The Library of Stephen J. Farber

8vo. (Title-page with faint horizontal crease, uneven toning.) Original printed salmon wrappers (light vertical crease to upper cover, light wear to spine ends).

"To the working girls of the world this little book is lovingly dedicated" (dedication).

FIRST EDITION. What Every Girl Should Know was first published as a series of articles by Margaret Sanger in the socialist newspaper The New York Call (1912–1913), issued as part of the paper’s effort to provide practical education to working-class readers. The series quickly attracted the attention of postal authorities under the Comstock Act, who suppressed one installment under obscenity laws for its frank discussion of venereal disease, prompting the paper to print a black column in its place. Sanger subsequently reissued the material independently as a pamphlet in 1916. Organized into chapters and parts, the text addresses sex education, human reproduction, and sexually transmitted infections. The work belongs to Sanger’s early activism, alongside her newspaper The Woman Rebel, and emerged at a time when U.S. obscenity laws severely restricted the circulation of sexual and contraceptive information. As a result, Sanger faced arrest, prosecution, and temporary exile for disseminating such materials, and the pamphlet itself was considered radical and subversive simply for presenting factual information.