Too little land, too many people: Italy, Clarence Gamble, and the global population control movement (1950s–1970s)

Abstract This article investigates the global history of the population control movement through the case of the relationship between the Italian Association for Demographic Education (AIED) and American philanthropist Clarence J. Gamble. Drawing on archival sources from Italy and the United States, this study examines how international debates on modernization and demographic control intersected with national anxieties surrounding southern Italy’s underdevelopment. Italian activists engaged with international discourses linking population control to modernization, promoting family planning initiatives despite their illegality. Through its collaboration with Gamble, AIED was introduced in a global circulation of cheap contraceptives, an experiment targeting poor and southern women. The article argues that AIED’s persistent connection with Gamble contributed to its growing isolation within international networks by the mid-1960s, as the priorities of Western family planners shifted decisively towards the Global South. By situating the Italian case within these international dynamics, this study offers a new perspective on how national contexts were shaped by the global politics of family planning.