The Icon and the Idealist

“Gripping … . [Gorton] describes the painful, destructive rivalry between her two subjects with narrative nuance and scholarly acumen… . she offers the reader an emotionally palpable glimpse into the culture clash between the feminist movement and the patriarchal, recalcitrant political establishment – as well as the struggle between the ideological allies Sanger and Dennett… . Gorton’s riveting history of the first movement to grant women control over their bodies is essential reading now more than ever.” – New York Times Book Review

“Timely and well-researched … . One of the most valuable takeaways from Gorton’s book is how it complicates the usual dichotomies of movement leadership: the insider versus the outsider, the institutionalist versus the radical.” – New Yorker

“Soap opera-worthy … . Gorton does an exemplary job of keeping straight the various leagues and committees … that the two were members of or that they created… . she teases out compelling details about the times the women lived in and how their efforts were affected… . Gorton is equally adept at plumbing Sanger’s and Dennett’s personalities … and how the paths they followed contributed to successes and failures.”–Minneapolis Star Tribune – Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Stephanie Gorton deftly writes the rivalry between Margaret Sanger and Mary Dennett, drawing out each activist’s political approach to reproductive rights. This history is not only relevant to the fight for contraceptive access and bodily autonomy playing out today, it also resonates as the book wrestles with the contradictions of activism, the shortcomings of political leaders, and how our idealism persists despite those challenges.” – New Republic, “10 Best Books of Fall”

“Brilliant … . Gorton, in a fine-grained and propulsive examination of the rivals’ careers, depicts their antagonism as foundational to modern feminism… . By turns analytical and dishy … this captivates.” – Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A compelling dual biography that has striking parallels to the contemporary abortion debate.” – BookPage (starred review)

“Drawing on considerable archival sources, journalist Gorton creates an informative history of the fight for women’s reproductive rights in [this] dual biography… . A timely contribution to a virulent debate.” – Kirkus Reviews

“An essential read… . Through her subjects’ own extensive writings, Gorton captures each woman’s distinct voice and personality … [creating] a rich text that both illustrates how far women’s rights have come and highlights their tenuous state today.” – Booklist

“Stephanie Gorton recounts the complex, often infuriating, history of the movement to legalize birth control through the rivalry between its two greatest advocates. The Icon and the Idealist is a fascinating portrait of ambition and idealism, politics and passion, and a shocking reminder of just how far some men will go to keep women ignorant and powerless over their own bodies.” – Debby Applegate, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age

“The Icon and the Idealist is a shrewd and important work, brilliantly conceived and beautifully written. With rigorous reporting and brutal honestly, Stephanie Gorton excels in examining the bold ideas and messy work that shaped reproductive choice.” – Jonathan Eig, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of King: A Life and The Birth of the Pill

“There is no time like the present for Stephanie Gorton’s dual biography of the fiercely formidable women, Mary Ware Dennett and Margaret Sanger, who brought the fight for reproductive rights to the American public in the early twentieth century. Studded with dramatic scenes and supported by copious research on the multifaceted and ever-evolving campaign to legalize birth control, a term coined by Sanger, Gorton’s narrative humanizes and makes modern the high-stakes battle waged a century in the past, providing needed inspiration for today’s readers who seek to practice and uphold the human right to self-determination.” – Megan Marshall, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life, The Peabody Sisters, and Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast

“What does it take to make a once-radical idea normal? The Icon and the Idealist is the captivating and substantive account of two singular women who did just that, Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett. Before them and the family planning movement, birth control was rare, unsafe and shameful. After them, millions of women had unprecedented possession over their own lives. This dual biography grippingly recounts a flash point in women’s–and human–liberation.” – Alissa Quart, Author of Bootstrapped and Squeezed

“The Icon and the Idealist is a shrewd and deeply researched dual biography, one that compares and contrasts two legendary (and maddeningly complex) 20th century feminist figures, Margaret Sanger and Mary Dennett, in ways that shed new light on their individual and dual accomplishments and conflicts. It’s also, like the best of cultural histories, all too necessary at a time when women’s bodily autonomy is under new and renewed threats.” – Sarah Weinman, author of The Real Lolita and Scoundrel

“The Icon and the Idealist is an essential, and accessible, look at the U.S.’s fraught history of reproductive freedoms through the lives of two leaders as complex and nuanced as the topic itself.” – Rachel Somerstein, author of Invisible Labor

“In The Icon and the Idealist, [Gorton] weaves a detailed account of these brave and stubborn visionaries, who fought the good fight for women while feuding with each other… . Gorton’s timely … cultural and biographical history gives us much to think about as the arc of history is poised to bend back to a pre-1920s set of regulations for reproductive health.” – Washington Post

Stephanie Gorton is the author of Citizen Reporters: S. S. McClure, Ida Tarbell, and the Magazine that Rewrote America (2020), a finalist for the Sperber Prize for journalism biography, and The Icon and the Idealist: Margaret Sanger, Mary Ware Dennett, and the Rivalry that Brought Birth Control to America (2024). Her work has been published in The New Yorker, Smithsonian, and Paris Review Daily, among other publications. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Logan Nonfiction Program at the Carey Institute for Global Good and the Massachusetts Historical Society. Lebanese-American by birth, she lives in Providence, Rhode Island.