Kitty Marion

Kitty Marion was born in Germany in 1873. She moved to England as a teenager and became active in the women’s suffrage movement there. She was arrested many times and claimed that she endured over 200 force feedings during these incarcerations. By 1917 Marion had moved to New York City and went to work for Margaret Sanger. She stood on street corners handing out flyers and selling copies of Sanger’s Birth Control Review. In this role she suffered endless harassment. Some passerby’s would call her names and others would spit on her. A few even called out death threats. Through it all, she persisted. A critical step for making birth control legal was getting the topic out into the public sphere and encouraging people to talk about it without embarrassment. Kitty’s determination helped make that happen.