In 1873, the Comstock Act, an anti-obscenity bill, was enacted by Congress with the aim of suppressing the illicit trade of birth control and instilling notions of Victorian values in American society. This thesis, set in New York, explores the periods both preceding and succeeding this process of delibinization and criminalization, drawing from a diverse array of primary sources—from newspaper advertisements and arrest records to personal correspondence—to argue that contraceptives were extensively bought and sold despite commercial restrictions. Focusing on portraying individual experiences, I will address microhistorical acts of resistance and affirmation, with regard to conservative religiosity, in an attempt to understand how ordinary Americans, both men and women, conceived and participated within New York’s sexualized marketplace of contraceptive wares.