In her new article, “The Right Number of Children—Emko Birth Control in Puerto Rico and the US, 1962–1966,” published in the Journal of Family History, Professor Katherine Parkin, Ph.D., considers how population control ideologue Joseph Sunnen distributed his spermicidal vaginal foam Emko, first in Puerto Rico and then surreptitiously to poor and working-class women in the United States through the mail and in concert with Planned Parenthood in clinics and their workplace.
Sunnen sought to limit the country’s population by advancing an idealized American family of only one or two children. With a coordinated public relations campaign, he created the first mainstream magazine ad for birth control and placed ads in newspapers and magazines nationally to sell Americans on the benefits of having smaller families.
Parkin is the Jules Plangere, Jr., Endowed Chair in American Social History and professor in the department of History and Anthropology. Her recent scholarship includes “The Abortion Market: Buying and Selling Access in the Era Before Roe,” published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. Her related scholarship, “The Business of Abortion: Referral Services, Advertising, and Canadian Women’s Access to Abortion in New York State, 1970-1972,” co-written by Sarah Elvins, Ph.D., was awarded Best Scholarly Article in Canadian Business History in 2025.
