In the waning years of the nineteenth century, future doctors kept falling sick. Students at the Woman’s Medical College of […]
“Better…at the Bottom of the Sea”?: Affect, Agency, and the Archive at Holloway Sanatorium
In August 1889, an English woman named Charlotte S. experienced a depressive episode marked by religious delusions. Convinced there “was […]
Too Young for the Hardship of Service: Age and Military Fitness in the US Civil War
In 1863, US Surgeon General William Hammond published a Treatise on Hygiene, perhaps the most influential medical text of the […]
Law, Medicine, Women’s Authority, and the History of Troubled Births: Review of Proving Pregnancy
With Roe v Wade upended, the balance of power and authority among lawmakers, medical practitioners, and pregnant and birthing people […]
Relationships Matter: Roth on H. Yumi Kim, Madness in the Family: Women, Care, and Illness in Japan
Before professional medical care became widely available, mental illness was often viewed as a personal malady with social impacts. Mental […]
Empathy in the Archive: Care and Disdain for Wet Nursing Mothers
Before the advent of infant formula and the regulation of the dairy industry, babies who were not breastfed faced mortal […]
Maternal Grief in Black and White: Enslaved Mothers and Antislavery Literature on the Eve of War
Mrs. Tamor and her six children. Helen and her son, a child of “tender years.” Margaret Garner, an “affectionate mother” […]
A Double-Edged Sword: War and Motherhood in Nineteenth-Century Latin America
The depictions of war mothers are the touchstone for gender debates and political tensions of any given period in history. […]
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, […]
Disappointed Love and Dangerous Temptations: Textile Factories and True Crime
Mary Bean enjoyed “unlawful relations” in the summer of 1849; by the fall she was pregnant. In November she entered […]
