Celebrating Independence Day with Our Bodies Ourselves

The Boston Public Library selected the first edition of "Our Bodies, Ourselves" to display alongside other historic documents from their Special Collections at an Independence Day Open House on July 2, 2026.

A group of OBOS founders and staff were excited to visit the exhibit in person, and see “Our Bodies, Ourselves” recognized for its revolutionary impact. With documents spanning from the 1700s to the 1970s, the OBOS founders were the only original authors present to see their work celebrated.

The introductory panel in the room explained the theme of the event:

“This display places foundational texts of American democracy alongside documents created over the last 250 years by individuals and by movements that have fought for freedom and for equal rights.”

The cover of the stapled, newsprint book, “Women and Their Bodies” was proudly on display in a case focusing on women’s struggle for liberation and autonomy. (If the title doesn’t sound familiar, “Women and Their Bodies” was the official name of the very first book by the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, published in December 1970. The very next edition in 1971 changed the book’s title to “Our Bodies, Ourselves.”)

The emancipatory content of Our Bodies Ourselves was as much on view as its iconic cover. A second copy of the historic first OBOS was open to the beginning of the chapter on Birth Control. “All of us have the right to make our own decisions about having children,” it begins. But “in this society, the right of a woman to know about and/or use contraception is still controlled by the state, not the individual.”

On display right beside “Women and Their Bodies” was Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s personal copy of the report from the first women's rights convention ever, which Stanton had helped organize at Seneca Falls, New York in July 1848. The third revolutionary text in this part of the exhibit was a landmark of Black feminism: the Combahee River Collective Statement from 1977. This particular copy of the Combahee River Collective Statement belonged to the organization’s founder, Barbara Smith. It was recently selected for acquisition by BPL curator Viv Anderson.

Library staff introduced and contextualized the material through informal conversations with visitors. The open house featured dozens of other items including an original printing of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Emancipation Proclamation; letters and books connected to the Haitian Revolution, American feminism, and the movement to abolish slavery in the U.S. Multiple original printings of the Declaration of Independence were on view concurrently at the library's Leventhal Map & Education Center.

We are proud to be part of the Boston Public Library’s celebration of Independence Day on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The pop-up exhibit fittingly focused on the social justice movements that have held the U.S. accountable throughout its history.

People pictured in our photos from the event include Joan Ditzion, Judy Norsigian, Wendy Sanford, Polly Attwood, Craig Norberg-Bohm, Grace Koch, Laura Prieto, Sydney Sauer, and Jay Moschella. With special thanks to Jay Moschella, the library’s Curator of Rare Books, Boston Public Library.

Note: The Boston Public Library has a special collection of “Our Bodies Ourselves” books including global translations and adaptations. They have digitized the early U.S. editions and the Taiwanese adaptation, “Ni de shen ti he ni zi ji” (1975) to make them publicly accessible and fully searchable.