Multimedia Collection
The Pill
VHS
60 minutes
2003
RG137.5 .P55 2004
On May 11, 1960, the United States Food and Drug Administration approved the sale of a contraceptive pill. In just five years, six million American women had made it part of their daily lives. It allowed women to pursue careers as never before, fueled the feminist and consumer health movements, and encouraged more open attitudes towards sex. The Pill, as it came to be known, would arguably have a greater impact on American culture than any other drug in the nation's history.
Spearheading the effort to develop a contraceptive pill that women could "eat like aspirin" were birth control activist Margaret Sanger, 71, and heiress Katherine McCormick, 78, who contributed millions of dollars to the cause. The brilliant and colorful biologist Gregory Pincus signed on to do the research, then persuaded a drug company to risk a boycott by manufacturing the controversial pill. John Rock, a respected gynecologist who led the field studies, worked in vain to persuade the Vatican that the Pill did not violate the Church's teachings against birth control.
Featuring personal accounts from the first generation of women to have access to the Pill, this film shows how harnessing female hormones into a little pill unleashed a social revolution unlike any other in our history.
Distributed by PBS Home Vide (www.pbs.org)
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