Mary Calderone
Encyclopedia
Mary Steichen Calderone (July 1, 1904 - October 24, 1998) was a physician
and a public health advocate for sexual education
. She served as president and co-founder of the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States
(SIECUS) from 1954 to 1982. She was also the medical director for Planned Parenthood
. She wrote many publications advocating open dialogue and access to information at all ages. Her most notable feat was overturning the American Medical Association
policy against the dissemination of birth control
information to patients.
on July 1, 1904. Biographer Jeffrey Moran suggests that her bohemian childhood (her father, Edward Steichen
, was a noted photographer; her uncle was poet
Carl Sandburg
) and Quaker upbringing influenced her liberal outlook on sex as well as contributed to her opinionated and passionate nature. When Calderone was six, for instance, she berated the family-friend and sculptor Constantin Brâncuşi
for his horizontal-headed bird pieces, which would undoubtedly hinder the bird from singing. Brâncuşi complied and began sculpting birds with more upturned heads.
Calderone attended the Brearley School
in New York City
for her secondary education. After graduation, she entered Vassar College
, graduating in 1925 with an A.B.
in Chemistry
. Calderone decided to go into theatre after graduation and studied for three years at the American Laboratory Theater.
She married actor W. Lon Martin and had two daughters, Nell and Linda.
She abandoned acting and divorced in 1933. The death of her eight-year-old daughter Nell, along with dashed acting dreams and a divorce, plunged Calderone into depression
. After a series of psychoanalytic tests, she decided to return to school and study medicine. She was 30 years old.
She obtained her M.D.
degree from the University of Rochester
medical school in 1939. She then received her M.P.H. from Columbia University
in 1942. During this time she interned at hospitals and clinics, one belonging to Dr. Frank A. Calderone, whom she married in 1941. Frank Calderone was then a district health officer in New York and eventually became the chief administrative officer of the World Health Organization
. Mary Calderone worked as a physician in the Great Neck, New York
public school system.
In 1953, Calderone joined the staff of the controversial Planned Parenthood Federation of America as its Medical Director. Her tenure there was prolific. In 1958 she organized a national conference which instigated the movement to legalize abortion
. Her biggest success at Planned Parenthood came in 1964, when she overturned the American Medical Association
policy against physicians disseminating information on birth control. Calderone did not believe that her work should be limited to preventive measures against pregnancy
. Letters arrived at Planned Parenthood daily asking questions about not just sex, but sexuality at large. Calderone came to the realization that sexuality did not just equate genitality, and that sex education was sorely lacking from American society.
With the conviction that “handing out contraceptives was not enough,” Calderone quit her position at Planned Parenthood in 1964 and established the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States, Inc. (SIECUS). Driven by Calderone’s dynamic talks across the nation and its mission statement, “to establish man’s sexuality as a health entity,” the organization became an essential umbrella group for school administrators, sex educators, physicians, social activists, and parents seeking to access information about teaching sexuality education. Calderone and her organization became recognized and respected (no doubt riding on the wave of the sexual revolution of the 1960s) with the message of sex as a positive force, but opponents also watched her closely. Calderone’s insistence that sex education should begin as early as kindergarten did not impress religious conservative groups like MOMS (Mothers Organized for Moral Stability) and MOTOREDE (Movement to Restore Decency), who called Calderone the leader of the “SIECUS stinkpot.” A bestselling 1968 pamphlet, Is the School House the Proper Place to Teach Raw Sex?
, targeted SIECUS, calling Calderone the "SIECUS Sexpot" and claiming that she wanted to undermine Christian morality and corrupt children.
By 1969 Calderone’s influence had been weakened by these attacks, and she stepped down as President, although she remained the Executive Director of SIECUS. Calderone published a rebuttal of the conservative attacks in the Vassar Quarterly, but according to Moran, it was a movement spearheaded by Playboy
that would effectively fight the charges against sex education. Nevertheless Calderone’s crusade for sexuality education with a “positive approach and moral neutrality” continued. Until 1982 she still held leadership positions at SIECUS and continued to expand sex education as a means to talk about other topics besides the sexual act, e.g. sexism, homosexuality, etc. Calderone widely gave talks, two of them at Vassar; her 1983 lecture as President’s Distinguished Visitor was titled “Sexuality in Infancy and Childhood—The Need for a Learning Theory.” She wrote several books on sex education: The Family Book about Sexuality and Talking with Your Child About Sex are two. Although Calderone was adamant about sexual freedom, her beliefs did not align with the burgeoning sexual revolution of the late 1960s. She believed that the sex act should be ultimately reserved for marriage, and that sexuality found its peak expression through the “permanent man-woman bond.” In an article in Penthouse magazine, and later in his book Sex By Prescription, the American radical psychiatrist Thomas Szasz
attacked Calderone for allegedly authoritarian tendencies, including hostility to homosexuals
.
In 1974, the American Humanist Association
named her Humanist of the Year.
Calderone died on October 24, 1998 at the Longwood Nursing Home in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania
. She was 94.
campaign for birth control. As she had convinced Constantin Brâncuşi of upturning his bird sculptures’ heads, Calderone certainly turned many heads around when it came to matters of sex.
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
and a public health advocate for sexual education
Sex education
Sex education refers to formal programs of instruction on a wide range of issues relating to human sexuality, including human sexual anatomy, sexual reproduction, sexual intercourse, reproductive health, emotional relations, reproductive rights and responsibilities, abstinence, contraception, and...
. She served as president and co-founder of the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States
Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States
The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States is a lobbying organization and advocacy group dedicated to sex and sexuality education, sexual health, and sexual rights...
(SIECUS) from 1954 to 1982. She was also the medical director for Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood Federation of America , commonly shortened to Planned Parenthood, is the U.S. affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation and one of its larger members. PPFA is a non-profit organization providing reproductive health and maternal and child health services. The...
. She wrote many publications advocating open dialogue and access to information at all ages. Her most notable feat was overturning the American Medical Association
American Medical Association
The American Medical Association , founded in 1847 and incorporated in 1897, is the largest association of medical doctors and medical students in the United States.-Scope and operations:...
policy against the dissemination of birth control
Birth control
Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...
information to patients.
Biography
She was born in ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
on July 1, 1904. Biographer Jeffrey Moran suggests that her bohemian childhood (her father, Edward Steichen
Edward Steichen
Edward J. Steichen was an American photographer, painter, and art gallery and museum curator. He was the most frequently featured photographer in Alfred Stieglitz' groundbreaking magazine Camera Work during its run from 1903 to 1917. Steichen also contributed the logo design and a custom typeface...
, was a noted photographer; her uncle was poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and another for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat."-Biography:Sandburg was born in Galesburg,...
) and Quaker upbringing influenced her liberal outlook on sex as well as contributed to her opinionated and passionate nature. When Calderone was six, for instance, she berated the family-friend and sculptor Constantin Brâncuşi
Constantin Brancusi
Constantin Brâncuşi was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris...
for his horizontal-headed bird pieces, which would undoubtedly hinder the bird from singing. Brâncuşi complied and began sculpting birds with more upturned heads.
Calderone attended the Brearley School
Brearley School
The Brearley School is an all-girls private school in New York City, New York, United States. It is located on the Upper East Side of the Manhattan borough of New York City. The school is divided into the Lower School , Middle School and Upper School...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
for her secondary education. After graduation, she entered Vassar College
Vassar College
Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...
, graduating in 1925 with an A.B.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in Chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
. Calderone decided to go into theatre after graduation and studied for three years at the American Laboratory Theater.
She married actor W. Lon Martin and had two daughters, Nell and Linda.
She abandoned acting and divorced in 1933. The death of her eight-year-old daughter Nell, along with dashed acting dreams and a divorce, plunged Calderone into depression
Depression (mood)
Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behaviour, feelings and physical well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, or restless...
. After a series of psychoanalytic tests, she decided to return to school and study medicine. She was 30 years old.
She obtained her M.D.
Doctor of Medicine
Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...
degree from the University of Rochester
University of Rochester
The University of Rochester is a private, nonsectarian, research university in Rochester, New York, United States. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The university has six schools and various interdisciplinary programs.The...
medical school in 1939. She then received her M.P.H. from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in 1942. During this time she interned at hospitals and clinics, one belonging to Dr. Frank A. Calderone, whom she married in 1941. Frank Calderone was then a district health officer in New York and eventually became the chief administrative officer of the World Health Organization
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that acts as a coordinating authority on international public health. Established on 7 April 1948, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the agency inherited the mandate and resources of its predecessor, the Health...
. Mary Calderone worked as a physician in the Great Neck, New York
Great Neck, New York
The term Great Neck is commonly applied to a peninsula on the North Shore of Long Island, which includes the village of Great Neck, the village of Great Neck Estates, the village of Great Neck Plaza, and others, as well as an area south of the peninsula near Lake Success and the border of Queens...
public school system.
In 1953, Calderone joined the staff of the controversial Planned Parenthood Federation of America as its Medical Director. Her tenure there was prolific. In 1958 she organized a national conference which instigated the movement to legalize abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
. Her biggest success at Planned Parenthood came in 1964, when she overturned the American Medical Association
American Medical Association
The American Medical Association , founded in 1847 and incorporated in 1897, is the largest association of medical doctors and medical students in the United States.-Scope and operations:...
policy against physicians disseminating information on birth control. Calderone did not believe that her work should be limited to preventive measures against pregnancy
Pregnancy
Pregnancy refers to the fertilization and development of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, in a woman's uterus. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets...
. Letters arrived at Planned Parenthood daily asking questions about not just sex, but sexuality at large. Calderone came to the realization that sexuality did not just equate genitality, and that sex education was sorely lacking from American society.
With the conviction that “handing out contraceptives was not enough,” Calderone quit her position at Planned Parenthood in 1964 and established the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States, Inc. (SIECUS). Driven by Calderone’s dynamic talks across the nation and its mission statement, “to establish man’s sexuality as a health entity,” the organization became an essential umbrella group for school administrators, sex educators, physicians, social activists, and parents seeking to access information about teaching sexuality education. Calderone and her organization became recognized and respected (no doubt riding on the wave of the sexual revolution of the 1960s) with the message of sex as a positive force, but opponents also watched her closely. Calderone’s insistence that sex education should begin as early as kindergarten did not impress religious conservative groups like MOMS (Mothers Organized for Moral Stability) and MOTOREDE (Movement to Restore Decency), who called Calderone the leader of the “SIECUS stinkpot.” A bestselling 1968 pamphlet, Is the School House the Proper Place to Teach Raw Sex?
Is the School House the Proper Place to Teach Raw Sex?
Is the School House the Proper Place to Teach Raw Sex? was a pamphlet written in 1968 by Gordon V. Drake and published by Billy James Hargis's Christian Crusade...
, targeted SIECUS, calling Calderone the "SIECUS Sexpot" and claiming that she wanted to undermine Christian morality and corrupt children.
By 1969 Calderone’s influence had been weakened by these attacks, and she stepped down as President, although she remained the Executive Director of SIECUS. Calderone published a rebuttal of the conservative attacks in the Vassar Quarterly, but according to Moran, it was a movement spearheaded by Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
that would effectively fight the charges against sex education. Nevertheless Calderone’s crusade for sexuality education with a “positive approach and moral neutrality” continued. Until 1982 she still held leadership positions at SIECUS and continued to expand sex education as a means to talk about other topics besides the sexual act, e.g. sexism, homosexuality, etc. Calderone widely gave talks, two of them at Vassar; her 1983 lecture as President’s Distinguished Visitor was titled “Sexuality in Infancy and Childhood—The Need for a Learning Theory.” She wrote several books on sex education: The Family Book about Sexuality and Talking with Your Child About Sex are two. Although Calderone was adamant about sexual freedom, her beliefs did not align with the burgeoning sexual revolution of the late 1960s. She believed that the sex act should be ultimately reserved for marriage, and that sexuality found its peak expression through the “permanent man-woman bond.” In an article in Penthouse magazine, and later in his book Sex By Prescription, the American radical psychiatrist Thomas Szasz
Thomas Szasz
Thomas Stephen Szasz is a psychiatrist and academic. Since 1990 he has been Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York. He is a well-known social critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry, and of the social...
attacked Calderone for allegedly authoritarian tendencies, including hostility to homosexuals
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
.
In 1974, the American Humanist Association
American Humanist Association
The American Humanist Association is an educational organization in the United States that advances Humanism. "Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without theism and other supernatural beliefs, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that...
named her Humanist of the Year.
Calderone died on October 24, 1998 at the Longwood Nursing Home in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania
Kennett Square, Pennsylvania
Kennett Square is a borough in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is known as the Mushroom Capital of the World because mushroom farming in the region produces over a million pounds of mushrooms a year...
. She was 94.
Legacy
Her extensive work with popularizing sexuality education has often been compared to the Margaret SangerMargaret Sanger
Margaret Higgins Sanger was an American sex educator, nurse, and birth control activist. Sanger coined the term birth control, opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established Planned Parenthood...
campaign for birth control. As she had convinced Constantin Brâncuşi of upturning his bird sculptures’ heads, Calderone certainly turned many heads around when it came to matters of sex.