A collection of five birth control pamplets from the 1930s

Background

The collection of five birth control pamphlets from the 1930’s was made primarily in 1937-1938. A few of these pamphlets were printed by the Pennsylvania Birth Control Federation, located at 253 South Fifteenth Street Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The other pamphlets were originally published in New York, however, the Pennsylvania Birth Control Federation may have reprinted them to circulate across the Philadelphia area. A publisher is not named, but this collection of five birth control pamphlets from the 1930s are mainly written by doctors or scientists involved/interested in birth control or safely administering birth control at the prime of its movement. Birth Control for Isolated Social Groups by Alla Nekrassova is a pamphlet reprinted from “The Birth Control Review.” The Challenge of Birth Control by Norman E. Himes is copyrighted. There is a paragraph describing the use of the pamphlet, specifically as a one-hour study program for use by Women’s Clubs and study groups. Under this description is a marker of copyright, January 1938. “American Medicine Accepts Birth Control” is reprinted from the Birth Control Review, June 1937. Many of these pamphlets were most likely distributed across multiple communities in the local Philadelphia area for Birth Control awareness. There was no information on when the University of Pennsylvania acquired these collections of pamphlets.

Genre of Ephemera

The term “ephemera,” originated as a medical term from medieval Latin febris, or lasting a day. This term can also be traced from the Greek word ephemeros, meaning daily or lasting only one day, short-lived. In the 17th century, the word was used to describe short-lived insects and flowers in Modern Latin. The original uses of the word ephemera can be used to understand the function of ephemera in print culture. The study of ephemera consists of short-lived documents including pamphlets, religious tracts, advertisements, broadside ballads, chapbooks, banknotes, baseball cards, booklets, bookmarks, and many other examples of disposable literature. Ephemera were commonly distributed by individuals handing them out to others on the street, walking door-to-door, and pasting them on bulletin boards, shop windows, and other common public spaces.