12 | DECEMBER 1 • 2022

OUR COMMUNITY

D

etroit was a
boomtown during
the 1920s — a
center of manufacturing
for the automotive and
other industries. Its rapidly
expanding population
included many European
immigrants and a Jewish
community of 35,000.
But the city’s
rapid economic
growth didn’t
help all families.
Poverty was
common,
exacerbated by
large families.
Detroit had a high birth
rate and one out of eight
babies born in the city was
a “public charge,” according

to Robbie Terman, director
of the Leonard N. Simons
Jewish Community Archives
of the Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit. Terman
spoke at a recent Jewish
History Detectives Lecture,
one of a series sponsored by
the late Dr. Robert and Joan
Jampel that is presented by
Temple Beth El.
Terman is a devoted
historical researcher with
a master’s degree in library
and information science
and archives/archival
administration. By chance,
she came across records
of the important role of
Detroit’s Jewish community
in opening the city’s first
birth control clinic in 1927.

At the time, the health of
many women suffered from
frequent pregnancies. Many
infants didn’t survive, and
families struggled to provide
for large families. A few
forms of birth control were
available, but they required
funds and connections that
were typically only available
to people of means. Low-
income women sometimes
used ineffective and
dangerous tactics to avoid
pregnancy, such as douching
with a Lysol solution. Some
individuals resorted to illegal,
risky abortions.
According to Terman,
distribution of birth control
devices such as condoms and
diaphragms was limited by

the federal Comstock Act,
passed in 1873, which made
it a crime to use the U.S.
Postal Service to mail any
“obscenity, contraceptives,
abortifacients or sex toys”
through the postal service.
Early in the 20th century,

Robbie
Terman

Jewish community’s support was essential
for Detroit’s first family planning clinic in 1927

Detroit’s Role
in the History of
Family Planning

SHARI S. COHEN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

COURTESY OF THE LEONARD N SIMONS JEWISH COMMUNITY ARCHIVES

Morris
Waldman

Elsie Sulzberger was
prominent in the
establishment of the
North End Clinic, which
included a birth control
clinic in 1933.

continued on page 14