Norman E. Himes Fund
Sociologist Norman Edwin Himes (Ph.D. Harvard, 1932) researched problems of population, birth control, and marriage and family relations. In 1984, the Boston Medical Library received a bequest of Marian K. Weinberg, the former wife of Himes, to establish the Norman E. Himes Book Fund to acquire rare books and manuscripts, particularly items relating to birth control as a tribute to his areas of interest. This fund originated in the royalties, copyrights, and contracts from her husband’s publications.
Himes's Medical history of contraception tracks the development of birth control from antiquity to the 1930s; the text was reprinted in 1963 and in 1970.
This product catalog from a London-based firm of chemists advertises an array of mail-order birth control methods and devices, including sponges, pessaries, condoms, and diaphragms, as well as printed literature on contraception and marriage.
For more on birth control and family planning, check out Conceiving the Pill and Refocusing Family Planning: Selections from the Abraham Stone and Alan Guttmacher Papers.