aldredge (often referred to as Mrs. Samuel Shelburne) was born in

in 1907, to George Nathan Aldredge and Lilly Rowena (Munger) Aldredge. She was born into a wealthy and politically connected Dallas family, whose members included lawyers, judges, and bankers, as well as Dallas mayor Sawnie R. Aldredge (1921-23). Shelburne's father George Aldredge was the director of

Texaco Texaco, Inc. ("The Texas Company") is an American Petroleum, oil brand owned and operated by Chevron Corporation. Its flagship product is its Gasoline, fuel "Texaco with Techron". It also owned the Havoline motor oil brand. Texaco was an Indepe ...

for 30 years, and her mother, Rena Munger, also from a wealthy Dallas family, was the daughter of a

cotton gin A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (); a ...

business owner and niece of

Robert S. Munger Robert Sylvester Munger (July 24, 1854 – April 20, 1923) and his wife Mary Collett Munger (1857–1924) invented the "system cotton gin". After that achievement, Munger started and ran some of the largest gin manufacturing companies in the Un ...

, an early adopter of exclusionary neighborhood developments by way of restrictive deeds. She married Dr. Samuel Ainslie Shelburne. They lived in Dallas and had three children: Samuel Ainslie Shelburne, Jr. (1934-2021), George Aldredge Shelburne (b. 1939), and Alice Shelburne Neild (b. 1941). The family spent summers at the

Chautauqua Institution The Chautauqua Institution ( ) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit education center and summer resort for adults and youth located on in Chautauqua, New York, northwest of Jamestown in the Western Southern Tier of New York State. Established in 1874, the ...

, an educational summer camp for families in upstate New York. A life-long resident of Dallas, Shelburne passed away there in 1993 at the age of 85.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Planned Parenthood Greater Texas

Planned Parenthood
Birth control in the United States American birth control activists American women's rights activists People associated with Planned Parenthood Progressive Era in the United States Activists from Dallas 1907 births 1993 deaths