In 2018, Gerber made headlines for selecting baby Lucas as the winner of its Spokesbaby Contest, making Lucas the first […]
Jim Bob’s Humbug: Freaks, Fitter Families, and 19 Kids and Counting
On May 25, 2022, Joshua Duggar (34) was sentenced to 151 months in federal prison and 20 years’ probation after […]
What Britney Spears’s Forced IUD Can Teach Us About Women’s History
When Britney Spears announced that she was forced to use long-term birth control in the form of an IUD and […]
“Containment and Control, Not Care or Cure”: An Interview with Elizabeth Catte on Virginia’s Eugenics Movement
In Pure America: Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia, Dr. Elizabeth Catte expertly investigates and contextualizes the local history […]
“I Assumed It Was Urgent”: Helen Hurd’s Story
As an archivist, I gain deep knowledge of people through their personal papers. I come to appreciate their senses of […]
Changing the Narrative: The Importance of Centering Choice
On September 14, Dawn Wooten, a former nurse at the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia, filed a whistleblower […]
Pathologizing Politics: Eugenics and Political Discourse in the Modern United States
Carrie Buck was three months shy of her twenty-second birthday when she was forcibly sterilized on October 19, 1927. Buck’s […]
What to Expect When You’re Expecting in the Nineteenth-Century U.S.
Type “pregnancy” into any internet search engine today, and you’ll literally get a billion results. This plethora of information at […]
The Politics of Reproductive Rights Legislation in the “Modern” South
On May 15, 2019 Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed legislation that will make the state’s abortion laws the most restrictive […]
The Eugenicists on Abortion
Clarence Thomas recently issued a twenty-page opinion on the Supreme Court decision Box v. Planned Parenthood that went viral because […]