Anacleto Palabay, a young Filipino domestic worker in Washington, D.C., was intent on returning home to the Philippines. His soon-to-be […]
Reading Disability History Back into American Girl
I recently spent a series of afternoons digging through closets at my parents’ house, searching for my sisters’ and my […]
“Weather Bad and Whales Un-cooperative”: The Misadventures of Mid-Century Whale Cardiology Expeditions
In the mid-1950s, newspapers and magazines excitedly reported on scientist-explorers undertaking daring expeditions to harpoon gray whales off the North […]
Deconstructing HIV and AIDS on Designing Women
Before protease inhibitors radically improved the lives of many people living with HIV in the mid-1990s, numerous sitcoms from Mr. […]
“Help, I’m Living in My Research!”: Writing on Abortion in a Post-Roe World
In 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, my friend and I were in the midst of writing our honors […]
A Return to the Abortion Handbook?
During one of my last visits with abortion activist Patricia Maginnis in 2015, she handed me The Abortion Handbook for […]
Modern Medicine Has Improved Our Lives, But What About Our Deaths?
In 1929, a young woman entered Koch Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. Her symptoms may have included coughing, difficulty breathing, […]
What Happens Under the Ether: Vaginismus and the Question of Consent in the Nineteenth Century
Content Warning: sexual violence; gynecological and obstetric violence. Vaginismus is having a moment. A sexual disability that is medically classified […]
Can every baby be a Gerber Baby? A century of American baby contests and eugenics
In 2018, Gerber made headlines for selecting baby Lucas as the winner of its Spokesbaby Contest, making Lucas the first […]
Losing ‘sorrow in stupefaction’: American Women’s Opiate Dependency before 1900
In 1791 Elizabeth Blake tried to help her sister, New Yorker Catalina Hale, to end her years-long dependency on laudanum, […]
