VISUAL ACTIVITY Margaret Sanger’s Brownsville Birth Control Clinic Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the United States in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn in 1916. Before police shut it down, more than 400 women visited the clinic. Sanger located her clinic in the heart of an immigrant neighborhood to prove that Italian Catholics and Russian Jews wanted birth control as much as their middle-and upper-class Protestant counterparts. Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College. READING THE IMAGE: From this photo, what can you surmise about the women who sought birth control at Sanger’s clinic in 1916? Why do so many of them have baby carriages? CONNECTIONS: Why did Sanger consider birth control a radical cause?