Phyllis Piotrow Collection

Biography

Phyllis Piotrow was born in New York City. She received her B.A. from Bryn Mawr College in 1954. She was awarded a Marshall Scholarship and spent 2 years of study in political science at Oxford University. In 1956 she worked for the Library of Congress and moved to Capital Hill in 1960 as a legislative assistant for Senator Kenneth Keating. Piotrow joined the Senator and Hugh Moore in the formation of a lobbying group, Population Crisis Committee, in 1965. She received a Ph.D. in Political Science and Population Dynamics from the Johns Hopkins University in 1971. She was appointed Senior Associate in Population Dynamics in 1981 and Professor in the Department of Population and Family Health Sciences in 1998. She has been recognized internationally as an expert on population, family planning, and developmental communication, and has played a leading role in family planning and related health programs. She also founded and was the first director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Communications Program in 1988. The center served and still serves as a focal point in health communication worldwide. Piotrow’s published works include, “World Population Crisis: The United States Response” (1972) and “Health Communication: Lessons from Family Planning and Reproductive Health” (1997).

Scope and Content

The collection dates primarily to the late 1960s and early 1970s when Piotrow was a graduate student. It includes 4 boxes of materials related to legislative hearings from the mid to late 1960s, 1 box of material related to Population Crisis Committee for which she served as Executive Director and Secretary, and 2 boxes related to USAID. Included in the collection are the World Draper Population Fund Report and the Victor-Bostrom Fund Report, for which Piotrow served as editor.

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