? ? The National Library of Medicine Grant for Scholarly Works in Biomedicine and Health will be used to research and write a book-length project on the history of emergency contraception from the 1960s until the present. Postcoital methods of contraception were first developed in the early 1960s as part of larger movement to provide reproductive health care to adolescent and young adult women. This project will explore the multiple constituencies involved in the development and marketing of emergency contraceptives since the 1960s. It will draw upon the personal papers of major reproductive scientists, gynecologists, population groups, and feminist activists. This study will emulate the method used by social historians of medicine, which views the history of medicine as a negotiated process between experts and clients. Therefore, a major focus of the project will be the role women patients played in the dissemination of this technology. This project will show women not only as test subjects for this new method of birth control but also as active health care consumers. ? ? ?
