The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution (48 page)

Pincus chose Puerto Rico to test his new pill because the island was poor, crowded, and had a large number of contraceptive clinics, including this one at the El Ejemplo sugar plantation.
(The Harvard Medical Library in the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine)

Pincus confers with Drs. John Rock and Celso-Ramón Garcia during clinical trials for the pill, circa 1957.
(University of Massachusetts Medical School Archives, Lamar Soutter Library, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Mass.)

Before G. D. Searle & Co. won government approval for the sale of a birth-control pill, it marketed Enovid as a cure for irregular menstrual cycles.

When Enovid was finally approved for birth control in 1960, it quickly became one of the best-selling drugs in the world.
(Photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress)

By the time the pill gained popularity, Gregory Pincus was battling cancer.
(Courtesy of Laura Bernard)

Acknowledgments

I
AM GRATEFUL TO
so many people who devoted time, knowledge, and energy to this project. Gregory Pincus’s daughter, Laura Pincus Bernard, shared family letters and photos, put me in touch with many of her father’s associates, and accompanied me on a tour of the places where her father lived and worked. Rachel and Hart Achenbach shared their memories of Rachel’s remarkable father, Dr. John Rock. Sue and Wes Dixon welcomed me to their home and told wonderful stories about Sue’s father, Jack Searle. I was also fortunate to interview Isabelle Chang, wife of M. C. Chang.

Hundreds of other people gave generously of their time for interviews. Thanks in particular, and in no particular order, to Esther Katz; Cathy Moran Hajo; Dr. Henry Kirkendall, Jr.; Dr. Leonard Morse; Alex Sanger; Gloria Feldt; Larry Isaacson; Merry Maisel; Ronald Notkin; Andrew Pincus; David Pincus; Mike Pincus; Leo Latz, Jr.; Lex Lalli; Geoff Dutton; Evelyn Karet; Elizabeth Rubin; Erica Jong; Hugh Hefner; Dr. Edward E. Wallach; Ricardo Rosenkranz; Ellen More; Erica Jong; Kristine Reinhard; Tina Mercier; Neena Schwartz; Michael Moschos; Dr. Todd Hunter; Dr. Saul Lerner; Dr. Koji Yoshinaga; Dr. Prentiss C. Higgins; Dr. John McCracken; Dr. Nathan Kase; Judy McCann; Barbara Kupfer; Liza Gallardo; and Dr. Thoru Pederson.

I believe strongly in doing my own research. But scientists write more letters and keep better records than the ballplayers and gangsters I’ve written about in the past, which meant I needed extra hands and eyes to get through the materials stored in libraries and archives around the country. I am grateful to Lisa Applegate, Nick Bruno, Lauren Dickinson, Sonia Gomez, Chris Heidenrich, and Shane Zimmer for their research assistance. Special thanks go to Zimmer—researcher, editor, fact checker, spreadsheet builder, and friend—who has been with me almost from the start of this project. Ayako Mie helped dig up documents, photos, and newspaper clippings in Japan. For my research in Puerto Rico, I had assistance from Mike Soto, Anabellie Rivera, Daniel Epstein, Tyler Bridges, Marisol Lugo Juan, and Diana Rodriguez.

My friend Marci Bailey not only helped me search through library archives in Massachusetts, she also accompanied me on an eye-opening journey to Worcester, thoughtfully commented on my manuscript, and provided me a home away from home in Boston. My cousin, Dr. Jerry Avorn, read the manuscript and made helpful suggestions. Leslie Silverman, another cousin, pitched in with research. My brother, Matt Eig, and my friends Richard Babcock, Pat Byrne, Lou Carlozo, Mark Caro, James Finn Garner, Bob Kazel, Robert Kurson, Ron Jackson, and Jim Powers weighed in regularly with encouragement and advice. Bryan Gruley worked with me to map the path of the story and to make sure I stayed on course. Lori Rotskoff also read an early draft and helped me think more deeply about the book’s themes. My friend and former teacher, Joseph Epstein, pushed me as he’s been pushing me for thirty years to sharpen my writing. Other writer friends who pitched in along the way include Stephen Fried, Louise W. Knight, Gioia Diliberto, T. J. Stiles, Rachel Shteir, Jane Leavy, Rebecca Skloot, Chuck McCutcheon, Bob Spitz, Ben Kesling, and Charlie Newton. I am also thankful for good advice received from Linda Ginzel, Boaz Keysar, Sayuri Hayakawa, and Richard Thaler.

My friend Suzie Takacs of the Book Cellar in Chicago urged me to pursue this subject when I had doubts. The wonderful staff at Unabridged Books in Chicago supplied me with loads of good reading. Thanks also to the top-notch staff at the Book Stall in Winnetka, Mitchell Kaplan at Books & Books in Miami, the Biographers International Organization, and the Tucson Festival of Books.

Jean Halberstam kindly granted me access to materials used by her late husband, David Halberstam, in his book
The Fifties
. Thanks to my friend Robert Solomon for introducing me to Ms. Halberstam. I’m also indebted to A. J. Baime for arranging my interview with Hugh Hefner. I want to thank Erna Buffie for sharing footage from her excellent documentary on the pill.

Kristen Meldi and Dr. Steven Sondheimer read my manuscript to make sure I got the science right, and Jack Cassidy checked it for everything else. Any mistakes that remain are my fault, not theirs.

I am also indebted to a number of librarians and archivists, none more so than Jeff Flannery at the Library of Congress, where I passed long hours immersed in the poems, letters, and scientific papers of Gregory Pincus. My thanks go out also to the staffs of the following institutions: the American Catholic History Research Center at the Catholic University of America; the Chicago History Museum; the Chicago Public Library (especially the John Merlo branch); the Clark University archives; the Countway Library of Medicine at Harvard University; the DePaul University library; the Kinsey Institute and the Lilly Library, both at the University of Indiana; the Lamar Soutter Library at the University of Massachusetts Medical School; the MIT Museum; the National Archives; the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College; the University of Southern California libraries; the Wisconsin Historical Society; and the Worcester Historical Museum.

I must also thank the authors who explored the subject of birth control before I came around to it and put some of the building blocks of this story in place. The following writers took the time to offer their personal guidance: Annette B. Ramirez de Arellano, Laura Briggs, Ellen Chesler, Esther Katz, Margaret Marsh, Gay Talese, and James Reed. In addition, Loretta McLaughlin and Leon Speroff—the biographers of John Rock and Gregory Pincus, respectively—met with me in person, provided access to their research materials, read my manuscript, and offered excellent suggestions.

I also benefited enormously from the work of the research team at the Margaret Sanger Papers Project at New York University, which has published a three-volume edition of Sanger’s papers and a two-series microfilm edition of documents from the collections at Smith College.

This is my first book for W. W. Norton, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to work with such a talented and dedicated team. John Glusman is everything a writer could ask for in an editor: incisive, meticulous, and always pushing me to do my best. Thanks to Tara Powers for her scrupulous copyediting and to David High for his elegant design of the book’s jacket. Also at Norton, thanks to Jonathan Baker, Louise Brockett, Steve Colca, Drake McFeely, Ingsu Liu, Jeannie Luciano, Nancy Palmquist, Jess Purcell, Don Rifkin, Bill Rusin, and Devon Zahn.

My agent, David Black, has been a steady believer in me—or my potential, anyway—for more than a decade. He and others at the David Black Agency, especially Antonella Iannarino and Sarah Smith, have been among my most indefatigable champions.

I’ve heard it said that writing is lonely work, but not for me. I’ve been encouraged, coddled, sustained, and entertained while working on this book for the past three years better than any writer could ever hope to be. I have my family to thank for that. My parents continue to urge me, as they have all my life, to work hard, follow my passions, and be creative. My daughters, Lillian and Lola, fill every day with laughter and inspire me to see the world through their wide-open eyes. Jeff Schams has been my weight-lifting partner, literally and figuratively, helping me stay strong and keep life’s challenges in perspective. Finally, there’s my wife, Jennifer Tescher, to whom this book is dedicated and to whom I owe thanks for everything—for her love, her wisdom, her endless support, not to mention her reading these pages early enough to make sure no one else would see the bad parts. We make a great team.

Notes

The narrative of this book is based on primary sources: thousands of letters and scientific reports; hundreds of scientific research papers; hundreds more newspaper and magazine articles; and interviews with more than one hundred people.

The majority of the documents were found at these archives:

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LOC)

Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, MA (SSC)

University of Massachusetts Medical School Archive, Worcester, MA (UM)

Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School (CLM)

University of Southern California Libraries, Special Collections, Los Angeles, CA (USC)

CHAPTER ONE