Where Are My Children? (1916)

Lois Weber left Universal Studios in 1914 because of founder Carl Laemmle’s reluctance to move into feature film production. Although the studio’s exploitative feature Traffic in Souls (1913) had been a major box office attraction, Laemmle argued in Universal Weekly that the studio could supply theatres with a week’s worth of programming for less than double they charged for one day’s rental of a feature. Laemmle’s discouraging observation must have come as a blow to Weber, who, with her husband and frequent collaborator Phillips Smalley, had just directed the four-reel Merchant of Venice (1914) for the studio and was keen to work further in a longer format. When the studio then handed directing duties of The Opened Shutters (1914), a planned four-reel feature written by Weber, to Otis Turner, the couple moved on.

They accepted an offer from Bosworth Inc., a small, independent production company founded by the stage and screen actor Hobart Bosworth. Weber and Smalley joined on 1st August 1914, on a contract that promised $500 per week and a percentage of the profits from their movies. Perhaps of more importance to them, except for their first film, every movie they made for the studio was a feature. Bosworth’s greater commitment to quality over quantity allowed Weber to explore the social issues that would feature in the films she made upon her return to Universal. Sunshine Molly (1915) tackled sexual violence against women, while in Hypocrites (1915), she examined the subject of religious hypocrisy. All six of the features she and Smalley made for Bosworth were well-received, but it must have rankled Weber that too often critics and reviewers assumed her husband to be the dominant talent of the partnership when the opposite was very likely true.

By the spring of 1915, Laemmle wanted Weber and Smalley back with Universal. They were happy to return, possibly because Bosworth had fallen under the control of Adolph Zukor, who, historian Anthony Slide speculates in Lois Weber—The Director Who Lost Her Way in History, may have sought to restrict Weber’s creative freedom. In April 1915, while Laemmle was in Los Angeles to open Universal City, they signed a deal. “Lois Weber,” the studio chief declared, “is one of the brightest minds I have ever come in contact with.”

Universal trumpeted the couple’s return in full-page advertisements in trade papers, and released their films under first the Broadway and then the Red Feather banner—both brands of Universal’s most prestigious productions. By then, Weber peers acknowledged her as a talent to rank alongside Griffith, De Mille and Ince, and became the only woman ever to be admitted to the Motion Picture Directors Association.

Where Are My Children? was the first of two feature films about birth control that Weber made in quick succession (the second was the following year’s The Hand That Rocks the Cradle). Contraception had been a contentious topic since the passing of the Comstock Act of 1873, which effectively criminalised birth control in the United States. Birth control campaigner Margaret Sanger re-ignited the debate when she violated the act by posting issues of her pro-contraception monthly newsletter, The Woman Rebel. Following her arrest, Sanger fled to Canada and then to England. In 1915, sensing growing support for birth control in the United States, she returned to face trial. Amid concerns Sanger intended to turn the trial into a public forum on contraception, the prosecutor dropped the charges against her.

It was a subject Weber found irresistible, for, as she told Universal Weekly, “I’ll tell you just what I’d like to be, and that is the editorial page of the Universal Company. My close study of the editorial page has taught me that it speaks with stentorian tones and that its effect is far reached upon thousands of readers…I feel that…I can…also deliver a message to the world.”

The film's title when shooting began was The Illborn. While Weber and Sanger shared the same opinion on birth control, their perspectives were notably different. Sanger preached from a feminist viewpoint, Weber from a political one. As well as the film’s plot, its final title, Where Are My Children?, illustrated her belief in the sacred importance of the family.

While, in an era of suffragette activism, society might have found Weber’s perspective less troublesome, Universal sought to deflect censorship issues with an opening title card that read, “The question of birth control is now being generally discussed. All intelligent people know that birth control is a subject of serious public interest. Newspapers, magazines, and books have treated different phases of this question. Can a subject thus dealt with on the printed page be denied careful dramatization on the motion picture screen? The Universal Film Mfg. Company believes not.

“The Universal Film Mfg. Company does believe, however, that the question of birth control should not be presented before children. In producing this picture the intention is to place a serious drama before adult audiences, to whom no suggestion of fact of which they are ignorant is conveyed. It believes that children should not be admitted to see this picture unaccompanied by adults, but if you bring them it will do them an immeasurable amount of good.”   

The ploy worked to some extent. Weber’s film still encountered problems with censors, but on a much smaller scale than Sanger’s own film on the subject, Birth Control (aka New World), a docudrama released the following year. Even when the National Board of Review passed Sanger’s film, many theatre owners refused to exhibit it.

Because newspapers and magazines had widely discussed the subject of contraception, the film proved a thorny problem for William D. McGuire, the Board’s executive secretary. Just a year earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that motion pictures could not receive protection under the First Amendment and were therefore not protected by a guarantee of free speech, a protection that was offered to newspapers and magazines. The Board initially passed the film without demanding any changes. However, after arranging a private screening for social reformers and vice crusaders, it reversed its decision, citing medical misinformation. While stressing that its decision had nothing to do with the film’s subject, the Board stated that it also felt the film sent mixed messages regarding contraception and abortion.