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

