In hindsight, it was probably a touch of grad school-induced hubris that led me to assert, in an early draft […]
The Vaccine at the End of this Pandemic
In the summer of 1952, parents didn’t let their children visit playgrounds, swimming pools were closed, movie theaters shuttered, and […]
Art as a Tonic: Making Pottery and Defeating Tuberculosis at the Arequipa Sanatorium
In the spring of 1913 journalist Elise Roorbach was walking around downtown San Francisco when she passed a gift store. […]
Luxury or Right? Artificial Insemination by Donor in 1970s France
Hungary recently made international headlines by announcing that the state would soon cover the cost of IVF treatments. Along with […]
Training Future Wives and Mothers: Vocational Education and Assimilation at the Stewart Indian School
In 1879, the US government launched an expansive effort to restructure Indigenous lives by enrolling Native American children in off-reservation […]
The Lone Woman of Kokura
She was alone. The men and women of the domain were all gone. In their flight, they’d set the castle […]
Joking in the Time of Pandemic: The 1889–92 Flu and 2020 COVID-19
As we see with COVID-19, the darkest periods in history expose the best — and worst — of humanity. Some […]
Plague in the Age of Twitter
I’ve been spending a lot of time on Twitter over the past week. Some evenings, it feels like I can’t […]
How the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake Gave Working Women a Place to Breathe
In September of 1909, San Francisco’s businessmen opened the latest issue of the Merchants’ Association Review, looking forward to reading […]
Mesmerism, (Im)propriety, and Power Over Women’s Bodies
Mesmerism had promise. According to accounts of popular demonstrations and parlor séances of the 1830s through the 1850s, a subject […]
