United States v. Dennett: United States v. Dennett: The Battle for Sex Education in the Early 1900s

Presenter Information

Hannah Breda, University at Albany, State University of New YorkFollow

Panel Name

Identity Politics in the Workplace and in the Courts of the Land and Public Opinion

Location

Lecture Centre Concourse

Start Date

3-5-2019 3:00 PM

End Date

3-5-2019 5:00 PM

Presentation Type

Poster Session

Academic Major

History

Abstract

The 1873 Comstock Act outlawed the production and distribution of any materials that were deemed to be obscene or capable of arousing adolescents. Mary Ware Dennett, a women's rights activist and pioneer in birth control and sex education, was one of the many who fell victim to this law. Dennett was arrested in 1929 for distributing her sex education pamphlet, The Sex Side of Life, written for her teenage sons after finding the sex education materials produced by the government to be insufficient. This paper argues that Dennett's pamphlet was scrutinized in United States v. Dennett because it emphasized not only the procreative and health aspects of sex, but also the emotional and physical pleasures of sex, which were topics that were avoided within the government's work. This paper compares The Sex Side of Life to the government's sex education materials from the early 1900s to provide insight into the inadequacies she found within them and to show the specific ways in which the content of her pamphlet differed from the work produced by the government.

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Departmental Honors Thesis

First Faculty Advisor

Kendra Smith-Howard

First Advisor Email

ksmih-howard@albany.edu

First Advisor Department

History

Second Faculty Advisor

Mitch Aso

Second Faculty Advisor Email

maso@albany.edu

Second Advisor Department

History

The work you will be presenting can best be described as

Finished or mostly finished by conference date