Beth Jacobs papers

Una Elizabeth (Beth) Wilson Jacobs was a politician and leader in the Jamaican birth control and family planning movement. Her life’s work was to advance sex education and access to contraception in Jamaica.

Jacobs was born in Jamaica in 1917 to Dr. Wilbert Wilson and Una Jeffrey-Smith Wilson. She attended school at St. Hilda's Diocesan High School at Brown's Town, where her mother was headmistress. She then taught at Hillcrest Preparatory School as a music and later kindergarten teacher before marrying Dr. Lenworth “Len” Jacobs, a Howard University-educated surgeon, in 1944. The pair settled in St. Ann's Bay and raised two children, Carol and Lenworth Jr.

She began work in 1948 on what would eventually become the Beth Jacobs Clinic with the help of an American philanthropist. The clinic offered contraception, sex education, and support groups to local women and teenagers. In 1962, the Beth Jacobs Clinic and the older Jamaica Family Planning Association, organized by the International Planned Parenthood Federation, were the only two clinics offering family planning services in Jamaica. Jacobs began the trial of a sex education program in Jamaican schools in 1950. She pushed for sex education to become an official part of Jamaican schools’ curriculum, an effort which was strenuously resisted and by 1960 had still not succeeded. Between 1958 and 1961 Jacobs served as president of the Western hemisphere branch of the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

Jacobs was also active in Jamaican politics. From 1957 to 1961 Jacobs served in the Legislative Council, the pre-independence equivalent of the current Upper House of the Parliament of Jamaica. She was the first Black Jamaican woman appointed to the position, and in 1960 became the first woman to preside over a meeting of the Legislative Council. Jacobs also served as the first Jamaican-born woman to lead the Child Welfare Association (1958 to 1960). Before her, the position had traditionally been occupied by the white wives of Jamaican governors.

Her other positions included Chairman of the Board of Governors of St. Hilda's High School and President of the St. Ann Police Youth Club.

Jacobs published several books on family planning, including Hints for You & Your Baby, Thoughts Today for Tomorrow, and The Family and Family Planning in the West Indies, which she co-wrote with her husband.