For All the People: A Century of Citizen Action in Health Care Reform

Para todo el pueblo: Un siglo de acción ciudadana en la reforma de la atención de la salud

Often, the public associates health care reform with presidents and national leaders, but communities, workers, activists, and health care professionals have made their voices heard in the debate about whether and how to make quality health care available to all. This exhibit tells the lesser-known story of how movements of ordinary citizens helped shape the changing American health care system.

The National Library of Medicine produced "For All the People: A Century of Citizen Action in Health Care Reform/Para todo el pueblo: Un siglo de acción ciudadana en la reforma de la atención de la salud", guest curated by historian and educator Beatrix Hoffman, PhD. This bilingual, 12-banner exhibition is the counterpart to the English-only For All the People exhibition.

From the beginning of the 20th century, movements of ordinary people helped shape the changing American health care system. Nurses meeting at the Delta Health Center, Mound Bayou, Mississippi, one of the nation’s first community-controlled clinics, 1968. Courtesy Daniel Bernstein/Jack Geiger

Doctors and medical students in the civil rights movement protested racial discrimination in health care. Medical Committee for Civil Rights participates in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 1963. Courtesy National Library of Medicine

The English-only website for For All the People includes an education component with a university module and a digital gallery with a curated selection of fully digitized items from the historical collections of the NLM, which are also available in their entirety in NLM Digital Collections.

The National Library of Medicine produced this exhibition and companion website.