Margaret Sanger's husband William was arrested for distributing her contraception pamphlet, prompting her return from London.
On March 13, 1915, William Sanger, Margaret Sanger's husband, was arrested in New York City for distributing a copy of her pamphlet "Family Limitation" to an undercover agent posing as a poor father seeking birth control information. The arrest was part of a broader campaign by anti-vice crusader Anthony Comstock to suppress the dissemination of contraceptive information under federal and state obscenity statutes.
The pamphlet, written by Margaret Sanger in 1914, provided explicit, practical instructions on various contraceptive methods and was considered scandalous and illegal under the Comstock laws. William's arrest and subsequent prosecution generated significant public sympathy and media attention, effectively turning his trial into a referendum on the legitimacy of birth control itself.
The incident prompted Margaret Sanger, then living in exile in London to avoid her own obscenity charges from The Woman Rebel, to return to the United States to stand by her husband and confront her own pending case. The publicity surrounding William's arrest galvanized public discourse and helped mobilize early birth control advocates, directly contributing to the formation of organized support networks, including the Birth Control League formed just two months later. This episode exemplifies how the Sanger family's personal legal battles became a catalyst for the broader movement to decriminalize contraception in America.