Abstract
In this interview, Roberta Aaronson, Wanda Brown, Elizabeth Edgerly, Johnette Rodriguez, Hilary Salk (Brown University class of 1963), Barbara Schermack, Carol Shelton, and Amy Tabor, discuss their experiences as members of the Rhode Island Women’s Health Collective.
The interviewees begin by sharing personal stories of childbirth and healthcare experiences, as well as professional experiences with women seeking healthcare, all as reasons why they joined the Collective. They go on to describe the state of women’s healthcare in the 1960s and 1970s as well as the cultural significance of Our Bodies, Ourselves by the Boston Women’s Health Collective. They remember beginning to meet in eachother’s homes in 1975 to learn more about women’s health and then gethering specifically to organize the landmark Rhode Island Women’s Health Conference in March 1976. They explain that the conference generated their first income and allowed them to continue their work with paid staff, a hotline, film festivals, and newsletters.
The conversation then moves to the work of the Collective in the 1990s. The interviewees remember the shift in focus to the HIV and AIDS epidemic during that time. Rodriguez and Brown remember a trip they took to see the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt in Washington, DC in the late 1980s. Aaronson and Schermack discuss coauthoring Childbirth Choices in Rhode Island: A Guide to the Childbearing Year in 1990.
In closing, each member shares some highlights and low points of their time with the Collective. Highlights include community building and the extensive programming. Difficult moments include trying to stop the relocation of Women and Infants Hospital and the ending of the Collective in 1999. All of the members agree that a low point is the state of women’s healthcare in 2024.
Recorded on July 10, 2024 at Alumnae Hall, Brown University
Interviewed by Mary Murphy
Suggested Chicago style citation: Roberta Aaronson, Wanda Brown, Elizabeth Edgerly, Johnette Rodriguez, Hilary Salk, Barbara Schermack, Carol Shelton, and Amy Tabor. Interview. By Mary Murphy. Pembroke Center Oral History Project, Brown University. July 10, 2024.
Historical Note
The Rhode Island Women’s Health Collective was a private, non-profit, organization whose membership included both consumers and providers of healthcare services. The Collective was organizaed in February 1975 out of a concern for the medical community’s lack of responsiveness to the unique health needs of women. The group held monthly meetings that brought together women concerned about their own health and healthcare issues. The goal of the Collective was to serve as an education and support group for Rhode Island women, to encourage women to become informed about their healthcare choices, to provide health education resources, and to encourage representation by women on health policy and planning bodies. Initially, efforts were centered around childbirth issues, but by 1986 the mission broadened to address the healthcare needs of lower income women, women of color, and older women. The Collective dissolved in 1999.