Hull House and the Birth Control
Movement: An Untold Story
Diane C. Haslett
The residents of Jane Addams’s Hull House were in the vanguard of
those supporting reproductive alternatives for all women. They were
instrumental in bringing family planning services to Chicago and
actively opposed the withholding of abortion services. This article
discusses the work of two longtime Hull-House residents, Alice Hamilton
and Rachelle Yarros, in the birth control movement and presents the
implications of their approach for improving the delivery of services
to and ensuring reproductive freedom for women today.
During days of peace, order, and stability it may be regarded as
sign of professional scientific-mindedness to refrain from taking sides with respect to controversial public issues. But these
are not days of calm.... Our society is being made over, and
a
whether
we like it or not, new modes of behavior and new
of
qualities experience are being molded. Whenever social values and processes are involved, there the social worker has a
concern.... Thus far, we have left the task [of fighting for birth
control] largely to a few courageous women and a handful of
men. (Lindeman, 1935, pp. 1-2)
&dquo;Through
genesis
an
understanding of history, we can probe the
our problems and begin to invent a new
of many of
Author’s Note: The research on which this article is based was supported,
in part, by a University of Maine 1995 Summer Faculty Research Fund Award.
The author wishes to thank Elizabeth DePoy, Susan Stall, and Martha
Thompson for their comments on earlier versions of this article.
AHLU, Vol. 12 No. 3, Fall 1997 261-277
@ 1997 Sage Publications, Inc.
261
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262
future&dquo; (Parsons, Jorgeson, & Hernandez,1994, p. 37). The work
of Alice Hamilton and Rachelle Yarros, physicians who lived
and worked at Hull House in the early years, fits this important
maxim. Apart from historical interest, Hamilton and Yarros’s
multifaceted approach to women’s reproductive freedom offers
insights into contemporary feminist social work. Their work is
of special relevance to social workers who are challenging the
effects of recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court and
Congress on reproductive freedom and are confronting the
efforts of extremist antiabortion groups.
Most social workers are well aware of the accomplishments of
Jane Addams and the inner circle of residents that have been
chronicled in many scholarly works-their own, their contemporaries’, and those of later historians (Addams, 1910/1961; Carson,
1990; Costin, 1980; Davis & McCree, 1969; Hamilton, 1943;
Mackevich, Ruoff, & Vavra, 1989; Sicherman, 1984; Wade, 1971).
However, the work of Yarros and Hamilton, though visionary and
pioneering, has received little attention in the literature on Hull
House (Bryan & Davis, 1990; Johnson, 1990; Lasch, 1971;
Mackevich et al., 1989; Sicherman, 1984; Ward, 1986) and follows
the curious pattern of omission of Hull House residents’ involvement in works on the birth control movement in the Progressive
Era (Carson, 1990; Chen, 1996; Clarke, 1961; Ditzion, 1969; Gor-
don, 1977; Kennedy, 1970; Reed, 1978). This article analyzes the
work of Yarros and Hamilton not only to highlight their accomplishments as important historical figures in social work, but to
inform contemporary feminist social work and social work
change efforts in the field of reproductive rights.
BACKGROUND
Hamilton, bom in Indiana in 1869, was one of the early generations
of American college women who pioneered in the professions.
She studied medicine in the United States and Germany. In
1897, she became a resident of Hull House, where she lived and
worked intermittently over the next 22 years and remained
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263
closely associated with it throughout her life. In later years, she
engaged in work on the national and international scenes and
became the first woman on the faculty at Harvard Medical
School, where she served as assistant professor of industrial
medicine
(Sicherman, 1971,1984).
a Russian exile, first met Hamilton when they were
interns at New England Hospital for Women and Children in
Boston (Sicherman, 1984). She and her husband, Victor, became
residents of Hull House in 1907 and stayed for 20 years (Lasch,
1971). During her career, Yarros was an associate professor at
Yarros,
the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago, which later
became the medical school of the University of Illinois. In that
capacity, she pioneered in teaching obstetrics, human sexuality,
and contraception. From 1898 to 1910, Yarros instructed both
male and female medical students in obstetric care and home
deliveries in the college’s Department of Obstetrics in the
Ghetto, highly unusual and innovative activities in that era. In
1926, she became professor of social hygiene, a position the
University of Illinois College of Medicine created for her in
recognition of her enormous contributions to the field of social
hygiene and sex education (Ward, 1986).
As Hamilton and Yarros immersed themselves in life at Hull
House, they were moved by the plight of the women whom they
encountered in the settlement’s programs. They joined Margaret
Sanger and others who were championing the cause of birth
control by challenging policies that denied women access to
information and contraceptive devices and by providing concrete
services, such as medical centers and day nurseries. Hamilton and
Yarros’s fight for birth control is a prime illustration of an approach
to social reform that is relevant today
RESEARCH ON DANGER OF
REPEATED PREGNANCIES
Although Hamilton was primarily a medical pathologist rather
than a practicing physician, early in her residency at Hull House,
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264
she set up a well-baby clinic where, as she observed ruefully,
she did no harm in dispensing the latest medical wisdom on
child rearing. The immigrant mothers just ignored her advice,
preferring to follow tried-and-true methods handed down from
generation to generation (Hamilton, 1925). True to Addams’s
dictum that the settlement was as much for the residents as for
the neighbors, Hamilton learned a great deal from the mothers
who came to her for care. Like Sanger and others who worked
to decriminalize the dispensing of birth control information and
devices (Kennedy, 1970; Sanger, 1938/1971), Hamilton was
struck by the impact of repeated pregnancies on women, particularly poor women who had access to fewer options than
their middle-class sisters. As she noted,
pictures flash into my mind of the gradual slipping down
of home standards and the loss of comforts, decencies, under the
pressure of too many babies, coming too fast.... I could think
of dull, weary women, incapable of taking the part of mother as
we think of that part, to the always increasing brood of children,
who had to bring up themselves and their younger brothers and
sisters because the one who should have done it had degenerated into a lifeless drudge. (p. 226)
I had
Hamilton’s life as a resident of Hull House and her work in
the well-baby clinic brought her into contact with the plight of
individual mothers and their children. Her work as a researcher
bore out her anecdotal experiences. In 1909, she conducted a
groundbreaking study of the birth and death rates of infants in
1,600 poor families on the near west side of Chicago. She
compared the rates for large families (eight or more children)
with those for small families (four or fewer children), grouping
the families by nationality. In each group, the birth and death
rates for infants from large families were far higher than those
for small families-a finding that proved the need for effective
birth control to enable poor families to realize the benefits of
small families for their children (Hamilton, 1910, 1925). Her
study, one of the few then conducted on the impact of large
families on infant and child mortality, bolstered the argument
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265
for establishing birth control clinics that would be accessible to
poor and immigrant families.
Yarros and Hamilton shared similar stances on issues related
to the birth control movement. Both supported the use of
research to undergird the cause of birth control, to answer
objections raised by opponents, and to improve methods and
services. Yarros (1931) made this point in an article in the Birth
Control Review:
One of the most valuable means of removing such apathy as
exists [among physicians] is the systematic reporting of findings
based on experience with large numbers of cases, such as are
treated by the birth control clinics conducted under proper
supervision. Exchanging this information and making it available for the use of physicians generally will help to determine
the best methods available and greatly increase the appreciation of
birth control as a means of promoting health and welfare. (p. 15)
ABORTION
majority of their fellow physicians, Hamilton and
Yarros deplored the use of abortion as a method of birth control,
but both were troubled by the consequences of an antiabortion
position. In 1925, Hamilton noted the deleterious effects of
withholding both birth control information and devices and
Like the
abortion services:
Birth control is carried on in the tenements all the time, but it is
not prevention of conception, that the women do not understand. It is in the form of abortion which every woman can learn
about if she wishes. (p. 227)
Although committed to a theoretical antiabortion stance,
recognized that desperate women will take desperate
measures, including suicide, to end unwanted pregnancies.
Yarros (1916) described the predicament of these women and
their physicians this way:
each
As
physicians we
are
hundreds of children
particularly
are
in
a
position
to know that
bom in this country in
spite
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of
our
266
wealth, into conditions physical and moral which mean neglect, high infant death-rate, insufficient food, poor education, with the inevitable subsequent delinquency, vice and
crime.... There are those hundreds who are conceived against
the will of both parents, but particularly the mother. Who of us
has not heard the heart-broken confessions and appeals of many
decent, honest working women, or even of the middle class,
who are struggling with a small family budget.
No matter what your ideas of the sacredness of human life
and the criminality of performing abortions, your heart aches
while you send a woman out of your office, knowing that she is
surely going to a quack. (pp. 188-190)
In her book, Sex Problems in Modern Society,
Yarros (1938b)
related the real life hardships created by the criminalization of
abortion. She told the story of a woman in her early 20s who was
forced to delay her marriage and become the sole support of her
mother and five sisters and brothers when her father died. She
and her fiance became lovers, and she became pregnant. Later,
deserted by her fiance and aware that she would surely lose her
job as a supervisor in a highly regarded business if she continued
the pregnancy, she sought help from Dr. Yarros. Restricted by the
law, Yarros refused to perform an abortion and tried to reason with
her. The young woman was found later that day, a suicide in Lake
Michigan, with Yarros’s card in her pocket. Yarros was profoundly
disturbed by the woman’s death and redoubled her efforts to fight
for birth control and sex education, which, she believed, would
eliminate the necessity for abortion.
Documenting the adverse consequences of closely spaced
pregnancies and births on both mothers and children and recognizing the damaging effects of abortion used as birth control,
Hamilton and Yarros joined other proponents of birth control
to fight for social reform. As their association with the birth
control movement evolved, they challenged the attitudes, policies, and practices that denied women access to birth control
information and devices. They also created programs to provide
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267
services, such as medical centers that offered a broad
range of health care and information, including contraception,
and supportive services for day nurseries, particularly for
concrete
working mothers and their children.
EUGENICS
Although many supporters of the birth control movement used
eugenics or race preservation arguments to demonstrate the
need to offer information on birth control and contraceptives to
poor women, both Hamilton and Yarros firmly rejected this
stance. Daily association with their Hull House neighbors contributed to their understanding that strength of character is not
confined to the privileged classes. Hamilton (1925) believed
that the society had a responsibility to provide the same safe
and accessible birth control services to privileged and poor
women alike. As she put it,
by the plea that the upper classes
and that the welfare of society
the
lower
being submerged by
demands a redressing of the balance. We know that ability and
character are not a matter of class and that the difference comes
from the unfair handicaps to which the children of the poor are
subject and we would remedy matters by working for equality
of opportunity for all children, instead of trying to encourage
the propagation of one class and not of the other. (p. 226)
We
are
not... moved much
are
Yarros also rejected the eugenics argument. She displayed a rare
glimpse of humor as she dismissed the viability of such a position
when she spoke at the conference on Birth Control and National
Recovery, convened by Sanger in 1934: &dquo;I hope this conference
won’t stress the privileged classes because we don’t know who
they are, and if we know now, we probably won’t five years from
now&dquo; (Yarros, 1934, quoted in Chesler, 1992, pp. 344-345).
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268
DIRECT SERVICES
In her years at Hull House, Yarros worked to establish the Birth
Control Committee of the Chicago Woman’s Club, which later
organized the Illinois Birth Control League. Both groups were
primarily concerned with education. However, in 1922, at the
urging of Sanger, they and other prominent persons in the birth
control movement joined with Yarros to develop and staff Chicago’s first birth control clinic. Illinois law did not prohibit the
dissemination of birth control information in the 1920s, so the
group did not expect major problems in opening a public clinic.
However, the commissioner of health placed a substantial obstacle in their path by refusing to grant the necessary license.
The courts sided with the commissioner, declaring that he was
within his rights to deny the license (Ward, 1990). The Illinois
Birth Control League proceeded to open a private clinic in the
Chicago business district, thus obviating the need for the license. Ultimately, eight clinics served women in various neighborhoods of Chicago. Mary Crane Nursery, a pioneering Hull
House effort to provide early childhood education to the children of the Hull House neighborhood, was the site of one clinic,
thus successfully linking birth control services to services for
working mothers and their children (Yarros, 1925).
From their inception in 1924 through 1938, the last year
records are available, these clinics served 22,871 women, many
of whom were poor (Illinois Birth Control League, 1938). In
1929, Yarros (1931) reported the six clinics then open provided
contraceptive advice to 1,340 women, 96% of whom said that
they had used contraceptives for 1 to 14 months.
SOCIAL REFORM: CONFRONTING
THE OPPOSITION
Hamilton’s association with the cause of birth control was
confined primarily to writing articles on the subject and serving
on the committees and boards of various organizations. In 1935,
she became embroiled in a lively correspondence with the
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269
clergy and laity of the Roman Catholic Church when she reviewed Dorothy Dunbar Bromley’s book, Birth Control: Its Use
and Misuse, published in 1934. In the review, Hamilton affirmed
her
position in favor of contraception and asserted that the
Roman Catholic Church had reversed itself by encouraging
abstinence as a birth control measure for married couples. The
clergy and laity responded by roundly criticizing her support
of contraception and her apparent ignorance of authoritative
Roman Catholic teachings on marital relations. Although Hamilton
enjoyed the correspondence, neither she nor her opponents
changed their positions (Sicherman, 1984).
As Hamilton stated in her letter to Gerald J. McMahon, a
Benedictine monk, her unequivocal support of the cause of
birth control was grounded in the daily functioning of the Hull
House programs that served poor women and their children
and in her life as a resident of Hull House, where social reform
was always the subject of energetic debate. The debates did not
end in the Hull House dining room; they frequently led Hamilton
to action in the local and national corridors of power. In keeping
with her approach as a medical researcher, Hamilton challenged opponents of birth control with data and helped to
shape attitudes and policy by her activism with the American
Birth Control League and her articles in the journals of the day
(Hamilton, 1910,1925).
Yarros favored activism on a variety of fronts. She was the
founder of the American Social Hygiene Association in 1914
and the first vice president of the Illinois Social Hygiene League
(Lasch, 1971; Ward, 1986). During World War I, she chaired the
Department of Social Hygiene of the Illinois State Council of
Defense, extending her influence and impact to the state level
and ultimately to the national level through her work for the
American Birth Control League and her participation in the
National Health Conference in Washington, DC, in 1938 (Yarros,
1938a). Yarros published extensively in medical and social work
journals and in the American Birth Control League’s Birth
Control Review. Her articles demonstrate a keen ability to illus-
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270
trate the
hard, statistical data with rich qualitative material on
the lives of the women and families she served (Yarros, 1925,1931).
Yarros used her membership in and influence with women’s
organizations to create opportunities to advance the cause of
birth control,
successfully linking her social and professional
interests. Her association with the Chicago Woman’s Club was
the springboard for Medical Center No. 1, originally opposed
by the commissioner of health and the courts and the sub-
sequent seven medical centers that provided birth control services in Chicago’s ethnic neighborhoods (Yarros, 1920, 1932a).
After World War I, Yarros lectured extensively for the national
YWCA on topics related to social hygiene (Yarros, 1919).
In true Chicago style, Yarros used her clout to chastise the
Chicago Medical Society for dropping Dr. Louis Schmidt, president of the Illinois Public Health Institute, from its membership
for advocating lower cost, mass treatment for venereal diseases
and for appearing to sanction advertisements for these medical
services-a strategy used by the Illinois Social Hygiene League
to publicize its free services for patients referred by the Illinois
Public Health Institute. The American Medical Association and
the Chicago Medical Society opposed the use of the type of
mass treatment advocated by the Illinois Public Health Institute
and the Illinois Social Hygiene League and the use of business
tactics (advertising) with medical services. Yarros tendered her
resignation from the Chicago Medical Society, asserting that
Schmidt was a victim of infighting among these medical organizations and vehemently protesting the society’s unwillingness
to cooperate with the Illinois Public Health Institute’s efforts to
halt the spread of venereal disease (Yarros, 1929).
SEX EDUCATION AND
PREMARITAL COUNSELING
Yarros
information and devices
She
education for adolescents and
recognized that birth control
were not sufficient for the social reform that she envisioned.
was an
early
advocate of
sex
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271
worked to establish sex education programs in conjunction
with Hull House and through the Illinois Social Hygiene Society.
The methods used were similar to those used by sex educators
today-lectures, discussions, small groups, and films (Yarros,
1920, 1938b, 1943). Accessibility was the keynote in Yarros’s
approach to sex education. Yarros advocated for the provision
of sex education programs in locations where young people
were likely to be found~hurches, Hull House programs, factories, and the Chicago Park District’s local field houses in the
evenings and on weekends (Yarros, 1938b, 1943). These programs were enthusiastically received. As Yarros (1920) reported, the 661 lectures given in Illinois (478 of them in Chicago)
were attended by 73,388 persons, mainly women and girls. In
a nation that views sex education with some skepticism and
often outright opposition even today, Yarros’s work was endorsed by the Chicago Church Federation and received cooperation from a wide variety of civic groups and organizations,
including the Chicago Public Schools.
In 1932, Yarros opened the first premarital-marital counseling service in the Midwest, under the aegis of the educational
division of the Illinois Social Hygiene League. Establishing this
service was a logical extension of her work in sex education and
social hygiene. In doing so, Yarros seized yet another opportunity to eradicate ignorance and provide primary prevention
services (Yarros, 1932b).
FEMINIST CONSCIOUSNESS
Yarros identified herself as a feminist physician, proclaiming
that fact in the subtitle of her first book, Modern Woman and Sex:
A Feminist Physician Speaks (1933). Writing in Surgery, Gynecology
and Obstetrics (1916), she acknowledged the interconnectedness
of the feminist movement, the changing roles and expectations
of the modem woman of the early 1900s, and attitudes toward
birth control:
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272
[There] is a definite change in the attitude of the modem woman
regard to her special function as a woman and her place in
the social order.
We may call it the feminist movement or anything else. The
fact is that it manifests itself in hundreds of different ways; it
cannot be ignored or argued down with the old-fashioned idea
that &dquo;motherhood&dquo; is the only sphere of woman. (p. 189)
in
Yarros also stated that women are &dquo;unwilling to be subjected
involuntary motherhood&dquo; and believe they ought to have &dquo;the
power of choice&dquo; [emphasis added]-words that still resonate
with many women of the 1990s. In 1938, she published an
inexpensive version of her earlier work Modern Woman and Sex
(1933), retitled Sex Problems in Modern Society, because she
wanted this information to be accessible to everyone interested
but who might &dquo;not be in a position to pay $2 for any educational work, even if they feel keenly their need of it&dquo; (Yarros,
1938b, p. 4).
While she lived at Hull House, Yarros became convinced that
it was impossible for a physician to ignore the social ills that
often underlie physical ills. Many of the problems confronting
women could be traced to ignorance, excessive childbearing,
and exploitation, she thought. Yarros summed up her position
in her unpublished autobiography, quoted in her obituary in
the Journal of Social Hygiene:
to
The physician is also a citizen, a voter, a member of civic organizations. He should not be ignorant of economics, of political
science, of history, of philosophical ethics, of literature. The
enlightened, socially-minded doctor will sympathize with labor,
with victims of exploitation and industrial autocracy, with the
juvenile and adult delinquents who are the products of slums
and blighted, ugly, depressing districts. He will work and fight
for ripe and genuine reforms. (Obituary 1946, p. 331)
Throughout the remainder of her life, Yarros continued to be
active in all phases of the birth control movement and is acknowledged as a guiding influence in the field of sex education.
As was the case with Hamilton, who was less explicit about her
feminism, Yarros’s work in the cause of birth control was fixed
firmly in her day-to-day experiences with the women who were
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273
served in the clinics and in her life as a resident of Hull House.
In 1943, Yarros wrote, &dquo;As I began, so shall I end. I am a feminist&dquo;
(p. 29). Both women were gifted with the ability to make their
lived experiences, informed by their feminist consciousness, a
source of power and a catalyst for change in the cause of birth
control.
IMPLICATIONS FOR SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE
In their collaborative and individual work on behalf of
women’s reproductive freedom, Yarros and Hamilton illustrated a multilevel approach to social reform that deserves
significant recognition. For these Hull House residents, birth
control was not a single-issue agenda; rather, they understood
and addressed a matrix of interconnecting issues-the causes
and consequences of poverty, the role and status of women,
classism, and ethnocentrism.
Today, as in the earlier decades of this century, social workers
and feminists assert that reproductive freedom includes these
five related areas, though in an expanded context:
~
~
~
factual, comprehensive, and holistic sex education delivered in a
timely fashion;
information on and access to safe, effective and affordable contraceptive methods for all who request it;
information on and access to legal, safe, affordable abortion
services;
~
~
support during pregnancy and parenting; and
freedom from coercion, sexual abuse, and domestic violence
related to reproduction (Hartman,
1991; Sojourner,1991).
The work of Yarros and Hamilton addressed four of the five
Their endeavors were part of an incremental approach to
social change that not only challenged the status quo, but did
so in the context of existing systems. Their work to sidestep
public governance through the establishment of private clinics
to provide controversial birth control services exemplifies the
creative use of resources within established systems for delivareas.
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274
ering services. Moreover, Yarros’s pioneering work in sex education for adolescents and later in premarital and marital counseling services illustrates contemporary principles of providing
to information and informed choice and a clear understanding of effective ways to reach young women.
access
Although feminist social workers may have difficulty with
Hamilton’s and Yarros’s acceptance of the criminality of abortion, a position that must be evaluated in the context of the era,
they can translate many of the approaches the two women used
for contemporary practice. An analysis of both women’s work
reveals a multilevel, empirical approach to social change in
which feminism, respect for informed choice, and multiculturalism are the values and conceptual foundation of social action.
Yarros understood the need for seamless services, beginning
with sex education and premarital and marital counseling and
ending with birth control clinics accessible to working mothers,
thus providing supportive services at each stage of a woman’s
sexual life and reproductive journey Locating one of the eight
medical centers in Mary Crane Nursery was a model of service
delivery that is worthy of emulation in community centers
today
Beyond addressing social work’s specific responsibilities in
the arena of reproductive freedom, Yarros’s and Hamilton’s
work speaks to two additional social work concerns: diversity
and the use of research to inform micro- and macropractice. By
listening to the stories of immigrant women and respecting
women’s right to their own reproductive and birth control
practices, Hamilton and Yarros not only demonstrated their
celebration of diversity, but respected and used that knowledge
on behalf of culturally diverse women, particularly in the clinics
in Chicago’s ethnic neighborhoods. Their stand on the benefits
of diversity is further highlighted by their work to eschew
eugenics, in direct opposition to the trends of their times.
The use of research to inform practice is of particular relevance to social workers today In the tradition of Hull House,
both Hamilton and Yarros turned to empirical evidence to
promote social change. Their studies on the harmful effects of
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275
multiple pregnancies and the significant costs of prohibiting
abortion are noteworthy not only for their scholarship, but for
their application to practice and the reform of social policy The
link between research and practice and the responsibility for
social workers to provide systematic support for social change
is evident in their work.
Considering their controversial views and accomplishments
in promoting social reform, it is not surprising that the works
of Yarros and Hamilton have not been acclaimed until recently
However, the use of these historical records to inform contemporary social work practice provides a late but deserved celebration of these two visionary women. Feminist social workers
can turn to the writings and activities of Yarros and Hamilton
to inspire and guide their social change efforts today
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Bros.
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Diane C. Haslett, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the School of Social Work,
University of Maine, Annex C, Orono, ME 04469-5770; e-mail: haslett@
maine.maine.edu.
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