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Chapter Title: Hilda Kahlert Cornish (1878–1965) A Community Volunteer and Civic Leader: The Birth Control Movement in Arkansas Chapter Author(s): MARIANNE LEUNG

Book Title: Arkansas Women Book Subtitle: Their Lives and Times Book Editor(s): Cherisse Jones-Branch, Gary T. Edwards Published by: University of Georgia Press. (2018) Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1vhtrh3.12

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Hilda Kahlert Cornish

(1878-1965)

A Community Volunteer and Civic Leader: The Birth Control Movement in Arkansas

M A R I A N N E LEUNG

Sally Ellis Benson, a married woman from Searcy, Arkansas, wrote a brief note to Hilda Cornish of Little Rock requesting reliable birth control information in Feb- ruary 1952. It is clear this was not Benson's first attempt to ask for such information because her note specifically requested not to be referred to a physician because "I have already inquired from several, and each just refers me to some one [sic] else." In her response to Benson, Cornish referred the woman to Dr. M. C. Hawkins and assured her that this physician was supportive and could be trusted. Predicting that the woman would be most reluctant to see the doctor, Cornish also invited Benson to visit Little Rock to see her in person, woman to woman. As if suspect- ing that the fifty-mile trip to Little Rock might be too cumbersome, Cornish even offered to make the trip to Searcy herself and "perhaps talk to a small group on the subject." When she had not received any response from Benson by April 20, Cornish sent another letter to check up on her. Again inviting Benson to visit her in Little Rock, she wanted to know if Benson ever saw Hawkins, as suggested. She ended the brief letter with "I want you to know that I am very much interested in helping mothers who need contraceptive advice & would be happy to see you at your convenience."1 At the time of this correspondence, Hilda Cornish was seventy-four years old and at the end of a long career as a volunteer community organizer. Beginning in 1930, she devoted the next three decades to tirelessly ral- lying community support to assure that all women of Arkansas would have access to safe and effective birth control. Her goal was realized in 1966, the year after her death, when women in all counties of Arkansas finally gained access to safe and effective birth control through the state's public health care system.2

133

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134 M A R I A N N E L E U N G

As a result of Cornish's leadership, women who sought birth control advice and could afford to see a private physician had by the early 19408 access to such services in Arkansas. Enough physicians by then had access to reliable knowl- edge, and they saw birth control as a legitimate medical issue. Cornish became most concerned about the many women who could not afford these services and who therefore were dependent on public health institutions or charity clinics. Through her volunteer work, Cornish learned that poor women would not likely be served by the privatized medical system. From her involvement in the field of social work, she came to believe that the key to solving many contemporary social problems was to aid women in limiting the number of pregnancies. Using the vol- unteer organization as a vehicle for change, she continuously allied with groups and individuals that would best accomplish these goals. Throughout, Cornish found inspiration and guidance from Margaret Sanger, the national leader of the birth control movement at the time.3 She also found strength from and thrived amid the camaraderie she developed with a core group of Little Rock citizens who shared her values. From our vantage point today, we might expect that the Arkansas birth control advocates, working in a rather traditional southern com- munity, would have met opposition when challenging both the traditional view of sexuality and the idea that birth control is primarily a private issue. However, the more serious obstacle turned out to be the fear of a government extending its powers by taking control of the privatized medical system.4 At the end of her life, Hilda Cornish was a respected civic leader with a reputation for being genuinely concerned for those in need. What guided her work for so many years was her conviction that an individual's actions matter and that the larger community's responsibility for the needy is necessary for significant change to happen.

Cornish created for herself a social position from which she could aid others in the community. Her work is an example of an individual serving as a signifi- cant agent of change in the larger story of the American birth control move- ment. Her effort speaks not only to the complexity of the motives and actions of many community leaders across the nation but also to the power of volun- teerism. The personal experiences of Hilda Cornish shaped her outlook and understanding of how society should work and the role of one's responsibility in it. By examining the voice of Cornish herself (found in her private corre- spondence) as well as the voices of those with whom she interacted, it becomes clear that she was a genuinely compassionate woman willing to work hard for her community. Her relatively humble background and early life experiences possibly contributed to her strong commitment to aid the needy, while her ac- quired connections among the elite Little Rock social circles clearly gave her the ability to build the community support needed to effect change.

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Hilda Kahlert Cornish 135

Even though Hilda Cornish would become an influential member of Little Rock society her upbringing differed from many of the community mem- bers she would attract to support her cause. Her parents, Rudolph and Sophie Kahlert, migrated to the United States from Germany in 1861 and eventually had eight daughters; Hilda, the seventh, was born in 1878. Settling on the south side of St. Louis, Missouri, they lived on the outskirts of the already established Ger- man neighborhood. By 1880 the family lived along the new extension of Chip- pewa Street, where most of the neighbors were immigrant families who had left various German states (e.g., Bavaria, Hanover, Wurttemberg) prior to the unification of Germany in 1871, but there were also a few households originat- ing from England, France, and Scotland. Rudolph Kahlert supported his grow- ing family as a carpenter, but struggled at times to find employment. At age forty-seven, he was without steady work for at least six months at a time when Hilda and her younger sister, Gertrude, were mere toddlers. Typical of a girl coming of age in the 18908, Hilda did not have access to advanced schooling, but she managed to complete eight grades in the St. Louis school system. In her late teens, Hilda left St. Louis for Newark City, New Jersey, where she lived in a boardinghouse while working as a milliner at the turn of the twentieth century.5

When she arrived in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1901, at age twenty-three, Hilda quickly embraced the community as her own. She soon made important con- nections that put her in a position to serve later as a liaison between various social groups in the community. While renting a room at a boardinghouse dur- ing her first year in town, Hilda met Edward Cornish, a widower since 1897 with a five-year-old daughter, Edith. At age twenty-six he had lost his wife and three children to illness.6 Ed and Hilda married on July 2,1902. Their first daughter, Hilda, was born two years later, and the family's first son, Ed Jr., was born in 1907. Hilda Cornish would give birth to four more children between 1912 and 1917. First came Sylvia in March 1912 and then Miriam in November 1913, born eighteen months apart. In 1915, the family experienced tragedy with the death of a newborn son, Jack. At age thirty-nine, in 1917, Hilda gave birth to her last child, Don. In addition, Ed's daughter from his previous marriage grew up in the household. Hilda, who was nicknamed "Bunny" by the family, certainly had a large family to keep her busy, and she and Ed also had the financial means to give each child a strong foundation for life.7

Hilda Cornish was able to devote the first twenty years of her marriage to watching over the children without the strain of economic hardship. Edward Cornish provided well for the family through real estate and banking ventures. The family could afford household help to assist Hilda with caring for the grow- ing family. In 1910, for example, they employed a live-in domestic worker, Mabel

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1 3 6 M A R I A N N E L E U N G

Smith, a seventeen-year-old African American woman, who helped care for little Hilda and Ed Jr., in addition to doing house work. The Cornish family built a substantial house with 8,200 square feet of living space, covering four residential lots. With plenty of room in the house, by 1920 the family had three household employees. By this time, the eldest child, her stepdaughter, Edith, had married Raymond Low, an insurance agent, and settled in Omaha, Ne- braska. The Cornish family was economically secure, and life was good. They could afford to spend their summers in Ludington, Michigan, away from the pressing Arkansas heat.8

Because the family employed household workers, Cornish was often relieved of childcare responsibilities and was therefore able to join other middle-class women in developing a career as a volunteer in civic work.9 Throughout the 19208, she sought various positions of leadership in the community and, in the process, built a strong social network consisting of family members and friends. One significant civic project to which Cornish devoted time was the Little Rock playground movement. The goal was for the Community Chest to take over the financial responsibility to further expand and direct safe play environments for Little Rock children.10 At the time, Hilda had three children under the age of ten, with her youngest child, Don, only three years old. Then in 1922, Governor Thomas C. McRae appointed Cornish to be a member of the board of managers for the State Farm for Women, a correctional institution a few miles outside Jacksonville in Pulaski County.11 Her sincere interest in social work led her to accept the position. This interest would continue to be central to her life, and she would constantly seek solutions to perceived social problems by organiz- ing and lobbying for institutional changes in Arkansas. Her long involvement with the existing Conference of Social Work attests to this approach to com- munity activism. Another arena in which she developed leadership skills was through her involvement in the women's club movement. For example, by 1924 she chaired the Program Committee of the Arkansas Federation of Women's Clubs. The programs presented by the various clubs might not always have addressed the more significant social problems in the larger community, but through her active participation Cornish gained important social connections, and she developed a reputation for being both dependable and respectable.12

While the urban industrialized regions of the nation were enjoying economic prosperity for much of the 19208, Arkansas still depended on an agriculture economy that experienced depressed crop prices throughout the decade. When the Mississippi River flooded in 1927, the state experienced a serious crisis. The situation demanded government interference, and Cornish led the voluntary personnel department for the flood relief program.13 In this capacity, she expe-

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Hilda Kahlert Cornish 137

rienced firsthand the difficulties that beset people during natural disasters, and she also understood the need for government intervention at times when indi- viduals are unable to access resources on their own. Personal disaster shook the family a year later: Edward Cornish committed suicide in a New Orleans hotel room in November 1928 when his banking ventures faced financial trouble and he saw no solutions. In two notes left for Hilda, he expressed his love for her, assured her that she would be financially secure, gave instructions concerning whom to trust with financial investments, and warned about those who might prey on her under these circumstances. Ed also let her know that he wished for the money left behind to be used to educate the children. Despite his business losses, Ed Cornish had left his widow financially secure.14

At the time of her husband's death, Hilda was fifty years old and her young- est child, Don, was then eleven years old. This was, of course, a severe shock for Hilda and the family. After a time of adjustment to her new life situation, Hilda Cornish embarked on an intense career in the world of unpaid volunteer work.15

While Ed and Hilda each had completed only eight years of formal schooling, their children would all eventually enroll at prestigious universities. Agreeing with her husband's wishes, she would see to it that three of the girls—Hilda, Miriam, and Sylvia—attended Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania; that Edward Jr. attended Yale University in Connecticut; and that Don had the opportunity to enroll at both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University.16

While the Cornish family was well established financially, other Arkansans faced economic hardships due to the economic crash in 1929 and the deepening of the Depression that followed. The average per capita income for the nation was $705 in 1929, while the Arkansas per capita income was a mere $3O5.17 In addition to a depressed national economy, the rural population had been strug- gling to recover from the 1927 flood and, in addition, would experience a severe drought in 1930-1931. Therefore, rural communities were hit the hardest, and poverty became an overwhelming reality to many. As a result, people desperate to feed their families staged a number of demonstrations in several locations across the state. Farmers responding to Red Cross officials' announcement that aid could not be distributed until administrative formalities had been resolved initiated a well-noted outbreak in the rural town of London, located eighty-five miles northwest of Little Rock. Bread lines were organized by local merchants, who feared more serious trouble if food was not somehow distributed imme- diately.18 It was in this context that Cornish became an advocate of universal access to safe and effective birth control for women in Arkansas.

Cornish became interested in the issue of birth control when her oldest son, Ed Jr., and the son of Margaret Sanger, Stuart, were roommates at Yale University.

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1 3 8 M A R I A N N E L E U N G

Sanger was at the time diligently working to build a national network of activists to demand the dissemination of safe and effective birth control to all women. Meeting Sanger, Cornish was introduced to the various facets of running a local birth control clinic. During the summer of 1930, Cornish visited New York for the purpose of observing Sanger's work of running a clinic at the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau. Sanger had built this clinic, which opened in 1923, into an impressive organization that served more than ten thousand clients a year by 1930; the clinic also trained physicians and medical students in various methods of contraception. During her stay in New York, Cornish learned much in conversations with Margaret Sanger, and as a result of their mutual interests, a friendship between the two women developed that would last throughout their lives.19 The course charted for the local Little Rock birth control movement by Cornish for the next three decades closely reflected this relationship. Gain- ing support for such a potentially controversial issue in the larger community would seriously test the leadership abilities of Cornish.

Social activists in local communities across the nation built support for the birth control cause in various ways depending on their respective local cul- tures.20 Hilda Cornish shrewdly approached Little Rock leaders and rallied support from a relatively broad spectrum of citizens. The individuals whom Cornish targeted knew of her through religious fellowship, organized commu- nity activities, or business relations. A group of twelve men and women met for a luncheon at the Cornish house in November 1930 to make plans, and they decided to appoint Cornish as their leader. The Arkansas Eugenics Associa- tion (AEA) was created in that meeting with the intention of promoting "the eugenic development of the human race under favorable physical, economic, and social conditions," as stated in the second article of its constitution.21 There is no clear evidence to suggest that the group in Little Rock focused their work on pursuing a truly eugenic agenda, judging from their reports and other public information generated by the AEA. The group, however, chose to focus on poor married white women and made use of eugenic rhetoric in their attempt to establish support for disseminating contraceptives to the population at large. Rather than officially affiliating with the Sanger-led movement, the group se- lected a name for their organization they felt would draw the widest support and the least controversy. As one of the founding members recalled, "It was suggested that because the [birth control] movement might evoke criticism on the part of a rather orthodox and staid community, that we call it the Arkansas Eugenics Association on the grounds that nobody would object to being well born."22 Margaret Sanger was at this particular time in a new phase of her efforts to direct and organize a national birth control movement. By opening the first

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Hilda Kahlert Cornish 139

birth control clinic in 1916 in Brooklyn, New York, she had seriously challenged moral expectations of women's primary roles as mothers. Her ideas were for the time both radical and controversial as she suggested women could express their sexuality more freely without the consequence of pregnancy. During the 19208, however, Sanger slowly had changed her tactics to increase sympathy for her cause. By 1930, she allied with the more conservative segments of society, although she still had the reputation with the general public as a radical.23

It was important to couch the birth control topic in a way to educate those who could potentially support the establishment of a birth control clinic. Indic- ative of her leadership ability, Cornish carefully selected a group of individuals to form the leadership core of the AEA. Her intent was to neutralize a potentially controversial cause by assembling respected community members who would be able to bring the message to their various constituents and friends. Half of the members of the organizing meeting in November 1930 were women. Most of them were involved in unpaid volunteer work, but at least one had a career in public service: Lillian Dees McDermott.24 Highly educated, she was instrumen- tal in creating the Pulaski County Juvenile Court and served as its referee from 1927 to 1942. As an influential woman in the community, she was a welcome addition to the ranks of the AEA. McDermott was born a year prior to Cornish, and the two women were close friends and supported each other's causes over several decades. Other women recruited for the birth control cause by Cornish were respected members and leaders of various women's clubs or the relatives of such. All three of her daughters, Hilda, Sylvia, and Miriam, would be intimately involved and highly supportive of their mother's agenda. In other words, Cor- nish shrewdly utilized the connections she had developed throughout the years as a volunteer in groups advocating for civic improvement.25

Cornish also recruited individuals anchored in the business world. Graham Roots Hall, for example, assisted the AEA in legal matters. His attempts to influ- ence local public attitudes about birth control were not always conventional, however. He is known to have shocked guests at formal dinner parties by pull- ing a diaphragm (a contraceptive device) out of his vest pocket.26 That he could get away with such a stunt suggests that the topic of effective birth control soon became accepted in the social circles of the well-to-do community members.

Cornish's carefully selected group of AEA founders also included individuals who had faced controversy in the past. Rabbi Ira E. Sanders of Temple B'nai Is- rael was already involved in numerous civic organizations and was an early pro- ponent of civil rights. Cornish and Sanders had met while serving on the Little Rock Public Library's board of trustees, and over the years they developed a strong friendship that lasted until Cornish's death in 1965.27 In 1929, Sanders had

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140 M A R I A N N E L E U N G

insisted that two African American women students be enrolled in the Little Rock School of Social Work, started by Sanders in 1927, over the strong objec- tions of others. At the time, the school was a unit of the University of Arkansas Extension Department. As a result, the school was briefly racially desegregated, until Sanders was forced to give in to the official segregated policy of the univer- sity. That Cornish selected such a man as a close friend, and continuously sup- ported his work throughout the years, suggests that she was, indeed, a woman who did not mind challenging the status quo on behalf of those less powerful.

Other religious leaders from the community were included in the group of organizers. While Hilda Cornish did not formally belong to a religious institu- tion, she had supporters in several of the Little Rock churches. Dr. Hay Watson Smith, the minister of the Second Presbyterian Church, had been involved in a controversy of his own during the 19208 because he was teaching evolution in the schools. He was publicly criticized for interpreting the Bible inaccurately and for leading his parishioners to follow a road that led them astray. Between 1929 and 1934, Smith faced charges of heresy by the Arkansas Presbytery (four times), the Arkansas Synod (three times), and the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (four times). Despite this criticism of Smith, the increase in church membership during his twenty-eight years of leadership, to more than 2,300 people, testifies to the fact that his views were acceptable to a great extent.28

With a core group of supporters established by 1930, Cornish set out to convince the Little Rock community that a birth control clinic for poor white women was indeed a worthwhile cause. In order to build support, she empha- sized that educating Little Rock citizens about the benefits of contraceptives and child spacing was essential at a time when the community was experienc- ing hardship due to the severity of the Depression. Information disseminated by the A E A was constructed in a way to appeal to a large variety of people. For those unfamiliar with the benefits of safe and effective contraceptives, the AEA facilitated opportunities to learn the scientific facts by offering printed materials and lectures. For those who feared that the number of poor and economically dependent people was increasing, information was presented that suggested effective solutions. To those who had moral doubts about liberalizing access to birth control for the general public, the association presented lectures and discussions at which religious leaders promoted a morally acceptable context for birth control. Those who blamed men for women's suffering also found sup- port for their views in the ideas and information promoted by the AEA. In other words, it was possible for people of quite diverse opinions to find something appealing in the work of the AEA. Reports were composed and distributed to

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Hilda Kahlert Cornish 141

prospective supporters of the movement, including civic clubwomen, individu- als involved in a broad range of social work, physicians, insurance companies, and others who were either in a position to contribute economically or likely to be in contact with prospective clients.29

By the time Little Rock birth control advocates joined the larger birth control movement in 1930, activists in the Sanger-led branch had developed two strate- gies to accomplish the main goals of opening physician-controlled clinics in order to disseminate information and dispense contraceptive devices to women, and influencing the legislative process in order to successfully remove all legal obstacles to the dissemination of birth control information. The Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau in New York was the model for the clinic movement, and the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control, Inc., was the vehicle created by Sanger to influence the laws. Hilda Cornish served as the liaison between these national organizations and the local Arkansas birth control movement. At the time, national leaders quarreled about strategies, and Sanger in 1928 had broken away from the American Birth Control League, the organization she had originally created.30 Even though Cornish was a friend of Sanger and was aware of this schism, she elected to affiliate with both organiza- tions on paper throughout the 19308. The official stationery designed and used by the Arkansas group listed the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control on top in all capital letters and the American Birth Control League below in lowercase letters. This suggests that Cornish and her Little Rock advocates adopted the strategies that were most useful to their local cir- cumstances.

Modeled on the work of the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau in New York and under the leadership of Cornish, the Arkansas Eugenics Association organized and then directed the Little Rock Birth Control Clinic from 1931 until 1940. When examining the number of women served by the clinic, it is im- portant to realize that it was only open one and a half to three hours per week over the years. Overall, the record shows that approximately 1,650 women were directly served. The vast majority of the women included in the clinic statistics were indigent white women (1,500 of the 1,650 clients), since African American women were not invited until October 1937. Additional women were either in- formed of the clinic or visited without actually completing the procedure of the initial interview, physical examination, and instructions for methods.31

The women who approached the clinic clearly desired to limit the size of their families, but had been unable to acquire an effective method to do so. Poor and working-class women in Arkansas did have some access to birth control infor- mation before the AEA opened its clinic in 1931: they learned from other women

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1 4 2 M A R I A N N E L E U N G

and possibly from advertisements and sales by the contraceptive industry Be- cause the main challenge for women was to gain access to information about the most harmless and reliable methods, those who sought the advice of the AEA seemed unconcerned with why Arkansas birth control advocates had turned their attention to the poorest segment of the population at this particular time. Letters from these poor women demonstrate that they had their own reasons for seeking reliable birth control, no matter where the information originated.32

By the mid-i93os, the word was out that Hilda Cornish and the AEA were in command of birth control information, and both poor and middle-class Arkan- sans wrote letters requesting help. Most letter writers lived in areas outside Little Rock and were unable to visit the clinic in person. The letters testify to both the needs of the individual families and their gratitude for the services rendered by the Little Rock Birth Control Clinic. While some women had little knowledge about reliable and safe contraceptive methods, many were eager to share what they learned to help others. A woman from Gassville, a town 150 miles north of Little Rock, desperately wanted information, since she believed that having four or five children was too much for poor people. "I was told that salt water douche was reliable but it failed.... I have been told that Lysol douches, permanganate or potach [sic] and etc. would do but I was afraid of t h e m . . . . Would be very glad if you could help me by telling me some sure and safe method."33 In an- other case, a friend of a destitute young woman living in Cisco wrote to Hilda Cornish. On behalf of her friend, the letter writer described the circumstances of the family in question where the husband was considered irresponsible and the young mother was desperate for information to help prevent further preg- nancies. This thirty-year-old mother already had four children, and Cornish was informed that "the 3 older children have not had as much milk nor other foods as they need. . . . If there is anything that can be done to prevent this woman having more children it will be a blessing beyond comfort to her and the children she has. I am now financially unable to do more than help them with groceries and clothes."34

Even though the AEA publicly addressed the need to prevent poor women from reproducing, middle-class individuals also sought out the clinic for advice. In some cases, letters addressed to Margaret Sanger's clinic in New York by people living in Arkansas were forwarded to Cornish. One such letter writer was from Camden and requested contraceptive information for his fiancee. As they were soon to be married, he requested the names and addresses of physi- cians "qualified to make a thorough pre-marital examination for my fiancee, and fit her with a dependable contraceptive device for use after our marriage.... My fiancee wishes to have this matter attended to at as early a date as possible, and

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Hilda Kahlert Cornish 143

she is particularly anxious to have the examination made by a woman." In her response to the request, Cornish referred the couple to specific physicians af- filiated with the local birth control movement, and she suggested that it would be unlikely that other doctors would be willing to give contraceptive advice to an unmarried woman. Cornish closed her letter by stating that she wished "that more men and women contemplating marriage would adopt the procedure that you and your fiancee have."35

During the many hours she spent reading and responding to these let- ters, Hilda Cornish developed a sincere compassion for the women's needs. Her kind and informative responses testify to the genuine respect she had for these women. Various reasons for seeking out birth control advice included life-threatening physical conditions, economic hardships, abusive husbands, sickly children due to too frequent pregnancies, and a general lack of knowl- edge about reproductive health. As in the case with Mrs. Benson from Searcy in 1952, Cornish would respond to the letter writers and either give the women the information they sought, refer them to a physician willing to aid, or maybe even set up a meeting to discuss the individual's concerns. The AEA developed a list of physicians willing to assist women in the various counties, and Cornish would draw from this list and pass on the names and contact information of physicians to the letter writers. In effect, she served as a liaison between the women and the physicians.36

Hilda Cornish also observed firsthand some of the economic struggles women experienced in the midst of the Great Depression and how government programs could make a difference in the lives of individuals. In 1934 Cornish accepted a position offered by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) as the director of the Division of Women's Work. This program was especially designed to assist farm wives and widows in order to alleviate some of the severe economic hardships experienced by these particular groups. Her responsibilities included serving as a consultant on projects tailored to women and acting as a facilitator of communications with other New Deal agencies and programs. Cornish began the work in the summer of 1934, and by the fall she oversaw 161 different F E R A projects involving 5,663 women. That Cornish was by this time known in the community for her promotion of birth control is obvious by the humorous teasing at the "follies" program performed on the last day of a three-day meeting with the Conference of Social Work in mid-May 1935. In a song led by Miss Evalyn Powell titled "Nothing Wrong with the FERA," several Federal Emergency Relief Administration officials were targeted. One of the verses acknowledged Cornish's work with the following creative lyrics: "Said Mrs. Ed Cornish to the little red hen, £you haven't laid an egg in I don't

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144 M A R I A N N E L E U N G

know when.' Said the little red hen, 'Why, how droll, I thought you believed in birth control.'" This song was published in the Arkansas Gazette for all the read- ers to enjoy.37 This was the only paid position Cornish would hold during her life. An indication that perhaps the extra income was a necessity at this time was the sale in 1934 of the large family house; it had cost $60,000 to build in 1919, but sold for a meager $10,000 to a real estate agent.38

In addition to directing the birth control clinic and reaching out to women in need of contraceptive information, the AEA also followed the lead of Sanger's movement and lobbied for changes in the laws. The aim of these initiatives was to encourage legislation that would give physicians the freedom to disseminate birth control information, since it was believed that this would add legitimacy to the issue and therefore bring respectability to the cause. Because of this focus on the medical control of contraceptives, physicians' participation in the indi- vidual local movements was essential. What no nationally governed organiza- tion could assist with, however, was how to approach physicians in various local communities steeped in their own unique cultures and traditions.

Early in her quest to ensure access to reliable contraceptives, Hilda Cornish realized that she faced three main obstacles in gaining the support of Arkan- sas physicians. First, many were confused about the legality of administering birth control advice to women. Other physicians were supportive, but did not have adequate knowledge or the experience to confidently aid the women who sought their advice. The most serious obstacle, however, was many physicians' lack of interest in birth control. This issue was not high on their list of priorities at a time when the federal government, led by Franklin D. Roosevelt, was sug- gesting changes to the medical system that were perceived as threatening to the autonomy of the medical profession.

The physicians who agreed to serve at the Little Rock clinic were not consid- ered radical, nor were they on the margins of their profession; they were leaders in the local professional medical community.39 While other local clinics across the nation often relied on women physicians and public health nurses, Hilda Cornish did not seek the support of either group. Female physicians in Arkan- sas were very few at the time. According to Census figures, there were 7 female and 235 male physicians in Little Rock in 1930, and none of those women spe- cialized in obstetrics and gynecology.40 A different issue explains the lack of involvement by public health nurses. Whether or not Cornish was aware of the struggle between physicians and public health practitioners during the previous decade, she was wise to select one group over the other as her ally.41

While not philosophically opposed to aiding women with contraceptives, some physicians did not always have enough knowledge about reliable birth control

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methods. Their training in medical school had not prepared them to serve in this role.42 The Arkansas School of Medicine in Little Rock (now the College of Medicine of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences) did not offer any such instruction, but Charles R. Henry took his own initiative in 1931 while enrolled there as a senior. He had heard about Hilda Cornish and the AEA- sponsored Little Rock Birth Control Clinic and decided to spend some time learning by observation. Gaining this knowledge was of primary importance to Henry because his medical interest was in obstetrics and gynecology. Henry would later be an important ally for Cornish, and his future contributions would greatly increase Arkansas women's access to reliable birth control.43

As early as 1931, Cornish and the AEA had urged the medical school to include teaching about contraceptives in the curriculum. They initiated letter-writing campaigns to lobby for Arkansas physicians to embrace the study and dissemi- nation of birth control information. It would not be until the mid-i93os, how- ever, that birth control advocates would see enough significant change to propel the birth control movement forward. In March 1934, the AEA sent letters to the secretaries of each county's medical society inquiring about its members' views on birth control. In order to build support, Cornish offered a copy of The Technique of Contraception: An Outline by Eric M. Matsner. Most of the local societies that responded requested this information. In this context, the Arkansas Medical Society adopted a resolution in support of birth control at its annual meeting in 1935. Present at this meeting were Hilda Cornish and Enid Branner, the Arkansas representative for the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control, Inc. Arkansas birth control advocates had lobbied the state medical society for some time, and their work eventually paid off. Nine other state medical societies also responded in support of birth control, and the 1935 annual meeting of the American Medical Association decided to study the matter.44 A year later, the A MA made an even stronger commitment when requesting clarification concerning the legal rights of physicians in relation to contraceptives.45

Also in the mid-i93os, the final legal obstacle to disseminating birth control was removed in the verdict issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in the case of United States v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries (1936). This ruling established that physicians could legally disseminate contraceptives. Margaret Sanger had orchestrated this case in order to facilitate a change in the law. It would take another year, until 1937, before the AMA would "officially approve of birth control as having a definite place in medical practice."46 As a result of these events, the support and cooperation of physicians became a cen- tral issue for birth control advocates like Hilda Cornish.

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It is important to note that relative to other state medical associations, the Arkansas Medical Society was quite willing to engage its member physicians in the debate. This state society joined a small group of other medical societies to pressure the larger membership of the AMA to at least study birth control issues. In general, individual Arkansas physicians were supportive of the agenda promoted by Cornish and the AEA. That the Little Rock Birth Control Clinic was able to stay open between 1931 and 1940, when many other clinics around the nation could not, testifies to the effective leadership of Cornish in calling people into action at a time of economic hardships. It is clear that in the larger context, physicians as an organized profession were rarely at the forefront of this lengthy process of assuring the availability of safe and effective contraceptives. Instead, they trod in the footsteps of women reformers like Hilda Cornish, who were acting in the interests of women and their families.

By the end of the 19308, Cornish could look back with satisfaction at the com- munity's acceptance of birth control as a respectable topic of public discourse and as worthy of support. In 1930, when Cornish had called together a group of influential community members for the purpose of launching the Arkansas birth control movement, the consensus had been that the mentioning of Mar- garet Sanger and the larger birth control movement might be too controver- sial. They therefore had opted for affiliation with eugenics instead. By the time Sanger visited Arkansas in 1937, local communities seemed to embrace her with open arms. This change in public opinion was in response to the effective cam- paign to educate people about birth control and the ability to frame the topic in ways that were comfortable to the local culture at the time.47

The much more challenging goal for Cornish to accomplish, however, was to convince the Arkansas community to include reliable contraceptives in state- wide public health facilities. From her perspective, this would ensure that all women, regardless of economic abilities, would benefit. While she continued to ally with those she perceived could aid in this goal, larger forces influenced by the context of the time would overpower her individual contributions in this phase of her efforts. Cornish continued to look for guidance from her friend Margaret Sanger and opted to follow the lead of the Committee on Public Prog- ress, initiated by Sanger in early 1938. The purpose of this organization was to make the public aware of the importance of reliable birth control information as a cure for many contemporary problems. This, of course, resonated with Cor- nish's goals for the Arkansas scene. The nationwide network of activists devel- oped during the earlier phase of the larger movement was now efficiently linked and utilized. In January 1938, Hilda Cornish officially joined the Committee on Public Progress and agreed to the required membership commitment of writing

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Hilda Kahlert Cornish 147

one letter per month to agencies suggested by the leaders of the committee. The strategy was to entice concerned citizens to produce a large number of letters in support of birth control and then bombard selected agencies with these letters. Cornish would again serve as the link between a national organization and the Arkansas community by supplying the names of influential local citizens who were then, in turn, approached by the national office.48

In this campaign, Cornish went much beyond the requested "one letter per month" and even added her own selection of recipients to the official list issued by the committee. For the month of May, Sanger suggested that letter writers inundate the editors of four popular magazines widely read by women, encour- aging the magazines to publish articles informing women about birth control. Cornish composed a letter to the editor of the Farmer's Wife Magazine in St. Paul, Minnesota, in which she stated, "Some recent articles on birth control in several periodicals caused such a favorable comment by the members of the Arkansas Eugenics Association that they have suggested that a similar article might interest the rural subscribers."49 She chose to write not as an individual, but as a person backed by a group of concerned citizens. That Cornish chose a magazine targeting the rural population was not a coincidence. She had first- hand knowledge about the personal lives of these women both through her work with the F E R A project in 1934 and through information relayed in the many letters that women wrote explaining their reasons for wanting to prevent additional pregnancies. Based on these experiences, she told the editor, "We find it difficult to serve the rural woman and she is greatly in need of infor- mation of the program as it is carried out today." The editor of the magazine, F. W. Beckman, responded that the magazine was not contemplating publishing such an article.50 He perceived the topic as too controversial and was unwilling to risk offending the readers.

Locally, Cornish continued to utilize the A E A as a vehicle of change in her quest for reliable birth control services for poor women in Arkansas. The stated goal in the annual reports of the Arkansas Eugenics Association beginning in 1938 was for the outpatient departments of hospitals and public health clinics across the state to assume the task of issuing contraceptive advice and devices. The Little Rock Birth Control Clinic, directed by the AEA, was now considered by Cornish to be a "demonstration clinic" and therefore only served a limited number of women. Clinics directed and operated by volunteers, such as this one, did not have the potential to serve a large number of women, and it might fail once the current group of advocates retired from their efforts.51 Therefore, Cornish looked to advance the program by seeking out institutions that could possibly sustain a larger program over time. The Little Rock Birth Control Clinic

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finally closed its doors in 1940 when prospective clients were given the opportu- nity either to visit the "University Clinic," a part of the medical school in Little Rock, or to be referred to physicians in their respective communities who were willing to assist. The clinic affiliated with the medical school was only offered to married women who were unable to afford a physician in private practice. Charles Henry, the young medical student who in 1930 had learned by observa- tion at the clinic initiated by Cornish, was now instrumental in organizing the clinic at the medical school. At this point, he was a professor in the Gynecol- ogy and Obstetrics Department and arranged for these clinics to be held every Friday at 3 p.m. in connection with the already existing postpartum clinics. As of 1939, there were seven cities in Arkansas where birth control advice was available. There were 507 functioning clinics in 1940, and most of those clinics were initiated and directed by volunteers, similar to the one in Little Rock.52

To continue the educational aspects of the AEA, Cornish made good use of her connections with other organizations in the community. Serving alternately as a regular member and as a member of the executive board, she had a long- standing relationship with the Arkansas Conference of Social Work. Her good friend Lillian Dees McDermott was also a leader of this organization and served as the president in the 19408. Among other strategies, Cornish made sure to arrange for educational exhibits of family planning topics to be included in the annual meetings, which often lasted three days. These conferences attracted individuals who would likely be in contact with families in need of reliable birth control information.53

The Birth Control Federation of America changed its name to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1942. Again, following the lead of the national scene, Little Rock birth control advocates changed the name of the Ar- kansas Eugenics Association to the Planned Parenthood Association of Arkan- sas that same year. Cornish was now sixty-four years old and a grandmother of children ranging from infants to teenagers. This could have been a good time for Cornish to hand over the leadership to the next generation, but instead of retiring, she turned her focus to lobbying for the public health system to include safe and effective birth control among its services.54

While various community groups supported this effort, the organized com- munity of physicians turned out to be too serious of a challenge for Cornish this time. While the Arkansas Medical Society actually had spearheaded the cam- paign among physicians in support of considering contraceptives a legitimate medical issue in the 19308, in the 19408 it now refused to endorse the goal of including birth control services in public health facilities. The strategy Cornish elected to reach her goal was again based on the directives of the national parent

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organization, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. After all, being connected to other local clinics and sharing information about strategies had served her well in the past. Utilizing her position as the chair and state representa- tive of the Planned Parenthood Association of Arkansas, Cornish embarked on the suggested letter campaign to target county medical societies and individual physicians known to be supportive of the birth control cause. To encourage the letter recipients to act, copies of model resolutions were enclosed. The model for a county society partially stated, "Be it resolved: That the Pulaski County Medical Society go on record as favoring the introduction of birth control for the indigent, and medically determined deserving cases, as a public health activity of the Ar- kansas State Board of Health."55 At none of the three occasions that the Arkansas Medical Society voted on such a resolution (1941,1944,1950) did they endorse the proposed changes.56 Clearly, their collective objection to government interference in the highly privatized medical system was at the root of these outcomes.

Cornish might have miscalculated a bit this time. Just as she had followed her affiliate organization's directives and disseminated its propaganda, the physicians did the same. When legislation was introduced that threatened the autonomy of the medical profession, the American Medical Association effec- tively counteracted these efforts and instructed its members to comply. Influ- ences beyond the control of Hilda Cornish's best intentions set the stage for the Arkansas Medical Society's rejection of the resolution in 1944. A U.S. House of Representatives bill proposing an extension of the government-controlled Social Security program was presented in 1943, the Wagner-Murray-Dingell Bill. In response, the AM A called a special meeting with the result of thrusting the professional medical organization into the world of political lobbying in Washington, D.C. The Council for Medical Services and Public Relations was created by the A MA and was charged to direct a public debate against efforts to nationalize any aspect of the medical system.57 By this time, U.S. citizens had for a decade endured a federal government that had asserted an extraordinary amount of power over local communities—not that Hilda Cornish seemed to mind, as long as it benefited those in need.

Not giving up on getting the Arkansas physicians onboard, Cornish in 1949 again embarked on a campaign to get the Arkansas Medical Society to support the public health resolution.58 She used the same strategy as in 1944, but when the resolution was up for a vote by the Arkansas physicians in 1950, even stronger political forces worked against Cornish and her fellow birth control advocates. President Harry S. Truman had called for national health insurance in his State of the Union address in 1948. He proposed that the government should ensure that all citizens have access to adequate health care services. As historian Melanie

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Kay Welch has argued in her study of these events in Arkansas, the national health insurance program that Truman proposed was highly controversial and quite threatening to many physicians.59 But it was the action the following year by the national representative of the physicians, the AM A, that possibly caused several Arkansas physicians to reject the public health resolution once again.

The previously proposed Wagner-Murray-Dingell Bill was again introduced in 1949, adding to physicians' anxiety about the future status of the medical system. In reaction to the bill, the AM A actually hired a public relations firm, Whitaker and Baxter. The firm initiated an intensive campaign to "educate" both physicians and the general public on the evils of "socialized" medicine.60

While it is clear that many individual members of the Arkansas Medical Society were in support of women gaining access to reliable birth control service, they were collectively more concerned with the perceived threat to the structure of the medical system and therefore voted not to endorse the public health bill in 1950. This must certainly have been a serious disappointment to Cornish, and it would take until the political winds eventually turned in the 19608, with Lyndon B. Johnson s War on Poverty and the Great Society reform legislation, for Arkansas women of all economic groups to have their needs met. It would take until 1964, the year before Hilda Cornish passed away, for the Arkansas public health system to initiate birth control services in public health depart- ments, and until 1966 before women in all Arkansas counties had access to safe and effective contraceptives and other much-needed family planning services.61

Hilda Cornish was finally ready in 1951 to retire from publicly leading the com- munity. Her friend Rabbi Sanders agreed to take over the helm.62 The Planned Parenthood Association of Arkansas struggled with support at the time, and in 1955 Sanders informed the national Planned Parenthood office that the local leadership had decided to dissolve the Arkansas group, due to a lack of finan- cial means to carry on the program in accordance with the federal group's requirements. He asked that "all cases that might come to the organization" be referred to Cornish.63 Even at age seventy-seven, Cornish was unwilling to abandon those women who might seek her out for birth control advice. Not willing to leave the scene of action completely, Cornish traveled with Margaret Sanger on a tour often nations and participated at the International Conference on Planned Parenthood in Tokyo, Japan, that same year. She had previously joined Sanger on a similar tour in 1952, when the two participated at the Inter- national Birth Control Conference in Bombay, India. It was at this conference that the International Planned Parenthood Federation was created. It is quite remarkable that these two elderly women, Sanger at seventy-six and Cornish at seventy-seven years old in 1955, still had the passion and energy to be engaged.64

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Hilda Cornish spent the last decade of her life in her own home after suffer- ing complications during spinal surgery, which left her dependent on nurses and housekeepers. With her daughter Hilda Cornish Coates living just down the street, Cornish stayed close to family She passed away on November 19, 1965, at age eighty-seven, and at her request her good friend Ira E. Sanders gave the eulogy at the funeral.65

Hilda Cornish is often remembered today as the "Birth Control Lady" in the Little Rock community, and rightfully so. She should be given the credit for demanding that those in a position to control access to safe and effective birth control take the appropriate steps to make it available to all women in Arkansas. While believing this to be a civic duty, Cornish and her fellow advocates had to combat organized physicians, who resisted relinquishing control of the con- temporary medical system for the sake of the larger community. Based on the strategies she adopted, Cornish must have understood that when individuals organize together on a voluntary basis and collectively utilize their combined resources, positive change happens in society. Her motive was not to suggest that government agencies take full responsibility for the health of the indi- vidual; rather, she recognized that the obstacles for poor women to be able to control their own reproduction could only be overcome if government powers were used to facilitate access to information and services that women simply could not get on their own.

NOTES

1. Sally Ellis Benson to Cornish, February 27,1952; Cornish to Benson, March i, 1952; Cornish to Benson, April 20,1952, all in Ira E. Sanders Papers, UALR.MS.oo98, box i, file 17, Center for Arkan- sas History and Culture, Arkansas Studies Institute, University of Arkansas, Little Rock (hereafter U A L R - C A H C ) .

2. For a detailed discussion of the Arkansas birth control movement between 1942 and 1980 and the significance of the political climate of the time, see Melanie Kay Welch, "Politics and Poverty: Women's Reproductive Rights in Arkansas, 1942-1980," Ph.D. diss., Auburn University, 2009.

3. For a comprehensive overview of Margaret Sanger's relationship to local community advo- cates, see Cathy Moran Hajo, Birth Control on Main Street: Organizing Clinics in the United States, 1919-1939 (Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2010).

4. Welch, "Politics and Poverty," 127-44. 5. Information about the early life of Cornish was derived from her grandson Edward Coates,

letter to author, June 23,1995. Information concerning neighborhoods and households, including the Cornish household, was derived from the U.S. Census, 1880, St. Louis County, Mo., and U.S. Census, 1900, Newark City, N.J.

6. For the death of Edward Cornish's first wife and three of their children, see "A Terrible Blow," Arkansas Gazette, September 28,1898,3:3; letter from Annabelle Lambert Crandall to Edith Cornish

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Low (Edward Cornish's daughter), October 5, 1951, in the possession of Julie Low Morin (Edith Low's granddaughter).

7. Information concerning the Cornish family life was derived from her daughter Hilda Cornish Coates, interview with author, July 12,1989, transcript, 2 and 6, Oral History Research Office, Univer- sity of Memphis, Tennessee; Hilda Cornish Coates, letters and conversations with author, 1989-1995; Edward Coates, letter to author, June 23,1995; U.S. Census, 1890,1900,1910,1920,1930,1940; Little Rock City Directory, 1890,1893,1897,1902,1907,1926,1928,1930,1934,1940; Alex Nichols, "Cornish House," in Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net /encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=7594.

8. Julie Low Morin, emails to author, June 2013. 9. For overviews of the significance of women's volunteer work, see Anne Firor Scott, Natural

Allies: Women's Associations in American History (Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1991); and Robin Muncy, Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890-1935 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).

10. "Mrs. Ed Cornish Dies: Led in Birth Control," Arkansas Gazette, November 20, 1965, 610:2. Evidence of Cornish's volunteer work was also found in various documents in the records of the Arkansas Eugenics Association and the Little Rock Clinic, housed at the Historical Research Center, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Library, History of Public Health in Arkansas Collec- tion, boxes 5 and 6 (hereafter BC-UAMS). See also Arkansas Federation of Women's Clubs, U A L R . MS.0056, U A L R - C A H C .

11. "Annual Report of the State Farm for Women, Jacksonville, Arkansas: 1922," pamphlet.O3224, U A L R - C A H C . Also see "Pulaski County Grand Jury Report, 1926," Arkansas History Commission, Small Manuscript Collections, box 48, no. 5.

12. See Mrs. Frederick Hanger and Clara B. Eno, "The Story of the Arkansas Federation of Women's Clubs, 1897-1934," Arkansas Federation of Women's Clubs, UALR.MS.0056, U A L R - C A H C .

13. Nancy Hendricks, "Flood of 1927," in Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, http://www .encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?search=i8centryID=22O2; "The Toll of the Flood," New York Times, August 31,1927. For the role of Cornish, see "Mrs. Ed Cornish Dies."

14. Hilda Cornish Coates, interview with author, 14. The following newspaper clippings are in the possession of Julie Low Morin: "Found Dead with a Pistol Wound through His Head: Edward Cornish Takes His Own Life," Arkansas Gazette, November 6, 1928; "Ed Cornish's Body Will Be Brought Here," unidentified clipping, November 6,1928.

15. Community activities included serving as executive secretary of the Goodfellows Club for twelve years; vice president and president of the Council of Social Agencies; and president of the Woman's City Club (1934-1935). She served on the following boards: the Family Service Agency, the Little Rock Public Library, and the Pulaski County Welfare Commission. See "Mrs. Ed Cornish Dies."

16. Hilda Cornish Coates, letter to author, May 27,1995. 17. David E. Rison, "Arkansas during the Great Depression," Ph.D. diss., University of California,

Los Angeles, 1974, 5. 18. Forty people in Conway raided a store. Other outbreaks took place at Pine Bluff and Fort

Smith. See Rison, "Arkansas during the Great Depression," 5, 20; and Gail Murray, "Forty Years Ago: The Great Depression Comes to Arkansas," Arkansas Historical Quarterly 29 (Winter 1970): 296.

19. Hilda Cornish to "Secy. Nat. Com. on Fed. Leg. for Birth Control," July 24, 1930, Marga- ret Sanger Papers, reel 84, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (hereafter M S - L O G ) ; Hilda Cornish Coates, interview with author, 2. See also untitled newspaper clipping, box 5, file 4, B C - U A M S . For an overview of the Sanger-led organizations, see "Birth Control Or-

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Hilda Kahlert Cornish 153

ganizations," Margaret Sanger Papers Project, https://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/aboutms/bc organizations.php (accessed October 24, 2017).

20. A great overall discussion of local birth control advocates can be found in Cathy Moran Hajo, Birth Control on Main Street: Organizing Clinics in the United States, 1916-1939 (Urbana- Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2010).

21. For a more detailed analysis of the formation and goals of the A E A , including a discussion of the group's interpretation of eugenics, see Marianne Leung, "'Better Babies': The Arkansas Birth Control Movement during the 19308," Ph.D. diss., University of Memphis, 1996, 38-71.

22. Rabbi Ira E. Sanders, interview by Charlotte Gadberry, January 18, 1978, Little Rock, Ark., transcript, uALR.MS.o2i8, box 9, file 17, Oral History Collection, U A L R - C A H C .

23. Concerning this change in Sanger's approach, see Joan M. Jensen, "The Evolution of Mar- garet Sanger's 'Family Limitation Pamphlet, 1914-1921," Signs 6 (1981): 548-57; and Helen Chesler, Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 269-309.

24. Unlike Cornish, McDermott had formal educational credentials, having studied at the University of Arkansas Law School and the University of Southern California, where she focused on social work. For additional information, see Leung, "Better Babies," 42-43; and Julienne Crawford, "Lillian Dees McDermott," in Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas .net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?search=i&entryID=i7io.

25. Hilda Cornish Coates, telephone conversations with author and letters to author, July- October 1989.

26. Raida Pfeifer, interview with author, June 17,1992, transcript, 9-10, Oral History Research Office, University of Memphis, Tennessee.

27. For the friendship between Cornish and Sanders, see Hilda Cornish Coates, interview with author, 5. For other information about Sanders, see Claire N. Moody, "Rabbi Sanders Is an Advocate of the Brotherhood of Man," Arkansas Democrat, June 2, 1951, magazine section, i; Matilda Tuo- hey, "Rabbi Will End 37 Years at B'nai Israel August 31," Arkansas Gazette, October 22,1961, Ai-2; Carolyn Gray LeMaster, A Corner of the Tapestry: A History of the Jewish Experience in Arkansas, 18205-19905 (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1994), 64.

28. For a more detailed discussion of Hay Watson Smith, see Leung, "Better Babies," 39-42. 29. Records of the Arkansas Eugenics Association, BC-UAMS, boxes 5-6. 30. About Sanger's leadership and the politics concerning various national birth control organi-

zations, see Chesler, Woman of Valor; and Hajo, Birth Control on Main Street. 31. This information is derived from annual reports of the Arkansas Eugenics Association and

from the correspondence found in the records of the clinic at BC-UAMS, boxes 5-6. 32. See Angus McLaren, A History of Contraception: From Antiquity to the Present (Cambridge:

Blackwell, 1990). 33. Letter to "State Hygenics [sic] Department" from unidentified woman in Gassville, Ark.,

May 7,1939, BC-UAMS, box 6. Numerous individual letters are among the documents pertaining to the AEA and the Little Rock Birth Control Clinic, BC-UAMS. For a more detailed discussion of this topic, see Leung, "Better Babies," 146-53.

34. Letter to Mrs. Hilda Cornish from unidentified woman in Cisco, Ark., March 29,1939, BC- UAMS, box 6.

35. The earliest letter in this particular string of communication by the man in Camden was dated December 19, 1937. See letter to Emira Coutant, American Birth Control League, Inc., New York City. The writer was informed that his letter had been forwarded to the AEA in a letter dated

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December 28,1937. For the quotes, see letter to Arkansas Eugenics Association by unidentified man from Camden, Ark., January 4,1938; letter by Cornish to unidentified man in Camden, January 5, 1938, all at BC-UAMS.

36. See correspondence between Hilda Cornish and leaders of various county medical societies in the collection for the AEA and the Little Rock Birth Control Clinic, BC-UAMS.

37. Holly Hope, An Ambition to Be Preferred: New Deal Recovery Efforts and Architecture in Arkan- sas, 1933-1943 (Little Rock: Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, 2006), 20-21; untitled news- paper clipping, Arkansas Conference of Social Work, uALR.MS.oo97, box n, file 21, U A L R - C A H C .

38. Nichols, "Cornish House." 39. My analysis is based on information in the Journal of the Arkansas Medical Society and the

American Medical Directory: A Register of Legally Qualified Physicians. I looked for evidence of medical expertise as well as leadership initiatives in the professional medical community in the 19205 and 19305. For a more detailed discussion, see Leung, "Better Babies," 103-39.

40. Leung, "Better Babies," 125. 41. See Elissa L. Miller, "From Private Duty to Public Health: A History of Arkansas Nursing,

1895 to 1954," Ph.D. diss., Case Western University, 1989,112-28. 42. A 1933 study conducted by Abraham Stone and published in Human Fertility suggested that

only twenty-eight of sixty-two medical schools surveyed offered any instruction about contracep- tives. While a larger number of medical schools demonstrated evidence of addressing the topic by 1942, the instruction was "adequate in only a few schools; in most schools it is still desultory and there is definitely too little clinical training." Abraham Stone, "The Teaching of Contraception in Medical Schools," Human Fertility 7 (August 1942): 108-11.

43. Charles R. Henry Sr., interview with author, September 26,1989, transcript, 2-3, Oral History Research Office, University of Memphis, Tennessee.

44. Branner reported about the meeting in a letter to Hazel Moore, the national field secretary for the national committee, that "the state Medical Society gave us the privilege of the floor (it was darn hard to get)." Branner to Moore, April 19, 1935, reel 84, M S - L O G . For the AMA decision, see "Resolutions on Contraception," American Medical Association, House of Delegates Proceeding, annual session, June 10,1935,34 and 45, http://ama.nmtvault.com/jsp/viewer.jsp?doc_id=ama_arch %2FHODooooi%2Foooooo268cqueryi=8crecofTset=o&:collection_filter=All&:collection_name= iee24daa-2768-4bff-b792-e4859988fe94&:sort_col=publication%2odate&:CurSearchNum=-i.

45. "Report of Committee to Study Contraceptive Practices and Related Problems," Journal of the American Medical Association 106 (May 30,1936): 1911.

46. William L. Laurence, "Birth Control Is Accepted by American Medical Body," New York Times, June 9,1937,1:1. For more information about the Arkansas Medical Society and the process of soliciting its support, see Leung, "Better Babies," 125-39.

47. Leung, "Better Babies," 191-96. 48. See letter to "Dear Friend" from Margaret Sanger, January 1938, BC-UAMS, box 5, file 5; and

correspondence between Cornish and the national office of the committee, BC-UAMS, box 6. 49. Cornish, letter to the editor, Farmer's Wife Magazine, May 2,1938, BC-UAMS, box 5, file 5. 50. Letter to Cornish from F. W Beckman at Farmer's Wife Magazine, May 6,1938, BC-UAMS,

box 5, file 5. 51. This was a common experience for other clinics directed by volunteers. See Hajo, Birth Con-

trol on Main Street, 19-27. 52. See draft of the 1939 annual report for the Little Rock Birth Control Clinic, prepared by

Miriam Phillips (one of Cornish's daughters and a clinic volunteer), BC-UAMS, box 6, file 4.

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Hilda Kahlert Cornish 155

53. Copies of annual conference programs, 1935-1945, Arkansas Conference of Social Work,

U A L R . M S . O O 9 8 , box 6, U A L R - C A H C .

54. Jerry Dean, "19308 Birth Control Clinic Featured in Health History," Arkansas Gazette,

March 9,1983. Also see Hilda Cornish correspondence with various community members on statio-

nery labeled Planned Parenthood Association of Arkansas in 1942 and thereafter, BC-UAMS, box 6.

55. Mrs. Ed Cornish to Dr. Joseph O. Boydstone (Hot Springs, Ark.), April 14,1944, BC-UAMS,

box 6, file 7. As Welch demonstrated in her study, representatives of the state Department of Public

Health had objected to assuming birth control services as an additional responsibility on the

grounds of lack of personnel. Welch, "Politics and Poverty," 57-66.

56. Welch, "Politics and Poverty," 34, 57-66; "Proceedings of the Sixty-Ninth Annual Session:

Arkansas Medical Society, April 17 and 18,1944," Journal of the Arkansas Medical Society 41 (June

1944): 29. 57. Edward R. Annis, "Towards Socialized Medicine (Part I): A Historic Chronology," Haci-

enda Publishing, http://www.haciendapub.com/medicalsentinel/towards-socialized-medicine-part

-i-historic-chronology (last modified 2016).

58. Letters to various physicians and county medical societies urging support, copied and ex-

changed between Sanders and Cornish, kept the two closely informed about the community events

taking place. Ira E. Sanders Papers, UALR.MS.oo98, box i, file 18, U A L R - C A H C .

59. Welch, "Politics and Poverty," 61-63.

60. Jill Lepore, "The Lie Factory: How Politics Became a Business," New Yorker, September 24,

2012, http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2oi2/o9/24/i2O924fa_fact_lepore?currentPage=all

&mobify=o8mtm_source=buffer&buffer_share=24ai9.

61. Welch, "Politics and Poverty," 136.

62. Letter to Dr. Ira E. Sanders from Mrs. Fifield Workum of Planned Parenthood Federation

of America, Inc., June 18,1951, Ira E. Sanders Papers, UALR.MS.oo98, box i, file 16, U A L R - C A H C .

63. Sanders corresponded using Temple B'nai Israel stationery, rather than the Planned Parent-

hood Association of Arkansas stationery previously used by Cornish. Letter to Planned Parenthood

Federation of America, Inc., New York, from Sanders, October 14,1955, Ira E. Sanders Papers, U A L R .

MS.0098, box 1, file 17, U A L R - C A H C .

64. Hilda Cornish Coates, interview with author, 11. The travel itinerary for October 13-Decem-

ber 14,1955, was prepared by Anita Schutze Travel Service, Austin, Texas, for the trip to the Fifth

International Conference on Planned Parenthood, Tokyo, Japan. BC-UAMS, box 5, file 2.

65. Information concerning living arrangements and the health of Cornish at the end of her life

was derived from several conversations and correspondence with Hilda Cornish Coates, March 1996.

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