We lost a remarkable advocate and champion of oral history on April 9th, 2025, when attorney Sybil Shainwald passed away at the age of 96. Shainwald was a pioneering figure in women's health law who dedicated her career to seeking justice for those harmed by corporate negligence. In the 1970s, she broke new legal ground representing plaintiffs in Bichler v. Lilly, the first case to hold drug manufacturers liable for health problems in children whose mothers took the anti-miscarriage drug diethylstilbestrol (DES). Her advocacy extended globally as she represented thousands of women in developing countries who were hurt by unsafe birth-control devices distributed by Western companies in the 1960s and 1970s.
Shainwald's commitment to amplifying marginalized voices led her to establish a $100,000 fellowship fund for Columbia's Oral History Master of Arts program, named in honor of Judge Jack B. Weinstein, who had presided over many of her cases. I had the privilege of meeting Shainwald in 2018 when we visited Judge Weinstein in chambers to share the impact of the fellowship she had created in his name. I was a student at the time, and shared with her that I was interested in interviewing families impacted by immigration detention. She encouraged me and we spoke about how intertwined my interest in family separation was to her search for justice for women impacted by harmful medical practices.
During that meeting, her passion for oral history was evident as she spoke about its tremendous power as a tool to educate the public and change perceptions about survivors of injustice. She understood that preserving the voices of common people and traditionally marginalized groups was essential to creating a more complete historical record.
Shainwald's vision for oral history was both deeply personal and broadly transformative. As she once told Columbia Magazine, "Oral history is vital. I hope that the oral history department can preserve powerful stories of human tragedy, as well as the voices of people who understood the tragedy and sought to provide justice." Her legacy lives on not only through the legal precedents she established and the fellowship that bears Judge Weinstein's name, but through every oral historian who continues the work of documenting stories that might otherwise be lost to history.
To learn more about Sybil Shainwald’s life, watch this oral history interview she conducted for her alma mater, William & Mary and read her transcript of an oral history she did for Veteran Feminists of America.
A black and white picture of Sybil Shainwald taken in 1993. In the picture she sits at a desk with her hands clasped, she is smiling at the photographer. In the background there are books and framed documents. Picture sourced from the New York Times.
Fanny García is a graduate of the 2016/17 OHMA program. She works as an independent oral historian, project director, educator, and writer. She is also the Editorial Program Manager at Voice of Witness.