Review of Manon Parry, \u3ci\u3eBroadcasting Birth Control: Mass Media and Family Planning\u3c/i\u3e

As Manon Parry explains in her interesting new book, ‘Many of the women who wrote [to the Birth Control Review] noted that they had read about [Margaret] Sanger’s work in the press, confirming the important role of the mass media in publicizing and building support for the movement’ (p. 13). Therein lies the crux of Parry’s project: the use of publicity was central to the family planning movement and a sustained analysis of its use over time is long overdue. To that end, she challenges several long-standing historiographic assumptions and unearths more than a few fascinating stories. For example, she refutes the long held view that in its early days the ‘birth control movement traded controversy for propriety in their efforts to win mainstream approval.’ Parry persuasively argues instead that each new publicity effort brought a new round of ‘outrage and censorship’ (p. 3). Additionally, in charting the shifting publicity mediums—from film, to radio, and finally to television—she illustrates how the particularities of each shaped the messages the family planning movement delivered