Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell were pioneering physicians and founders of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. They were members of the Blackwell family, which was known for its members' leading roles in the abolition, prohibition, and suffrage movements. This collection has been digitized and is available online.

Dickersin is a professor of epidemiology and advocate for breast cancer survivors. She has conducted studies in a number of important subject areas, including eyes and vision, surgery, and women’s health. Dickersin was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 34 years old. A breast cancer survivor, she has dedicated much of her career to breast cancer research advocacy. In 1984, Dickersin and fellow advocate and nurse, Marsha Oakley, cofounded Arm-in-Arm, a Baltimore-based breast cancer support group and the support arm of the Maryland Women’s Health Coalition.

Founded in 1848 for the purpose of "promoting among women a knowledge of the human system, the laws of life, and the means of relieving sickness and suffering," the Institute sponsored lectures on health, physiology, and related topics.

Laubenstein was one of the first physicians to recognize the appearance of the AIDS epidemic. The author (with Dr. Alvin Friedman-Kien) of the first published article on the alarming appearance of Kaposi's sarcoma, Laubenstein was outspoken about what she saw as neglect of the epidemic by the government and society. Her practice grew to consist predominantly of AIDS cases; in 1983 she helped organize the Kaposi's Sarcoma Research Fund and the first full-scale medical conference on AIDS, held at New York University. She was also one of the founders of Multitasking Systems, a non-profit office-service business that provided employment for people with AIDS.

Mary-Helen Mautner was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1982, and in 1989 died from the disease at the age of forty-four. Three weeks before her death, she envisioned an organization that could extend to other lesbians the support and assistance she had received from her partner and friends. In January 1990, a few months after her death, her partner Susan Hester and a group of friends and supporters founded the Mary-Helen Mautner Project for Lesbians with Cancer. The Mautner Project is a nonprofit organization located in Washington, D.C., whose mission is to provide direct services to lesbians with cancer, as well as to their partners and caregivers; to inform the lesbian community about cancer; to educate the health care community about the special concerns of lesbians with cancer and their families; and to advocate on lesbian health issues in national and local arenas.

Florence Rush was a feminist and social worker who argued that the sexual abuse of children was a political and patriarchal issue. When her son was stricken with AIDS in the mid-1980s, she formed one of the first mothers' support groups and became involved with the People With AIDS Coalition of New York. This collection includes notes on her son's illness and records of various support groups for mothers and families impacted by AIDS.

In 1978, Warner founded the Anorexia Nervosa Aid Society of Massachusetts, then the only self-help group in New England for persons suffering from eating disorders. Renamed Anorexia Bulimia Care, Inc. (ABC) in 1986, the organization sponsored workshops and support groups and served as a clearinghouse for gathering and disseminating information regarding eating disorders. It also maintained a registry of physicians and mental health professionals and published a monthly newsletter. In 1994, ABC merged with the Massachusetts Eating Disorders Association.

A physician and political activist, Ana Livia Cordero was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, where her parents were professors at the University of Puerto Rico. In Puerto Rico she conducted a Rockefeller-funded research study to determine how to provide adequate medical care to the rural poor. In 1961 Cordero and her family moved to Ghana where Cordero ran a women's heath clinic and served as W.E.B. Du Bois's physician until his death in 1963. Cordero was expelled after the fall of President Nkrumah and returned to Puerto Rico where she continued her work as a doctor and activist. She was arrested for her activism in 1968. Cordero and her group, the Proyecto Piloto (Pilot Project), maintained connections with the African American liberation movement in the United States. The collection includes Cordero's personal correspondence, passports, photographs, writings, and clippings. Records of the Proyecto Piloto (Pilot Project) include work plans, accounts, press releases, neighborhood census forms, as well as copies of Puerto Rican police surveillance files on Cordero. Also included are correspondence, reports, etc., from Cordero's work to help survivors of a hurricane in Nicaragua, and Haitian refugees forcibly imprisoned in Puerto Rico. The collection includes some printed material (comic books, etc.) used in political education of Puerto Ricans, and Cordero's medical bag and instruments.

The Boston Women's Health Book Collective began in 1969 when a small group of women gathered after a workshop on women and their bodies at a Boston-area female liberation conference to talk about some crucial health issues and to confront a medical establishment viewed as paternalistic and condescending. Perhaps best known for their pioneering handbook Our Bodies, Ourselves (1971 and subsequent editions and international adaptations), the Collective helped to create worldwide networks of women involved in health education and advocacy. They also produced Ourselves and Our Children (1978), Changing Bodies, Changing Lives, A Book for Teens on Sex and Relationships (1980), and Ourselves, Growing Older, Women Aging with Knowledge and Power (1987 and 1994), among others. See also Boston Women’s Health Book Collective (Additional records) and Boston Women’s Health Book Collective (Printed collection)