In the summer of 1955, Gregory Pincus visited Puerto Rico, and discovered it would be the perfect location for the human trials.
Gregory Pincus found a way to test the contraceptive powers of progesterone and sidestep Massachusetts' rigid anti-birth control laws.
In the early 1950s, the last thing Searle wanted to get involved in was the controversial area of birth control.
Margaret Sanger's dream of a pill for birth control improbably came to fruition because of the discovery of a wild Mexican yam.
The driving force behind the original anti-birth control statutes was a New Yorker named Anthony Comstock.
Since ancient times, women all over the world have used a variety of methods for contraception.
American society in the 1950s was geared toward the family. Marriage and children were part of the national agenda.
John Rock was an unlikely choice to help develop an oral contraception; the obstetrician and gynecologist was a devout Roman Catholic.
In 1953, when Margaret Sanger and Katharine McCormick went looking for a scientist to develop a birth control pill, they turned to Dr. Gregory Goodwin Pincus.
Katharine McCormick provided almost every single dollar necessary to develop the oral contraceptive.
Margaret Sanger devoted her life to legalizing birth control and making it universally available for women.
Browse samples of Pill package design in this gallery, featuring historical images from the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
