Using “Family Limitation” written by Margaret Sanger as the primary source to discuss the legalization fight  for birth control in the early 1900’s and interpet the arguments and struggles she put forth to support her  belief in birth

For your term paper, you’ll be choosing and analyzing one (or a few closely related) primary sources,
created anytime during the period we’ve been studying. In this assignment, you will use historical concepts
and analytical frameworks from class sessions, the assigned readings, and your own outside readings to
interpret a cultural text and place it in context with the twentieth century history of U.S. women / gender
/ sexuality. The paper will require you to conduct original research, but it may be unlike history research
papers you have conducted previously. Whereas many research projects ask you to assemble a variety of
resources in order to make a broader historical argument, this paper asks you to thoroughly explore what a
singular document can reveal about wider social and cultural forces. Accordingly, you will analyze both the
production of the text itself and its historical context. The project is not unlike many of the exercises
conducted in class, where you are asked to discuss the internal dynamics of a single text (what it says,
what it reveals about the author and audience, etc.) as well as its historical significance (its relation to
wider ideologies, political movements).

This paper will have three major components: a close examination of a cultural text that illustrates
something about broader social issues around women, gender, and/or sexuality in the period we’ve been
studying; smart and judicious use of at least two secondary sources to help you interpret and build a case
around your primary source; and a sharp and challenging argument, stated near the paper’s opening, that
provides the basis for the subsequent paper’s interpretive work.

Your paper will be at least seven pages (double-spaced, 12-pt. Times New Roman or equivalent-sized font,
using default margin sizes), not counting your bibliography and any non-textual materials such as images,
charts, etc. You must use a recognized academic citation style (MLA, Chicago, APA, etc.), including a
separate, properly formatted bibliography or Works Cited page. The paper counts as 25% of the final grade.

Selecting a Primary Source or Sources:

Start this project by choosing the primary document(s) that your paper will examine and analyze. There are
two general parameters for your text: first, it may not be one already used or assigned in the class; and,
second, it must be an item created after 1900 (with a few years’ leeway) that illuminates the history of
women, gender, and/or sexuality.

The choice of text will be a crucial one. Make sure that you choose a text complex enough to support a
lengthy examination and one that can be connected to the historical context relevant to this course. You may
choose from any type of genre (book, poem, advertisement, painting, photograph, government document, memoir,
newspaper or magazine, material object, diary, play, film, and so on). If you’re stuck, think about some
aspect of women’s history that interests you—a particular person, topic, debate, or struggle—and try to find
a representative text. I ask you to choose a single source because I would like you to engage it closely as
a cultural production rather than cite it superficially. Things like books, extensive political documents,
and films should provide enough material to fill seven pages. I can make exceptions to this being a singular
source; very brief texts, such as images or short poems may not provide sufficient material for analysis. In
such cases, you may choose a small number of closely related texts for interpretation.

“What to Ask of a Primary Document”—the instruction sheet on SOCS assigned for the practicum at the
beginning of the semester—should serve as a roadmap for this essay. It provides the prompts for the
questions you should ask yourself as you offer an interpretation of the text. You will not answer all of the
questions posed in these guidelines, but if you select an array of them to reveal ideologies, anxieties,
conflicts, debates, and transformations at work in the history of women, you should have enough material to
write a research paper about a single cultural text.