Founded in 1834 to combat widespread prostitution in New York City, the New-York Female Moral Reform Society enlarged its mission to address the needs of the homeless and indigent, work for prison reform and on behalf of seamen, and to promote Christianity through missions and distribution of tracts. In 1839 its name was changed to the American Female Moral Reform Society to reflect its widening influence. The Society's work took the form of publications, a house of refuge, visiting committees, and petitions to local officials and legislators.

COYOTE was an advocacy organization for prostitutes founded by Margo St. James in California on Mother's Day in 1973. Calling for the decriminalization of prostitution, COYOTE sought to provide legal and medical services for prostitutes, offered employment, health, and financial counseling, and worked to educate the public about prostitution through publications, speeches, and seminars.
See also the Margo St. James Papers.

Good Vibrations, the second woman-owned store focusing on sex products in the United States, opened its first store in San Francisco in 1977. Founder Joani Blank (1937-2016) began Down There Press in 1975 to publish sex-positive and feminist books for women about sex; the success of these books led her to opening a store that would focus on education and products for women's sexual pleasure. Good Vibrations added a mail-order function in 1985, and employed Carol Queen as the staff sexologist, to focus on answering women's questions about sex and advise on continuing sexual education offerings. In 1992, Blank sold the company to its employees, and it operated as a worker-owned cooperative until 2006. In 1995, Good Vibrations began selling products online. The collection documents the operations of Good Vibrations and associated businesses (Open Enterprises Cooperative, Inc., Down There Press, and Sexpositive Productions) primarily from the 1990s to the early 2000s. In addition to business records, the collection also contains product catalogs, sales literature, and marketing, branding, outreach, and community engagement.

Originally called the Massachusetts Society for Social Hygiene, the Massachusetts Society for Social Health was founded in 1911 "to help people understand and manage sex in its relation to health, good citizenship, marriage, parenthood, and family life." Initially it focused on medical and protective measures to combat venereal diseases, but in 1928 the group reorganized, putting greater emphasis on education. It also worked to eliminate prostitution and pornography and was affiliated with the American Social Hygiene Association (later the American Social Health Association).

The NOW Legal Defense & Education Fund (known as Legal Momentum since 2004) was one of the first legal organizations in the United States devoted solely to working for gender equality. It was established in 1970 to further women's rights through litigation and to raise funds to support legal and educational projects relating to women. NOW LDEF has focused its efforts on gaining legal rights for women in educational and employment opportunities and cases of physical abuse and sexual harassment, as well as by changing marriage and divorce laws. In the early 1990s NOW LDEF began lobbying in Washington, D.C., for the Violence Against Women Act (passed in 1994), and also worked to pass effective legislation on topics ranging from sexual harassment to welfare. The collection includes materials relating to the Robinson v. Jacksonville Shipyards case which helped establish the definition of a hostile work environment under Title VII.

Outrageous Women: A Journal of Woman-to-Woman S/M was published in Somerville, Massachusetts, between 1984 and 1988. A total of eleven issues were produced. Outrageous Women also published a number of articles discussing the relationship between feminism and S/M (including one in the first issue written by founder Betsy Duren); the anti-pornography activism of Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin; and controversies surrounding the refusal of some feminist bookstores to sell Outrageous Women and other sex-positive magazines. One review of the magazine noted the novelty of its multi-racial photography. Collection includes business correspondence; financial records; correspondence with subscribers, authors, potential authors, and staff of the magazine; poetry and erotica submissions; and more.

Women Against Pornography was founded in 1979. The organization sought to educate men and women about what it saw as the essence of pornography: the degradation, objectification, and brutalization of women. To this end it offered slide shows and lectures, maintained a referral service for victims of sexual exploitation, compiled statistics, organized protests, and sponsored tours of New York City's Times Square area. WAP was disbanded in 1990. The collection includes correspondence, reports and studies, press releases, published and unpublished articles, material re: pornography legislation and sex discrimination cases, and clippings.