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)

This collection is digitized and accessible through the finding aid for the Inez Miholland collection (Call#: MC 308).
A feminist, suffragist, and lawyer (Vassar, B.A., 1909; New York University, LL.B., 1912), Milholland specialized in criminal and divorce practice and was active in the women's suffrage and peace movements, and the effort to abolish capital punishment. In 1913, she married Eugen Jan Boissevain, a New York importer, of Dutch citizenship. The resulting change in her citizenship status threatened to exclude Milholland from law practice, and she quickly became involved in attempts to repeal the offending legislation. Concurrently, Milholland became increasingly active in the women's suffrage movement. She joined the Congressional Union and undertook a speaking tour of the West in support of suffrage.