May 2014 – Nursing Clio

Added on May 29, 2014 Adventures in the Archives

Adventures in the Archives…Of Our Lives

This semester, I taught an introductory-level course on historical methods. One of our tasks was to consider an array of historical materials. We read novels and memoirs; watched documentaries and Hollywood films; read speeches and government policies; looked at architectural plans and advertisements for suburban homes. We even watched an episode of Star Trek. Throughout this exploration, a theme we kept coming back to was how people of the past documented their daily lives. This prompted us to consider how historians of the future will examine our daily lives. What sources will they use? What sources are we leaving behind?

Added on May 27, 2014 Personal Essay

Make Love Not War: Changing the Conversation on Abortion

By Jacqueline Antonovich

Things have been pretty hectic lately for the folks who work and study in Lane Hall, the small, historic building at the far end of University of Michigan’s central campus. Over the past two months the building that houses the Women’s Studies Department and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG) has been the target of anti-choice protesters. Lane Hall has been peppered with anti-choice leaflets, the main entry steps have been vandalized with chalk, and protesters have picketed the sidewalks in front of the building. Staff in Lane Hall have also been fielding phone calls from angry activists, alumni, and others. As Debra M. Schwartz, senior public relations representative for IRWG told me recently, “Some of us in Lane Hall and a few other university offices have been distracted from our routine work. But, in general, the protest has scarcely been noticed on campus. It feels like a tempest in a teapot.”

Added on May 25, 2014 Sunday Morning Medicine

Sunday Morning Medicine

By Jacqueline Antonovich

-The latest moral panic.
-The case for reparations.
-The history of stranger danger.
-On history, racism, and ice cream.
-The history of the men’s white shirt.
-Century-old time capsule mystery solved.

A powerful woman, showing muscle, with the slogan we can edit, poster

Added on May 22, 2014 Personal Essay

Announcing the First Ever Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at the Berkshire Conference

By Heather Munro Prescott

Last year I reported on the gender gap in Wikipedia and efforts by women’s historians and others to remedy it. To recap: Several years ago, the Wikimedia Foundation, the organization that runs Wikipedia, collaborated on a study of Wikipedia’s contributor base and found that less than 15 percent of its hundreds of thousands of contributors are women. These sobering statistics gained widespread publicity in a January 2011 New York Times article by Noam Cohen and an ensuing flurry of media coverage in various venues, including Mother Jones, the Atlantic, and NPR. Blogger Tenured Radical (aka Claire Potter) reported on gender bias in Wikipedia in an article titled “Prikipedia? Or, Looking for the Women on Wikipedia.”

Added on May 21, 2014 Personal Essay

If the IUD is an Abortifacient, Then So Is Chemotherapy and Lunch Meat

When I criticized Hobby Lobby for its attempts to evade the Obamacare contraceptive mandate, a friend of mine thoughtfully replied, […]

A black and white picture of a woman and a man sitting together looking at a piece of paper from typewriter

Added on May 20, 2014 Personal Essay

Punishing Pushy Women: Gender and Power in the Newsroom

Until last week, Jill Abramson, the executive editor of the New York Times, was considered the nineteenth most powerful woman in […]

Added on May 18, 2014 Sunday Morning Medicine

Sunday Morning Medicine

By Jacqueline Antonovich

-E. coli and bacterial sex.
-Rare footage of FDR walking.
-Leprosy vaccine scientist dies.
-Poverty among Holocaust survivors.
-Can the measles vaccine cure cancer?
-The racist roots of common phrases.
-The 19th-century vegetable version of Viagra.

Added on May 15, 2014 Historical essay

Is Contraception “Health Care”? The Hobby Lobby Case

by Lara Freidenfelds

As we wait for the Supreme Court to render a decision on the Hobby Lobby contraception coverage case, I have been pondering the historical relationship between contraception and health care. Is it obvious that contraception should be considered part of “health care?” And would it be possible to decide that it isn’t, but still make it affordable and available? This case seems, to me, to rest largely on whether we think contraception counts as health care. The justices are wary of an outcome that would allow employers to decline to pay for blood transfusions or routine vaccinations, even if an employer might genuinely have religious reservations about those procedures. Those are clearly health care. Contraception, though, seems different. It is prescribed for healthy people, and it does not cure or prevent disease (at least not directly).

Added on May 13, 2014 Historical essay

Eirebrushed: Erasing Women from Irish History

By Helen McBride

A new play opened in Dublin this week called Eirebrushed. Written by Brian Merriman, the play tells the story of Elizabeth O’Farrell, whose role as combatant has been quite literally airbrushed out of Irish history and the 1916 Easter Rising. The Easter Rising of 1916 was a significant rebellion against British colonization and, while it ultimately failed, it sparked a series of events that eventually lead to the independence of Ireland (first as the Irish Free State, a dominion of the British Commonwealth, in 1922, and then as the independent Republic of Ireland in 1948). Elizabeth O’Farrell, a midwife and member of Cumann na mBan (the League of Women), has been described as a “fierce Republican” and played a significant role in the rebellion of 1916. O’Farrell actively fought for the independence of Ireland from British colonization before and during the Easter Rising, delivering bulletins and instructions to the rebel outposts around Dublin. As Eirebrushed brings to our attention, her legacy, and those of other women active in the movement, has been diminished in the commemoration of the Easter Rising and its role in sparking the Irish Civil War.

Added on May 11, 2014 Sunday Morning Medicine

Sunday Morning Medicine

By Jacqueline Antonovich

-Vintage Vegas!
-‘Till sickness do us part…
-The lost village of New York City.
-Maternal deaths falling worldwide.
-Polio is now an international emergency.
-Chasing death camp guards with new tools.
-What is the C-section rate of your hospital?

Nursing Clio

Adventures in the Archives…Of Our Lives

Make Love Not War: Changing the Conversation on Abortion

Sunday Morning Medicine

Announcing the First Ever Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at the Berkshire Conference

If the IUD is an Abortifacient, Then So Is Chemotherapy and Lunch Meat

Punishing Pushy Women: Gender and Power in the Newsroom

Sunday Morning Medicine

Is Contraception “Health Care”? The Hobby Lobby Case

Eirebrushed: Erasing Women from Irish History

Sunday Morning Medicine

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