In the spring of 1923, Amelia Greenwald arrived in Warsaw, Poland, to undertake an urgent task. A nurse from the […]
When Philadelphia Became a Battlefield, Its Surgeons Bore Witness
In the summer of 1844, Philadelphians rioted with an intensity beyond anything the city had endured for decades. A new […]
Captivity, Breastmilk, and the Myth of Colonial Supremacy: An Interview with Carla Cevasco
Carla Cevasco is the winner of the second annual Nursing Clio Prize for Best Journal Article. Her winning submission, “‘Look’d […]
Manslaughter or Necessary Operation? Abortion and Murder in Early 20th-Century Missouri
In April 2021, I was part of an exciting experimental conference, hosted by Dr. Courtney Thompson through Mississippi State University: […]
Blood, Teeth, and Fire: A Dispatch from Cincinnati, 1844
This is a story about walking between worlds. It happens now (more or less; December 2020) and also then (October […]
Whale, Actually
Across the cover of the worn brown file, now property of the British National Archives, someone had written “Rations and […]
Finding Friendship and Frustration in the Archive of an Institution for the “Feebleminded”
The methodology proposed by “Archival Kismet” is to go where the archive leads you (while bearing in mind, of course, […]
Archival Kismet: A Manifesto
In a fit of spring-cleaning early last year, my mother sent me a series of boxes filled with various mementos […]
Ōta Chōu’s Vaccination: Medicine and Modern Girls in 1930s Japanese Painting
In the midst of the 2021 COVID-19 mass vaccination campaign, the “vaccine selfie” – often a self-portrait cell-phone snapshot taken […]
Surrender, Discovery, and Recovery: The Many Meanings of Adoption
To write about mid-twentieth century adoption practices in the United States is to position oneself at the heart of dozens […]
