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Margaret Sanger, “The Unrecorded Battle” (1912)

2022; Duke University Press; Volume: 19; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1215/15476715-9475817

1558-1454

Christopher Phelps,

Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes

Published here for the first time, “The Unrecorded Battle” is a short story written in 1912 by Margaret Sanger, later the most famous American advocate of women's access to birth control. A dramatization of a doctor's sexual harassment of a nurse, the story drew on elements of Sanger's life. In 1912, Sanger was a nurse in New York City. She was thirty-two or thirty-three years old, having been born Margaret Higgins on September 14, 1879, in the middle of her working-class Irish immigrant parents’ eleven children. Upon her father's death, Higgins trained as a nurse between 1899 and 1902 at White Plains Hospital in Westchester County, at which time she lived in a boardinghouse, much like the story's protagonist. A few months’ residence at the Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital followed, but her nursing career was sidetracked when she married the Jewish architect and artist William Sanger and gave birth to three children. In 1910, the family returned to New York City, where Margaret Sanger again took up work as a nurse while the couple joined the Socialist Party, then at its electoral peak. In their flat they hosted evenings attended by Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) leaders Big Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, radical intellectual John Reed, and anarchist Emma Goldman.1Tacking between the worlds of working-class radicalism and nursing, Sanger developed her view that women's sexual liberation is integral to the struggle for social justice. Her nursing career took her into Lower East Side tenements, where she delivered babies. As she met impoverished families who could ill afford more children but did not know how to prevent pregnancy, and as she saw the devastation produced by gonorrhea and syphilis, she came to see a pressing need for candid sex education. That led her to write astonishingly frank columns for the socialist newspaper the New York Call in 1911 and 1912 in which she used such words as “vagina” and brought down the censorship of Anthony Comstock. Ardently involved in the revolutionary working-class movement, Sanger spent the first half of 1912 assisting the Lawrence, Massachusetts, IWW textile strike as a key organizer in the evacuation of strikers’ children to temporary adoptive families in New York City.“The Unrecorded Battle” captures a moment when nursing was akin to domestic service, menial labor carried out chiefly by young women in a phase before marriage. Nurses took cases with private patients or individual doctors on an as-needed basis at the whim of private placement agencies. One nurse depicted in the story, the socialist suffragist Miss Willets, is perhaps the story's best ideological proxy for Sanger herself, since she imagines resolving nursing's precarity through a single public booking agency. In the absence of such systematic solutions, Peggy the protagonist is deliriously happy at the highly paid position promised by a doctor who turns out to be a scoundrel and tries to sexually assault her. Her plight captures vividly how class and economic circumstances can invite acquiescence in sexual exploitation and require every element of one's being to resist. It also gives expression to a predicament so many women experienced that the Women's Trade Union League in 1904 called for “a law to prevent the hiring of workers under false pretenses.”2The name Peggy, is, of course, a variation on Margaret, but whether Sanger ever experienced sexual harassment on the job is unknown. It may have bearing that her younger sister Ethel Byrne was also a nurse in New York City. In the end, Sanger came to view nursing as a palliative and instead embarked on birth control advocacy by launching her periodical The Woman Rebel and publishing the pamphlet Family Limitation in 1914. Two years later she opened her first birth control clinic, which was rapidly closed by the police. When socialism, feminism, and the labor movement all collapsed in the course of the First World War and 1919, Sanger was unmoored from the movements that initially gave her project its meaning and purpose. She shifted to a medical model of contraception under doctors’ authority, leading her to downplay her radical past, depend on wealthy philanthropists, de-emphasize working-class liberation in favor of a rhetoric of population control, and ally with eugenicists in ways that have left her legacy compromised and tarnished.3“The Unrecorded Battle” carries hints of these themes by attributing Peggy's resistance to her American Revolutionary bloodline and by positioning medical professionalism as the counterweight to her assaulter's ruling-class network. Those very points, however, might be equally said to reflect more innocuous strains of labor republicanism and nurses’ struggles for dignity within medicine's sex-segregated and hierarchical occupational structure. While “The Unrecorded Battle” is defined by a melodramatic clash of heroine and villain of a type commonplace in Progressive Era popular culture, it avoids the anti-Semitism of some “white slavery” exposés. While it resorts to tropes of country innocence and urban degeneracy, it broaches the subjects of sexual harassment and attempted rape at a time when even divorce was still considered a mildly scandalous topic, and it is strikingly advanced in its insight into how sexual harassment can function to drive women from the workforce. “The Unrecorded Battle” defends women's sexual autonomy and fiercely rejects working-class women's sexual exploitation to the point of warning that perpetrators might someday draw armed retribution. For all its period markers, the story has contemporary resonance, given that a systematic review of worldwide studies finds that most nurses today encounter sexual harassment at work.4Sanger's manuscript contained innumerable errors of punctuation, spelling, and grammar, here corrected, with a light editorial hand, for readability. The original is found in Margaret Sanger Papers, box 203, reel 131, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. Publication graciously permitted by Alexander Sanger.“A case, a case, my kingdom for a case” were the words that rang through the room where several nurses were gathered one afternoon in June.The words were uttered by a small, fair, healthy specimen of the female sex, who, tilting her nose a trifle more if possible than was naturally inclined, threw the stockings she was darning from her, gathered her knees within her folded hands, and continued, “No joking girls, it's three weeks today since I've had a case, and tomorrow not only my rent here is due, but—.” She was interrupted by the telephone. “Yes, yes, certainly I'll take it. I'll go right down. Goodbye.” She turned from the phone, and the light in her eyes, the expression of happiness on her face, made one who saw it say what a pretty girl she is.“Lucky dog!” said the girls in a chorus. “Where is it?” asked one. “What is it?” said another.“No time for questions, girls, I must don my best togs and see if I can't cinch that job. Get out of here, all of you, and come back later on. I must dress.”A half hour later, she was neatly attired, boarding a downtown car. In her hand was a card upon which was written the address of the physician who wanted an office nurse.She arrived at the address given. “Ah, yes,” she thought. “I expected a brownstone front. Now, Peggy Taylor, smile your prettiest.” A colored butler took her card and told her to be seated, but before she had time to glance at her surroundings, the doctor stood before her in operating gown. “Ah, Miss Taylor, yes, I'm glad to see you. Yes, I want an assistant nurse, one who is capable and understands her business. I require a certificate of health, a reference from two reliable physicians, and your hospital diploma. I wish it understood that I pay well for your services, Miss Taylor, twenty-five dollars a week and board, five dollars for every operation done outside, and two and a half for all done in the house. We average ten operations a day.” At this information she beamed happiness. Her heart beat so loudly she straightened in her chair to get control of herself. He saw the look and was satisfied. Yes, he thought to himself, she will do nicely. “Is there anything you do not understand, Miss Taylor? Very well, then, if you wish to accept the position bring the required references at 10 a.m. tomorrow and consider yourself engaged.” He arose, shook hands in a most businesslike way, ushered her to the door, closed it after her, watched her as she boarded an uptown car, smiled as only he could smile, and went back to his work.Peggy had no knowledge of when she got back to her room. She had known what it is to be happy, but never before had she been so favored by the gods that she called herself “lucky,” until now. “Me,” she said aloud. “Me, Peg Taylor, to fall into such luck. What a dress I'll give to Kit for her graduation. I'll write at once to mother and tell her about it.” She wrote the following: Dear dearest mother mine,Stop that garden work. Get a man to do it for you, and I'll pay him, or get one to peddle the milk and let father do the garden work. Delay your trip to New Haven until my next letter, when I shall send you money enough to buy a new dress for yourself and one for Kit. I want her graduation dress to be a real dress, Muddy dear, a point d'esprit over silk with baby ribbon would be right, I should think. Oh, I'm so happy. Don't you worry about that horrid old mortgage and note which fall due soon, for I'm coining money. Will write you about it later on, love to all the kiddies, and be happy,Your devoted PeggyShe finished writing this and with pen upraised sat pondering for a moment, then brought forth another sheet of paper and wrote: Dear old Dick,Yours rec'd. If I had answered it yesterday as I was inclined to do, you should have had “yes” for an answer instead of the one I am going to give today.Dick, for three weeks I have not earned one cent. All the nurses were desperate. I have had only a few cases so far this spring and short ones too. I was foolish to come to New York when I did. Summer is always bad, so I am told. Yesterday I felt I could keep up no longer and was strongly tempted to shake it all off and go back to the farm and—be yours. But the thought of the mortgage due shortly, of mother bending over the strawberry bed trying to sell enough to make ends meet, the thought of a thousand things needed for those little ones, and I their only hope—I thought of these, Dick, and I could not give up; but today I am well-rewarded, for yours truly is to be assistant to a M.D. and you, dear Dick, must be content to wait, oh, a little longer and then I'll be forever yourPegShe caressingly sealed this letter, took her hat and gloves, and departed to get the required references.“Let me see, there is Dr. Clark, yes, I'll go to him. I nursed his wife and sick baby, and he will be glad to hear of the turn of fortune I've had.” She had not long to wait before she was telling this great specialist of the wonderful opportunity she had before her and of the part he was to play in her realization of it.This man of experience looked at her fondly, as he would a child. He hesitated to dampen the spirits of this happy girl, and yet he was suspicious of the location, and urged her to delay going there until he could find out for her a little more concerning this generous physician who was not registered among the legitimates.She laughed at his concern and called him “stupid,” assured him she was capable of judging conditions better than he was as she had seen the person in question, and if he would just jot down a few words that would serve as a reference, she would be off and not trouble him again—until she wanted something else. At which they both laughed, and she was soon on her way to the general practitioner where she obtained the required health certificate and reference. Back again to her little room to say goodbye to this “dinky box” and dream the dreams which should have come true to so faithful, generous, and loyal a girl. She had not long to dream, however, for she was soon aroused from her reveries by a loud knocking at the door, and girls’ voices saying, “Hello, Taylor, let us in. Say, did you get the job? Bully for you. Tell us all about it.” She told them simply. “Ye gods!” said one of the girls, a Miss Ryan, “was ever such luck. I'll give you all fair warning, girls, if I don't get a case in twenty-four hours, I'll marry—a street cleaner.” “Indeed,” said Miss Willets, an auburn-haired girl with a twinkle in her eye who was a staunch suffragist. “You'd have done that long ago had you the slightest opportunity.”“Well,” said Miss Ryan, “so would you, Willie, if you were on twenty-four hour duty with a typhoid for six weeks without one cent, and then after you had pulled this skeleton out of the jaws of—well, it might be presumptuous of me to say just where—but the nerve of those people to refuse to pay me twenty-five dollars a week, to question the right of a woman to demand such a price.”“Oh, yes, of course,” interrupted Miss Willets. “They dispute your right, they question your price, but would they dare to question a doctor? Would they refuse a man the salary he asks? No,” she continued, rising from the bed on which she was sitting, “they would not dare to, but we women—we are so alone and foolishly divided, that not until we demand our rights politically will we be respected in any vocation.”“Hooray, hooray,” cheered the voices. “Go on, Willie.” “Keep it up.” She was willing to, but was silenced by the tall figure of the matron of the registry, who had knocked several times, and receiving no response—walked in. She smiled as she heard the closing words of the enthusiastic orator. Upon seeing Miss Daly who was next on the list she informed her she had been called by Dr. Russell for an obstetrical case, to report at once. A groan from the crowd. “Beat it, Daly,” and “twins for yours.” She was off. The matron told Miss Ryan to get her bag ready, for it was her turn next. “Ready, why Mrs. Robinson, I've been ready for weeks.” They all laughed, and the matron, a kindly woman of middle age, left them to their follies.Miss Willets had not forgotten her subject. “No, Ryan, there is no use in kicking about abuses here and there. The first thing all working women must do is organize. Do you hear, girls? To organize. That's the first step out of darkness for women. Why, look at us, we nurses do practically all the work in many cases, and what do we get out of it? We pay, first, five dollars to belong to a registry, then out of every case we pay the registry ten percent on all our earnings, and room and telephone. Figure it up how much we get out of it. We do the work, that's the point, and what right have these parasitical registries to take ten percent, or any percent? Why not work together, have one central registry where all nurses register and any doctor wanting a nurse can call for one there? How much more economical. Think of the three hundred or more registries with their three hundred telephones, clerks, and other encumbrances, and a doctor not knowing where to get a nurse, and hundreds of nurses hanging in the air, lots of them on the verge of starvation, waiting for a call. Isn't it foolish? Why, even Taylor, the innocent from Connecticut, can see it, can't you, hon?”“If you mean me, Miss Willets,” said Miss Taylor, “I can see that point all right, but I cannot understand why you are so hard on the matrons of the registries. They must do something in order to live. Why not that?”“Yes,” said the suffragette sarcastically, “they must live, that's true, but don't you, personally, find it rather expensive charity? Could not such an intelligent woman as Mrs. Robinson, for instance, be doing something worthwhile? I dare say if you talk to her, she is longing to do something, some service to humanity, instead of this monotonous existence.”“Say, Willie,” said Miss Ryan, who had been closing her eyes in boredom. “If ever you get a patient with insomnia, reel off that rot you just gave us and either he will be cured, or he will be compelled to change his residence—to Bellevue. For heaven's sake, cut it out and let us hear about Taylor's case.”“Is he handsome, Peggy?” asked Miss Willets.“Well, yes and no.”“That's a bad sign to begin with, can't you say which?”Peggy thought a minute and then said, “No, I can't just tell. He has a peculiar face, but I'm not going to dissect his looks until I know him better. All I know is it's a good job, girls, and I need the money.”“That's true,” said Miss Willets, “but are you sure everything is straight down there? You are such a kid in some things, Peggy, and yet—and yet,” she said thoughtfully, “I sometimes think it is your innocence which somehow protects you.”“Perfect nonsense,” said Miss Taylor. “I'm sure he is a gentleman. He's very courteous. Even if he isn't, nurses must stand the cross and disagreeable, as well as the polite, people.”So they chatted and discussed the problems that trouble the thinking people of all nations, until bedtime, when wishing each other good night and Peggy good luck. They left her. She threw herself upon her knees and poured out her heartfelt thanks to the Great Unknown for this happiness, this great and beautiful happiness, of being able to do for others, and especially those we love. So she slept the sleep that only youth and a good conscience can sleep.The next morning promptly at ten she found herself again at the brownstone front, but instead of the dark butler, the doctor himself opened the door. He was immaculately dressed, his hair almost shone, mustache curled, which together with the pink carnation in his coat lapel made her say “dandy” to herself. He bowed long and low over her hand, not quite the business air of the day before.“Allow me to assist you,” he said as he took her suitcase, and, leading the way through the house, summoned Mrs. Thomas, the housekeeper, and George the butler, introducing them, saying, “This is your future mistress Miss Taylor. Hereafter she is to be consulted concerning affairs of the house, and I wish it understood that her wishes are mine.”She followed him up the soft luxurious stairs through this house of elegance to a large, spacious, elegantly furnished room the sight of which made her heart beat for joy. He pushed open the door, allowed her to enter, put the bag inside the door, and quickly stepped inside and closed the door. She held her breath a moment, not daring to think. Then he spoke. “This is your room, Miss Taylor, do you like this color?” He watched her closely. “These flowers I had sent in for you today. These books are yours. In fact, little one, the desires of your life shall be filled in my house. You are mistress of this entire place.” Stepping to her side he said softly, “This is your little bed, sweetheart,” and stepping to a screen on the other side of the bed pulled it back. “And this is mine,” he said, pointing to another bed which the screen had so cunningly hidden.During all this conversation she had stood as one petrified, but at these last words she gave one bloodcurdling scream and rushed for the door. He was there before her, caught her by the throat, and roughly pushed her against the closed door. “You little devil,” he hissed. “What are you here for? Ha ha, then here you've come and here you'll stay, miss. Scream, kick to your heart's delight, for no one shall heed you,” he thundered.At these terrible words, the blood left her face, her knees trembled, for she at last realized into what a demon's den she had come. She had seen men in joy, sorrow, agony, and death, but this was her first experience at seeing a living devil smile. But at that smile the fighting blood of her New England ancestors arose in her. She knew a time had come to fight, and fight to the death—rather than that.Quicker than it takes to tell these thoughts flashed through her mind. She raised her head, looked him square between the eyes, and said, “Doctor, I have one thing to say. You are mistaken in me. I am not that kind of woman. I came here innocently. I wish to go away. Look into my face, look closely, and should you see in that look other than purity, then God help me.”At these words he came closer, anger and passion fighting for possession. “You lie,” he said. “You lie, you hussy. You have come here to spy. You have come here pretending innocence, to pry into my work, but your game won't work with me. Listen,” he said hoarsely, “look you into my eyes.”“Oh, God, that horrible face.”“Learn what power is. It is greater than the purity which you claim is in yours. One word from me and into this house you'd remain until I gave the word to release you. A word from me and to the workhouse you would go—as a prostitute. Yes, I have that much power, and far more. Think, little fool, could I run an establishment of this kind without power? Could I perform from ten to twenty operations a day without power? Could I?” he screamed. “No, no, with all your pretended innocence you must know that. And further, anything you might say of me would be laughed at. No newspaper in New York City dare, I repeat it, dare, to print what I have told you. Why? Power. Power from on high in the world of capital, influence, and prestige, all whom I have favored and in turn favor me.”During this time he had released her, much to her relief, and stood a little distance from her in order to use his hands, for he gesticulated much, but as he told her of the favors he had done his face softened and he came toward her with outstretched arms. Here was no longer the frightened bird. Here was a woman holding anger and pride in check, standing resolutely against the door, head held high, lips tightly closed ready for fight. She had aged five years since she came into that room.Here was something new, something worth winning, he thought. His whole being shook with passion as he said, “Forgive me, can't you? You're here, you have all to gain by staying here, why make a mess of this?”He kept coming closer as he spoke. She felt in another second it would be too late. “Stop!” she cried, as she raised her arm and pointed at him. Her eyes blazed. Her face was pale and drawn. “Stop, I say, not one step nearer. You have had your say, now I'll have mine. I'm not afraid of you. Your tyranny and boasted power are nothing new to me. Of one thing I am certain,” she said calmly. “I leave this room as pure as I have entered it, or I leave it not at all. Your lies about your influence with scoundrels in this city does not frighten me, for I too am protected by men who are men. On high, I have back of me the vast army of medical men in the United States, two of whom know I came here today. Knowing this I defy you to touch me.” Her turn had come now, and all fear was gone.At these words and the reliant look of this slip of a girl the coward cringed. He knew she spoke the truth. He realized she was not the ordinary girl, and not to be bullied. He knew he must give her up. But not until his cruelty had some relief. He folded his arms, put his head cunningly on one side, and said, “You are not trying to make me believe you are pure, are you?” She looked him fully in the eyes and answered, “I am.” He changed his position slightly by shifting the other foot forward, bent forward, and continued, “Do you mean to tell me you are a virgin?” She gasped at this cruelty but looked at him and said, “I do.” “Swear it,” he thundered, his right arm raised high, his whole being aroused to anger. “I swear,” she said, her head erect, and eyes dancing fire.She saw she had won. He stepped to the door, unlocked it, and shouted, “Go!” She went. Then the air was rent with peal after peal of the most diabolical laughter. For a second her blood seemed to freeze in her veins. She put her hands to her ears to shut out that terrible laugh, but the sight of her suitcase tumbling down the stairs brought her to her senses. Soon she was safe outside that den of torture. On, on, she plodded she knew not where, she cared not where. She was safe, safe, safe. That was enough for the present.She had won the battle for her soul. Ah, God, was ever such a battle fought! Sometime in the afternoon, we see her at the Grand Central Station, buying a ticket for her hometown. Later we see her walking along the dusty road nearing the farm. At a distance we can see a figure bending over a green patch, with sunbonnet pushed far back on her head, and we feel it is her mother. Peggy sees her and a lump comes into her throat as she thinks of the disappointments in store for them all.She is soon enfolded in the strong arms of that dear mother, and as they sit together under the elm tree, she relates her agonizing experience to that loyal heart.A glance at the New England mother will at once tell us better than words where the daughter got her courage and spirit in time of danger. Proud, brave, and tireless, she took her daughter's face in her hands and said, “Peggy, you are a wonderful girl. I'm prouder of you today than I ever was of your great-grandfather who fought and died so valiantly at the battle of Bunker Hill. This unrecorded battle!” She shook her head. “And you, my Peggy, the victor!”They sat thus for some time. “I'll not go back, mother. I'm so tired of it all, and Dick has waited so patiently. Yes, I've quite decided to stay.”After the house was quiet that night, the father and mother walked up and down the kitchen floor, up and down, hour after hour, arm in arm. For miles around this honest and sturdy farmer was called Uncle Sam, so vividly did he remind us of our “Uncle Sam.”On, on, he walked, up and down far into the dawn, head bent, eyes fixed on the floor, fists clenched, thinking, thinking.At last he stopped, went to a shelf, took down a rifle he kept there, blew off the dust, wiped it carefully with his sleeve, looked at it fondly, even tenderly, aimed at something on his wall, and wiped it again. “For goodness sake, what are you going to do with that gun, Tom Taylor?” said the little mother, for once greatly agitated.He gave the gun another wipe with his sleeve and said, “I'm going to New York, wife, to take that man's blood.”