Document 19: "Fad Demands Few in Family Today: Dr. Harold Ellis Speaks to Group on the Wisdom of Birth Control," New York Amsterdam News, 5 September 1932, p. 1, Papers of Margaret Sanger, 1900-1966, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Introduction
This article provided an account of a speech by Dr. Howard Ellis, the only male and only African American doctor to work in the Harlem clinic. Dr. Ellis became a member of the Advisory Council in 1932. In 1933, he joined the regular clinic staff and began conducting several clinic sessions per week.[89] Ellis was a neuropsychiatry expert who served as the chief of mental hygiene at Harlem Hospital. The speech took place at St. James Presbyterian Church, where Advisory Council member William Lloyd Imes was pastor. The venue of Dr. Ellis's speech is a reminder of how heavily the Harlem Branch clinic relied on local churches as conduits for publicity and information about the birth control services it offered. This speech exemplified the community outreach work done by Advisory Council members after the March 1932 Advisory Council meeting, at which the decision was made to involve the council members more fully in those efforts (see Document 14).
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FAD DEMANDS FEW IN FAMILY TODAY
Dr. Harold L. Ellis Speaks to Group on Wisdom of Birth Control
The health of the mother, the health of the child, the fathers' earning capacity, standards of living desired to maintain and the domestic state of a married couple play an important role in the practice of birth control, said Dr. Harold L. Ellis, local physician, last Wednesday night, when he addressed a group at the St. James' Presbyterian Church.
Always stressing the fact that birth control is the prevention of conception until such a time as it is expedient to bear children, Dr. Ellis assured his listeners that small families, raised in comfort and amply educated, are the order of the day.
The meeting was held under the auspices of the Weekly Prayer Meeting Class, through the courtesy of the Harlem branch of the Birth Control Clinic, 2352 Seventh avenue, of which Elizabeth G. Lautermilch, R.N., is the supervising nurse.
Others who made brief speeches were the Rev. Mr. Imes and Miss Lautermilch.
Serving on the advisory council of the local bureau are Drs. Peter Marshall Murray, James L. Wilson, Louis T. Wright, May Edward Chinn, Alonzo DeG. Smith, Lucien M. Brown, Harold L. Ellis; the Revs. William Lloyd Imes and Horatio Hill; Mesdames Bessye J. Bearden, Mable Keaton Staupers, Lois Allen, Jane Fisher and Felix Fuld.
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