Marie Stopes

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Standard Name: Stopes, Marie
Birth Name: Marie Charlotte Carmichael Stopes
Pseudonym: Mark Arundel
Pseudonym: Erica Fay
Pseudonym: Marie Carmichael
Pseudonym: G. N. Mortlake
MS was best known for her early-twentieth-century writing on motherhood and birth control, and for her strong commitment to educating women in the practice of contraception. In order to communicate detailed instructions on topics that were taboo, she often employed a literary style that may now seem over-mystical or lyrical. She published widely, writing in various disciplines such as science, sexology, philosophy and theology, in a number of literary genres such as drama, autobiography, poetry, and the novel, and on a wide range of topics, including censorship, love, and marriage.
Black and white, head-and-shoulders photograph of Marie Stopes, c. 1918. She has short curly hair, and wears a dress with dark sleeves and broad white collar, a necklace of large beads, and a white Panama-style hat with a dark bow.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Germaine Greer
She plunges further into controversy in attacking the criminally irresponsible, usually experimental, outsiders' attempts to get birth-control established in India. The naivety and political illiteracy of the champions of mass vasectomy would eventually have...
Textual Production Judith Kazantzis
This remarkable anthology brings to a wider audience poems by many otherwise unknown writers, as well as by, for instance, Vera Brittain , Edith Sitwell , Nancy Cunard , Cicely Hamilton , Rose Macaulay ,...
Textual Production Muriel Box
MB edited and published through her own newly founded Femina BooksThe Trial of Marie Stopes, reporting Stopes's unsuccessful libel action against Halliday Sutherland in 1923.
Greer, Germaine. Sex and Destiny. Harper and Row.
136
Textual Production Angela Brazil
Probably in the early 1920s, Marie Stopes proposed that she should adapt one of AB 's school novels (she had apparently not decided which) for the stage. Brazil refused on the grounds that the largely...
Reception Charlotte Stopes
CS 's fame has been largely obscured by that of her daughter Marie . Her contribution as a Shakespearean scholar, however, along with the question of its denigration by male scholars, has been taken up...
Publishing Rose Allatini
It is titled from a phrase in the book of Isaiah which is read by Christians as a prophecy of the persecutions awaiting the Messiah, or Jesus Christ. Its dedication, To You Who Made Me...
politics Naomi Mitchison
In 1917 NM joined the movement to establish a League of Nations . In the twenties she participated in the Women's International League , an organization of feminist outlook which was working to establish such...
politics Maude Royden
In addition to working for women's suffrage and family endowment, MR argued for birth control. She supported the work of feminist and birth control advocate Marie Stopes , who founded the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress
politics Dora Russell
It featured such speakers as Vera Brittain , Ethel Mannin , Naomi Mitchison , Marie Stopes , Desmond MacCarthy , Bertrand Russell , and G. B. Shaw . Papers given included DR 's Marriage and...
Occupation Muriel Spark
She later recounted the ructions that cost her her Poetry Society job. She set out to raise the quality of the Poetry Review, to cease railing against the moderns,
Spark, Muriel. Curriculum Vitae: Autobiography. Constable.
169
to render an amateur...
Occupation Charlotte Stopes
After completing her education, she taught privately. CS was also her daughter Marie 's primary educator until Marie reached the age of twelve.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
Commire, Anne, and Deborah Klezmer, editors. Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Yorkin Publications.
850
Leisure and Society Angela Brazil
AC often entertained school-children and orphans at her home. She suggests a different slant on the eugenics movement when describing this activity to Marie Stopes : A spinster lady can't do much in your line...
Intertextuality and Influence Maude Royden
She had originally given the first seven of the eleven chapters as addresses at Kensington Town Hall on a series of consecutive Sunday nights.
Royden, Maude. Sex and Common-Sense. G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
xv
This was the same year in which Marie Stopes formed...
Friends, Associates Naomi Mitchison
Naomi's close childhood friends included Julian and Aldous Huxley . Close family friends included Florence Buchanan , distinguished physiologist, and Marie Stopes , paleobotanist and birth control educator (the latter role emerged only later).
Squier, Susan M., and Naomi Mitchison. “Naomi Mitchison: The Feminist Art of Making Things Difficult”. Solution Three, Feminist Press at The City University of New York, pp. 161-83.
164
Benton, Jill. Naomi Mitchison: A Biography. Pandora.
22
Friends, Associates Phyllis Bentley
Vera Brittain introduced PB , during her stay in Chelsea, to birth-control crusader Marie Stopes .
Brittain, Vera. Chronicle of Friendship. Editor Bishop, Alan, Gollancz.
41

Timeline

April 1900: Shafts, a paper for women and the working...

Building item

April 1900

Shafts, a paper for women and the working classes, then a magazine of progressive thought, ceased publication.

By September 1915: US birth-control activist Margaret Sanger...

Building item

By September 1915

US birth-control activist Margaret Sanger probably showed Marie Stopes (as a French pessary) an example of the original contraceptive cap of the kind dating from 1838.

16 October 1916: Margaret Sanger opened a birth-control clinic...

National or international item

16 October 1916

Margaret Sanger opened a birth-control clinic at 46 Amboy Street in New York (Brooklyn), four and a half years ahead of the first such British clinic, which was the brainchild of Marie Stopes .
American National Biography. http://www.anb.org/articles/home.html.

1929: The Society for Constructive Birth Control...

Building item

1929

The Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress (founded by Marie Stopes in August 1921) began to advocate sterilization in certain cases where women were congenitally diseased, physically or mentally handicapped, or had previous...

1930: A number of rival birth-control clinics joined...

Building item

1930

A number of rival birth-control clinics joined forces as the National Birth Control Association (later the Family Planning Association).

31 July 1930: Memorandum 153/MCW, a clause introduced by...

Building item

31 July 1930

Memorandum 153/MCW, a clause introduced by the Ministry of Health, first allowed dispensation of contraceptive advice.

2 June 1942: The criminal trial by jury of Dr Eustace...

Building item

2 June 1942

The criminal trial by jury of Dr Eustace Chesser for his educational book Love without Fear began; he was charged with publishing an obscene libel.

1991: RU 486, the morning after pill, was approved...

National or international item

1991

RU 486, the morning after pill, was approved for use in the UK.

Texts

Stopes, Marie. A Journal from Japan. Blackie and Son, 1910.
Stopes, Marie. A Letter to Working Mothers. Printed for the author.
Stopes, Marie. A New Gospel to All Peoples. Arthur L. Humphreys, 1922.
Stopes, Marie. A Road to Fairyland. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1926.
Stopes, Marie. Ancient Plants. Blackie and Son, 1910.
Stopes, Marie, editor. Birth Control News. John Bale, Sons, and Danielsson.
Stopes, Marie. Don’t Tell Timothy. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1925.
Stopes, Marie, and Kenrio Watanabe. Love Letters of a Japanese. Editor Stopes, Marie, Stanley Paul and Company, 1919.
Stopes, Marie. Love Songs for Young Lovers. William Heinemann.
Stopes, Marie. Love’s Creation. John Bale, Sons and Danielsson, 1928.
Stopes, Marie. Man, Other Poems and a Preface. William Heinemann, 1914.
Stopes, Marie. Married Love. A. C. Fifield.
Stopes, Marie. Mother England. John Bale, Sons and Danielsson.
Stopes, Marie. Radiant Motherhood. G. Putnam’s Sons.
Stopes, Marie, editor. The Sportophyte.
Stopes, Marie. Vectia. John Bale, Sons and Danielsson, 1926.
Stopes, Marie. We Burn. De La More Press, 1949.
Stopes, Marie. Wise Parenthood. A. C. Fifield.