Mary Ware Dennett

Mary Coffin Ware Dennett (April 4, 1872 – July 25, 1947) was an American women's rights activist, pacifist, homeopathic advocate, and pioneer in the areas of birth control, sex education, and women's suffrage.

Mary Coffin Ware Dennett was born April 4, 1872, in her hometown Worcester, Massachusetts.

Dennett was the second child of four born to George and Vonie Ware.

Dennett was a precocious, talkative, and assertive child, "scolding [her older brother] for striking her, often quoting the Bible."

At age 10, her father died of cancer.

Her mother supported the family by organizing European tours for young women.

While her mother was absent on tours, Dennett and her siblings often lived with their Aunt Lucia Ames Mead, a prominent social reformer.

Dennett enrolled in the School of Art and Design in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1891 and graduated with first honors, then took a teaching position at the Drexel Institute of Art in Philadelphia in 1894.

She also had a position at Drexel Institute teaching design and decoration from 1894 to 1897.

Dennett married William Hartley Dennett, an architect, in 1900.

They shared the ideal of the Arts and Crafts movement and soon bought a farmhouse in Framingham, Massachusetts.

They founded an architectural and interior design firm.

In addition to her work as an interior designer and guadamacile maker, Dennett continued to lecture and write about the Arts and Crafts movement.

The Dennetts’ first child a son named Carlton was born in December 1900, after a difficult labor that nearly killed the mother.

After another difficult labor, their second child a son named Appleton was born in 1903.

However the baby was frail and died 3 weeks later.

In 1904, Dennett's husband William Hartley Dennett began work on a house for Dr. Heman Lincoln Chase and his wife Margaret.

A third child was born in 1905 another boy named Devon, again after a difficult labor.

Following this labor Dennett became ill and had to give up her professional work in order to recover.

This time the doctor told the Dennetts that they should not have any more children, due to a laceration in her uterus that required corrective surgery.

However her doctor did not give them any information on birth control.

Later Dennett wrote of their lack of information on birth control:

"I was utterly ignorant of the control of conception, as was my husband also. We had never had anything like normal relations, having approximated almost complete abstinence in the endeavor to space our babies.'"

In 1908 she accepted the position of field secretary of the Massachusetts Women's Suffrage Association, beginning a long career in public advocacy for women's rights.

Hartley Dennett and Margaret Chase eventually developed an extremely close relationship, culminating in William Hartley Dennett moving out of his and Mary's house in 1909.

Dennett worked for the cause of women's suffrage from 1910 to 1914, a period that marked the revival of the women's suffrage movement, which had stagnated during the previous decade.

After several years of work for the National American Women's Suffrage Association, she became disillusioned with the organization and resigned from her position.

Concerned about the effect that Hartley was having on their children, Dennett filed for divorce in 1912, at the time an unusual and scandalous action.

The courts finalized Dennett's divorce and granted her full custody of her children in 1913.

The divorce proceedings were a popular topic in the local newspapers, to Mary Dennett's great discomfort.

Motivated by both a desire to escape the unpleasant realities of her life as well as William Hartley Dennett's refusal to financially support his children, Mary Dennett returned to working outside the home, but not in her previous career as an artist and interior designer.

Dennett co-founded the Twilight Sleep Association (1913), which advocated the use of scopolamine and morphine to ease the pain of childbirth.

Statistics showed that twilight sleep reduced infant mortality and the risk of injury and infection, due to reduced use of forceps.

She served as acting president until 1914, then as vice president.

When the European war broke out in 1914, Dennett joined the Women's Peace Party, an anti-war movement.

She co-founded the National Birth Control League in 1915 together with Jessie Ashley and Clara Gruening Stillman.

She founded the Voluntary Parenthood League, served in the National American Women's Suffrage Association, co-founded the Twilight Sleep Association, and wrote a famous pamphlet on sex education and birth control.

A famous legal case against her eventually became the catalyst for overturning the Comstock laws.

In 1916, she served as field secretary for the American Union against Militarism, organizing meetings in several large cities.

Dennett's work to re-elect Woodrow Wilson (under the belief that he would not declare war) led to a respected job as executive secretary for the League for Progressive Democracy.