Full disclosure: I have been waiting for a decent film about the women’s suffrage movement for years. As a historian of women and gender, I am accustomed to disappointment when it comes to the portrayals of women on screen. Films about women’s struggles are few and far between. Even when the male-dominated industry does attempt… Read more →
Tag: Public history
The Paradox of Thanksgiving
With its odd combination of tradition and invention, its appeals to the past and to the future, its ancestor worship and its acceptance of diversity, Thanksgiving is not merely America’s most treasured celebration but its most paradoxical. But at a moment when we are increasingly confronting the United States’ less-than-perfect history and challenging sacred myths,… Read more →
Nursing Thanksgiving
In November 1820, the Reverend John Marsh delivered a Thanksgiving Day sermon in Haddam, Connecticut that couldn’t have been more orthodox and run of the mill, despite its auspicious occasion, the bicentenary of the Pilgrims’ First Landing in 1620. The town fathers deemed the homily worth publishing, and reading it today is perhaps a slog…. Read more →
All Memorials are Political — Just Ask the Homeopaths
Over this past summer, I spent about two weeks on a research trip in Washington D.C. I decided to take my teenage son along, figuring this might be the last time he ever willingly goes on a trip with his mother. I tried to make it fun. Every day after I finished up my research… Read more →
Heritage is Not History: Historians, Charleston, and the Confederate Flag
It’s hard to be a historian these days without constantly hearing about the supposed irrelevance of your work. After all, it must seem to many observers like we exist in our own academic echo chambers, engaging in ivory tower intellectualism that has little bearing on “real life.” And then, as a nation, we have a week… Read more →
Obergefell Made History, and History Made Obergefell
History matters. Sober and sophisticated historical research can make a difference in the world. I am proud to live in a nation that now, per the Obergefell v. Hodges decision, recognizes the rights of gay and lesbian Americans to marry their chosen partners. And I am proud to be a member of the historical profession,… Read more →
Doing History in Public
If you’ve been following Nursing Clio this past week you know by now that we’re celebrating our one-year anniversary. As of this post, it’s been just over a year since we went live and we’re thrilled by the ways we’ve grown in that time. I’m honored to have been one of the co-founders and still… Read more →