Google Margaret Sanger, pioneer of the birth control movement, and you barely need to scroll down the page to find her name associated with various controversial topics, including eugenics—the belief that the genetic composition of society could be improved by preventing groups deemed “unfit” from reproducing. One site called blackgenocide.org, for example, promises “the truth about Margaret Sanger.”

Sanger’s muddled legacy is, in part, what prompted Goucher College history professor Jean H. Baker to write Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion (Hill and Wang, hardcover). In the book, Baker admits that Sanger did link her beloved birth control movement with eugenics, but the writer casts Sanger as a woman of her time, pointing out in the introduction that she was far from alone in her support of eugenics: “During Sanger’s time, eugenicism—the belief that it was possible to improve the qualities of the human race through science—enrolled American presidents, from Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson to Herbert Hoover; Supreme Court justices, including Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis Brandeis; along with scientists from the most prestigious institutions in the U.S.”

Though Baker claims that her intention in writing A Life of Passion was to “interlard the personal with the political, not as hagiography but as authenticity,” there are times when it seems that she is purposefully trying to reclaim the sullied Sanger name and polish it. But Baker would likely argue this view. As she states in her introduction, “I hold no expectation that the angry defilers of Sanger will revise their misinformation, nor do I believe that Sanger deserves sanctification.”

And overall, Baker succeeds in presenting a fairly balanced portrait of Sanger. The writer doesn’t shy away from depicting her as a selfish, stubborn woman who pursued the advancement of birth control with a single-mindedness and ferocity that often came at the expense of her family. Sanger was a less than ideal mother to her three children, as she was frequently absent or too absorbed in her work to be consistently involved in her children’s lives. Baker also acknowledges the long list of lovers that Sanger had, without glossing over the fact that Sanger took these lovers with no regard for her marital status.

Baker’s biography succeeds in taking readers on a fascinating journey into the world of the 1920s and ’30s, when the Comstock laws made even the act of distributing information about birth control a crime. The strength of Baker’s book is in her ability to contextualize Sanger within her own time, which may prompt even her harshest critics to reassess her legacy. Baker makes it clear that Sanger believed, above all else, that every woman should have the right to control all aspects of her reproductive life through the diligent use of birth control, and in so doing Baker does her part in removing some of the tarnish from Sanger’s name. The book may lead even confirmed Sanger critics to question why her reputation has suffered so greatly while those of some of America’s more prominent proponents of eugenics, like Teddy Roosevelt and Oliver Wendell Holmes, have remained largely free from blemish.

> Email Danielle Ariano