Parents' Information Bureau
Distributor of Illegal Birth Control Information
Until the 1960s, it was illegal to distribute birth control information. Parents' Information Bureau risked all, and changed the lives of Canadian families and society.
The Parents' Information Bureau (PIB) was an organization founded in 1935 by A.R. Kaufman to distribute birth control information to Canadian women. This was a risky business because it was illegal at the time. Couples were expected to practise abstinence, or perhaps coitus interruptus, although many religions publicly frowned on the latter method of birth control. Most people, especially the poor, were ignorant of any other way.
Kaufman’s Cause
According to the Special Collections Library at the University of Waterloo, Alvin Ratz Kaufman was an industrialist and philanthropist based in Kitchener, Ontario. As owner of the Kaufman Rubber Company, he was concerned about the poverty and frequent ill health of many of his employees. When the company nurse reported to him that most of them had very large families, he asked why they did not use birth control. When he discovered that they lacked the knowledge and could not afford the expense, he decided to do something about it.
First, he learned all he could about birth control and family planning. He corresponded with Marie Stopes in the UK and Margaret Sanger in the US, and investigated clinics in nearby Hamilton and Toronto. He concluded that the diaphragm was too awkward for most working class women to use, that there were too few clinics around, and that it was intimidating for women to go to the clinics that existed. Thinking like the business man he was, he formed a plan to send women, mostly nurses, door-to-door to educate the homemaker and sell her inexpensive contraceptive jellies and condoms. He created the PIB, hired young married women as his sales force, and sent them forth in Ontario.
Testing the Law
In 1936 a PIB worker, Dorothea Palmer, was arrested near Ottawa. She was charged with distributing birth control information under the obscenity provisions of the Criminal Code. It is possible that Kaufman was waiting for a chance to challenge the law. He hired a lawyer to defend Palmer, arguing that she was acting “for the public good.” He paid $25,000 in legal fees during the longest trial to date, but Palmer was eventually acquitted. Their victory relaxed the administration of the law. It took another three decades for contraception to become legal, but no one was ever again prosecuted for distributing birth control information.
Accepted Practice
By 1942, the Parents’ Information Bureau had approximately 70 workers in Canada, from British Columbia to Newfoundland. The families they contacted sent in more than 120,000 applications for contraceptive supplies. After World War II, it became more common for doctors and clinics to inform people of birth control methods, and the need for the PIB waned. The Bureau was eventually disbanded.
In 1976 the Planned Parenthood Federation of Ontario honoured Kaufman for his work in birth control and family planning. He was justifiably proud.
