Rhode Island Women's Health Collective records (A.97.109)

Biographical/Historical Note

Founded in 1975 by Brown University graduate Hilary Salk, The Rhode Island Women's Health collective addressed sexism in US women's healthcare and the medical community's lack of responsiveness to the unique healthcare needs of women.

Hilary Salk graduated from Brown University in 1963 whereupon she moved to Boston, Massachusetts. Unusual for many women at the time, Salk gave birth to her first child in 1966 with the help of a montrice - a non-medical birth assistant similar to a doula. Toward the end of her pregnancy, she also took classes through the Boston Association for Childbirth Education where she learned about the Boston Women's Health Collective.

When Salk and her family moved back to Providence, Rhode Island in 1973 she volunteered as a labor coach for a pregnant teenage girl from the Sophia Little Home, then a home for unwed mothers. After not being allowed to attend the labor she realized that healthcare in Rhode Island was lagging behind that of Boston. The American healthcare system of the 1960s and 1970s was rooted in a patriarchal structure that often denied women participation in conversations about their own healthcare and healthcare decision making. Concerned about the mistreatment of women in healthcare, Salk set out to change the medical system by mimicking the work of the Boston Women's Health Collective and their landmark book on women's health and sexuality, Our Bodies, Ourselves.

In 1975, Salk put out a call in The Providence Journal for women to meet at her home to discuss healthcare. Several women attended, including Elizabeth Edgerly, Carol Shelton, and Amy Tabor, and they formed the non-profit Rhode Island Women's Health Collective with the mission to improve the health of women and their families through education, advocacy and mutual support. In 1976, with volunteer labor alone, the Collective organized a multi-day conference (see box 10, folder 2 for program) featuring doctors, midwives, and other healthcare professionals, discussing topics including reproduction and childbirth, breastfeeding, patient's rights, nutrition, and cancer. The conference, held at Rhode Island College in downtown Providence, brought together over 500 people and generated the Collective's first income, allowing them to begin hiring staff.

Eventually, the Collective moved into an office space in Providence. They continued to sponsor conferences, events, support groups for woman-to-woman advice, publish books and informational pamphlets, and push for legislative change in Rhode Island. Perhaps most notably, they offered a Health Hotline that women could call 24/7 to ask questions about their health and get referrals to doctors or counselors. By 1986, the Collective broadened their work to address the healthcare needs of lower income women, women of color, and older women. Additionally, as the nation experienced the HIV/AIDS crisis beginning in the early 1980s, the Collective saw the impact of the disease on women and began to address those healthcare needs as well. Over these years, Roberta Aaronson, Barbara Schermack, Johnette Rodriguez, and Wanda Brown, also joined the Collective.

The Collective dissolved in 1999.

For more information on the work of the Rhode Island Women's Health Collective, listen to the 2024 Pembroke Center Oral History Project interview with eight of the group's members: https://sites.brown.edu/pembrokeoralhistory/2024/11/04/rhode-island-womens-health-collective/

and the 1988 Pembroke Center Oral History Project interview with founder Hilary Salk: https://sites.brown.edu/pembrokeoralhistory/2023/06/27/hilary-berger-ross-class-of-1963/