Adoption of the pill

23 June 1960, USA

The lasting impact of the contraceptive pill was perhaps even more social than it was medical. Developed by Dr Gregory Pincus (inspired by a meeting with activist Margaret Sanger) the pill allowed women to have direct control over their own bodies in a way that other contraceptives had not allowed. The significance of this socially was that the pill allowed women to make more confident plans about how and when they wanted to have a family, opening up space for pursuing higher education and careers in a way that would have been more precarious in the past. It also coincided with the ‘swinging sixties’ and became even more popular during the women’s movement of the 1970s.