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Summary: Among the agencies involved in population control activities in the mid-twentieth century, none scored as many early victories in Latin America as did the Pathfinder Fund, founded by Procter & Gamble scion Clarence Gamble. This article analyzes a style in the delivery of family planning assistance in the developing world through the work of the Pathfinder Fund in Peru, the organization's hub in South America, and shows how Pathfinder personnel collaborated with local Protestant institutions. Its Protestant allies helped Pathfinder set up and manage rapid interventions such as the production of pamphlets, the smuggling of contraceptives, and the enrollment of physicians as advocates of the use of intrauterine devices. Although these rapid interventions helped quickly disseminate information and certain technologies among a fortunate few, they also weakened legitimate state agencies, neglected the monitoring of the safety of the drugs supplied, and alienated allies with their high-handed boldness.
Keywords: Protestant church, Pathfinder Fund, Clarence Gamble, Peru, religion, contraception, Latin America, family planning
How should interest in family planning be roused among those unfamiliar with it? This is how Edith Gates framed the problem as she prepared for a trip from Boston to Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, and Colom- bia in late 1958. "Being just about the first person from the Family Plan- ning Movement to venture into South America laid upon me a sense of deep responsibility," she steeled herself before the visit.1 Gates was a health educator in the small and nimble staff of Clarence Gamble, the Procter & Gamble scion who used his fortune to advance the cause of eugenics and birth control worldwide between the 1920s and his death in 1966. In 1957, Gamble had broken with his allies in the International Planned Parenthood Federation over what he believed to be an overly cautious approach to the promotion of contraception. Whereas the IPPF wished to go only where invited by national governments, Gamble preferred "to put a field worker on the spot to get things organized and operating," officially invited or not. Gamble established the Pathfinder Fund precisely to engage in that kind of "worldwide fieldwork in family planning."2 This is an article about how this strategy unfolded in Peru and, in particular, about the pivotal position of Gamble's...