Nursing Clio

Added on July 14, 2012 Announcement

Nursing Clio Wants You!

Nursing Clio, a blog dedicated to discussing the history behind contemporary issues regarding medicine, health, sex, race, women, and gender, is looking for historians to become regular contributors. We are very interested in those who are writing about race, gender and medicine. We would also welcome those who can examine these topics from a global, transnational, or national perspective. Nursing Clio is a coherent, intelligent, informative, and fun historical source for these issues, and we are looking for indivduals who are excited at the propect of engaging in a public venue, examining how the personal is history.

Added on July 12, 2012 Personal Essay

Looking Like a MILF

“Don’t expect it to be flat,” is what the nurse said to me just hours after I had given birth to my son. You know she must have seen me glance in the mirror as I was climbing, actually dragging my beat up body into bed. I look at her and said, “huh?” “Your stomach, don’t expect it to be flat,” she pointed to my enlarged abdomen, “Many women think that once they give birth, *poof* their stomachs immediately go flat.” Since I had never experienced a flat stomach ever in my lifetime, I kind of smirked, looked in the mirror one more time, and thought, “it will go down.” But it never really did, especially when I found myself pregnant a year later (yeah, what was I thinking). In that time between the birth of my son and then the birth of daughter, I thought a lot about how I wanted to look as a mother, but it wasn’t until I made the conscious choice (well really my hubby did) not to have any more children, did I really begin to assess the historical and contemporary meaning behind motherhood and attractiveness. This led me to think more about the MILF and the idea of the sexy mama.

Added on July 9, 2012 Historical essay

Sex Glands, Stem Cells, and “He Men”

By Adam Turner

It was 1921. A time in America remembered for activity, life, and energy. But Arthur was tired. A merchant, 57 years old, he’d lived with chronic arthritis in both knees since his late 30s. Recently the pain had been getting worse. Arthur had trouble walking just one or two city blocks. And it wasn’t just his knees. He didn’t feel as ambitious as he used to. He felt his memory was failing. He also noted a “distinct decrease” in his sexual potency. Rather than take these changes in his body as just the signs of aging, Arthur sought the services of a doctor who might help him. The doctor Arthur went to see was Harry Benjamin.

Added on July 8, 2012 Sunday Morning Medicine

Sunday Morning Medicine

Lost and found report cards.
Probably the most disturbing feminine hygiene ad ever (and as gender historians, we’ve seen many).
Did you celebrate Independence Day? These suffragettes did not.
20th century author Anaïs Nin insisted on poetry in her erotic fiction.

Fairy Soap Commercial, a grl sitting on the soap under green background

Added on July 1, 2012 Sunday Morning Medicine

Sunday Morning Medicine

The toxic history of preserving body parts.
The story of the modern toilet.
AHA roundtable on the Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Health Care Act.
Whatever happened to Stonewall Jackson’s arm?
The very recent and surprising history of pink and blue as gender signifiers.
Masculinity and submission.

A Black woman in a dress and apron walks away from the camera down a dirt road. A small house is in the distance

Added on June 28, 2012 Historical essay

Designing Women: Midwives, Class, and Choice

A couple of weeks ago The New York Times ran an article that asked its readers, “are midwives becoming trendy, like […]

Commercial on the wall, Bile Beans keep you healthy,

Added on June 24, 2012 Sunday Morning Medicine

Sunday Morning Medicine

The computer your viewing this on was brought to you by a gay man.
Want to date like it’s 1938? Here’s a handy guide!
The long (and quite technical) history of the espresso machine.
The very first drinking song discovered?
The mystery of Dolly Madison’s red dress.
Were nuns too sexy in the Middle Ages?

black and white picture, two mothers are learning how to bath their babies in a mother school

Added on June 21, 2012 Historical essay

Better Babies, Fitter Families, and Toddlers and Tiaras: Eugenics in American History

Once upon a time (about two months ago) a group of academics/activists got together to start Nursing Clio, a collaborative blog project that aimed to engage with historical scholarship as a means to contextualize present-day political, social, and cultural issues surrounding gender and medicine. To be honest with you, dear readers (all 5 of you), in the planning stages I sometimes doubted whether we would have enough present-day material to continue the blog past the first month. What if we ran out of material? What if we said everything we needed to say? I made sure to make a list of emergency blog post ideas just in case we got desperate.

As it turns out, we have never once had to break into the emergency blog post survival kit. Between the North Carolina preacher who invoked the Holocaust in an anti-gay sermon, to the continuing War on Women, to the new movie Hysteria – our gender, medicine, and history cup runneth over, my friends.

Commercial of Ayer's Cathartic Pills, several nude babies with golden hair writing and carrying things

Added on June 17, 2012 Sunday Morning Medicine

Sunday Morning Medicine

Even Batgirl supports the ERA.
Menstrual huts protect against adultery.
An update on the man cured from AIDS.
Shocking information about women and HIV.

A ginger haired woman holding a stick, smirking, with vintage outfits, from movie Hysteria.

Added on June 16, 2012 Reviews

Finding Satisfaction: A Review of Hysteria

Having researched and delivered conference papers on the topic, the medical historian in me danced a little jig when I heard Sony Pictures Classics was releasing a movie called “Hysteria.” I did, however, enter the theater with some reservations. Motion picture portrayals are notorious for being historically inaccurate, and if films are true to history, those not in the field tend to find it a little, well, boring. (That is unless Werner Herzog is narrating it with his dry but inadvertently humorous observations.) Thankfully, the $7.50 spent on a matinee wasn’t a waste at all. Just about anyone- unless you are akin to the Victorian “social purist” Anthony Comstock- can walk away from this movie feeling quite satisfied.

Nursing Clio

Run Like A Girl

Reproduction History Syllabus

Debating Justice, Politics, and Culture in Black America, From the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter

The Nursing Clio Reader

Awards

Nursing Clio Wants You!

Looking Like a MILF

Sex Glands, Stem Cells, and “He Men”

By Adam Turner

Sunday Morning Medicine

Sunday Morning Medicine

Designing Women: Midwives, Class, and Choice

Sunday Morning Medicine

Better Babies, Fitter Families, and Toddlers and Tiaras: Eugenics in American History

Sunday Morning Medicine

Finding Satisfaction: A Review of Hysteria

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