Clarence Gamble

Clarence James Gamble, (January 10, 1894 – July 15, 1966) married to Sarah Merry Bradley-Gamble, was the heir of the Procter and Gamble soap company fortune. He was an advocate of birth control and eugenics, and founded Pathfinder International.

Dr. Clarence J. Gamble was elected president by the board of directors of the newly incorporated Pathfinder Fund on February 27, 1957. But the work of The Pathfinder Fund to make birth control available began some 28 years earlier, in 1929, when Clarence Gamble gave $5,000 to open a maternal health clinic in Cincinnati, Ohio. Along with Margaret Sanger and Robert Latou Dickinson, he spearheaded the movement to gain acceptance for birth control in the United States.

In January 1914, on his twenty-first birthday, Clarence James Gamble received his first million dollars. As the grandson of James Gamble, co-founder of Procter & Gamble, Clarence was an heir to the family money, which came with a stipulation: at least 10 percent was to be devoted to charitable giving. He later increased this 10 percent to 30 and more. He felt an obligation and responsibility. The pursuit of this vision became the driving force in his life.

After graduating from Princeton University in 1914 and Harvard Medical School in 1920, Clarence began his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1923 Clarence’s interest in medical research led him to secure an apprenticeship with Alfred Newton Richards, director of the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania. However, Clarence’s plans to begin working with Richards were interrupted by the death of his father, David Berry Gamble.

On June 21, 1924, at the age of 30, Clarence married Sarah Merry Bradley. In Sarah, Clarence found the perfect helpmate and ideal companion. Together they were a team, allowing Clarence to make invaluable contributions to the worldwide birth control movement. In October 1925, three weeks before the birth of the first of their five children, Clarence introduced himself to Dr. Robert Latou Dickinson, who in 1923 had established the National Committee on Maternal Health. Clarence wrote his mother about their first conversation, when Dickinson said that birth control is socially much needed, and that “young men like you ought to take up the work.” Dickinson asked Clarence, “Don’t you want to help me and keep on with the work when I am through?” Certainly Dickinson’s question smacked of prophecy, for in 1929, a number of events converged to send Clarence decisively on the path to helping Dickinson in service of what Clarence would always call the “Great Cause.”

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