at the request of a woman

I invented the pill at the request of a woman.”‘That woman, it turns out, was birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger, who for decades had been searching for a pregnancy prevention pill. (Pincus)

имхо: так рождаются легенды :)

”Margaret Sanger approached Dr. Pincus at a Manhattan dinner party, and she was very taken with him,” said Thoru Pederson, a University of Massachusetts Medical School professor who headed the Worcester Foundation from 1985 to 1997.

Ms. Sanger convinced the aging mrs. McCormick, who had married into a wealthy Chicago family, to come to Shrewsbury in 1953 to meet with Dr. Pincus and his colleague and foundation co-founder, Hudson Hoagland, whom he met while both were students and researchers at Harvard University. They eventually left Harvard for Clark University in Worcester before starting the foundation.

“Pincus had no interest in contraception prevention. he was studying fertility. but he was convinced by Sanger and McCormick that it was important,” he said.

“It is ironic to me that although the pill was invented in Worcester, and Massachusetts is always thought of as forward thinking, it was the last state to approve the pill for married women (1966) and for unmarried women, in 1972,” she (Dianne Luby, president and chief executive officer of the planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts) said.

Amy G. Richter, a history professor at Clark University, said white middle-class women of the 19th century had more control over their fertility than lower-class and minority women of the 20th century.
“Middle-class women were perceived to be morally superior. They could say no to sex; abstain, and track their cycles,” she said. In addition, Ms. Richter said, middle-class women had more access to abortions.
“It’s impossible to say the pill did not change society in a variety of ways,” Ms. Richter said. “It was so reliable. it was transformative at so many layers, not in just controlling fertility, but by putting that control into the hands of women.”

Mrs. McCormick, who was one of the first women to earn a science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in 1904, made an initial $20,000 donation to the Worcester Foundation, Mr. Pederson said, but held off on a second identical amount until she studied their work herself.
“Mrs. McCormick was very knowledgeable about science. she required Pincus to write out all his work and his research plans, which she reviewed and edited,” he said.
“She was very involved in the research progress; she wrote to Pincus every week,” he said. “She deserves a lot of credit.”

 excerpts from here
а вот и оригинал