Margaret E. Kuhn was born in Buffalo, New York, and spent her childhood in Cleveland, Ohio as well as Memphis, Tennessee. Her parents wanted to avoid raising her in the South due to the racial segregation that was occurring at that time. She majored in English at the Flora Stone Mather College of Case Western Reserve University. Kuhn's interest in social activism began to spark in the 1930s and 1940s, when she taught at the Young Women's Christian Association YWCA. During this time she educated women about unionizing, women's issues, and social issues. She caused controversy by starting a human sexuality class in which she discussed such topics as the mechanics of sex, birth control, sexual pleasure, pregnancy, and the difficulties of remaining single in a culture where marriage is the norm. She encouraged women to really study their own lives and their world. She once wrote to companies for samples of their products and incited a discussion of the products, "truth in advertising," the profits made from cosmetics and drugs, the conditions under which they were made, and the role of women as "purchasing agents."