Although population rates declined during the Depression, the movement to provide birth control to families continued during the decade. Margaret Sanger and other birth control advocates not only lobbied to make contraceptives legal For married couples (they were illegal in most states) but championed the cause of national health and child care.

In spirit, birth control advocates had the support of the Roosevelt administration. In the 1920s Eleanor Roosevelt had served on the board of Sanger's.American Birth Control League. But Franklin Roosevelt depended heavily on the support of the Catholic Church and southern Demo-. crats and thus refused to acknowledge the movement, fearful of alienating these conservative political supporters. Eleanor Roosevelt in fact resigned from Sanger's league when her husband ran for president in 1932. The New Deal nonetheless funded birth control surreptitiously, paying nurses in the employ of New Deal agencies...