George Rosenkranz, the chemist who created ‘the pill,’ dies

Medical advancement radically reshaped societal norms

It was 1951 in Mexico City, and George Rosenkranz and two colleagues were hard at work creating a synthetic hormone they hoped would help prevent pregnant women from having a miscarriage.

Their work, though, was far more profound than any of them initially realized. The hormone they were tinkering with, it turned out, also prevented pregnancies.

For a chemist, it was an astonishing discovery. For baby boomer America, it was the unleashing of a cultural mega-storm, a brand new world where women could decide when and if they wanted to be pregnant, and a time when politicians, religious leaders and scholars thunderously debated the ethics of giving humankind such a powerful, existential tool.

For Rosenkranz — who marveled at the breakthrough but left the cultural debate to others — it was another discovery in a career filled with them. Active until the end, Rosenkranz died Sunday at his home in Atherton, Calif., near Stanford University. He was 102.

Roberto Rosenkranz said his father remained healthy, lucid and active until his death and appeared to have died of natural causes.

Rosenkranz, his son said, was fully aware of the magnitude that the discovery of a birth control pill might have on the world, and the societal norms that would be tested, but chose to see it as a medical advancement.

“He did not want to get involved in the politics related to ‘the pill,’ ” Roberto Rosenkranz said. “He pondered it as a step forward.”

But the cross-currents of the pill were powerful. The pill was approved by the FDA in late 1959. John F. Kennedy was soon to be president, the race to the moon was on and radical change was on the horizon. But at the time, the country was largely locked in the conventions of the postwar years — couples married early, and the children arrived quickly.

Within a year, more than 1 million women had prescriptions for birth control. That number quadrupled by the next year and by the late ’60s, the pill was all but ubiquitous. The product was packaged in a container the size of a compact, the pills stowed in what looked like the dial of a rotary phone — one for each day of the month.