<P> Although contraceptives were relatively common in middle - class and upper - class society, the topic was rarely discussed in public . The first book published in the United States which ventured to discuss contraception was Moral Physiology; or, A Brief and Plain Treatise on the Population Question, published by Robert Dale Owen in 1831 . The book suggested that family planning was a laudable effort, and that sexual gratification--without the goal of reproduction--was not immoral . Owen recommended withdrawal, but he also discussed sponges and condoms . That book was followed by Fruits of Philosophy: The Private Companion of Young Married People, written in 1832 by Charles Knowlton, which recommended douching . Knowlton was prosecuted in Massachusetts on obscenity charges, and served three months in prison . </P> <P> Birth control practices were generally adopted earlier in Europe than in the United States . Knowlton's book was reprinted in 1877 in England by Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant, with the goal of challenging Britain's obscenity laws . They were arrested (and later acquitted) but the publicity of their trial contributed to the formation, in 1877, of the Malthusian League--the world's first birth control advocacy group--which sought to limit population growth to avoid Thomas Malthus's dire predictions of exponential population growth leading to worldwide poverty and famine . By 1930, similar societies had been established in nearly all European countries, and birth control began to find acceptance in most Western European countries, except Catholic Ireland, Spain, and France . As the birth control societies spread across Europe, so did birth control clinics . The first birth control clinic in the world was established in the Netherlands in 1882, run by the Netherlands' first female physician, Aletta Jacobs . The first birth control clinic in England was established in 1921 by Marie Stopes, in London . </P> <P> Contraception was legal in the United States throughout most of the 19th century, but in the 1870s a social purity movement grew in strength, aimed at outlawing vice in general, and prostitution and obscenity in particular . Composed primarily of Protestant moral reformers and middle - class women, the Victorian - era campaign also attacked contraception, which was viewed as an immoral practice that promoted prostitution and venereal disease . Anthony Comstock, a postal inspector and leader in the purity movement, successfully lobbied for the passage of the 1873 Comstock Act, a federal law prohibiting mailing of "any article or thing designed or intended for the prevention of conception or procuring of abortion" as well as any form of contraceptive information . Many states also passed similar state laws (collectively known as the Comstock laws), sometimes extending the federal law by outlawing the use of contraceptives, as well as their distribution . Comstock was proud of the fact that he was personally responsible for thousands of arrests and the destruction of hundreds of tons of books and pamphlets . </P> <P> Comstock and his allies also took aim at the libertarians and utopians who comprised the free love movement--an initiative to promote sexual freedom, equality for women, and abolition of marriage . The free love proponents were the only group to actively oppose the Comstock laws in the 19th century, setting the stage for the birth control movement . </P>

Who was involved in the moral reform movement