The intersection of gender identity, faith, and cultural heritage is a complex and often fraught one, particularly for trans individuals living in the American South. As a society and a culture, it’s important that we explore the ways trans people are often excluded from traditional religious spaces, and how this exclusion can lead to a… Read more →
Tag: religion
“Our Moral Obligation:” The Pastors That Counseled in Pre-Roe South Carolina
On December 8, 1971, a Presbyterian pastor in Greenville, SC counseled three women on their “problem pregnancies,” ultimately connecting them with clinical abortion providers. The first woman was a white, 21-year-old university student. Her relationship with her boyfriend had ended that October, and she believed abortion was, to use her words, a “last ditch contraception.”… Read more →
Review of Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free
My Testimony I always wanted a really sexy testimony. That’s not the word I would have used, of course. Growing up in the evangelical Christian church, I knew good girls were never supposed to be “sexy.” The word “sexy” was said only in hushed tones, like “whore,” “vagina,” or “feminist.” A “testimony,” as used in… Read more →
Dutch Monuments for Stillborn Children
“He has been dumped.” Mrs. van Melsen tells me these words as we look down at the inscription on the monument at the graveyard near Sint Pieter’s church in the Dutch city of Maastricht that reads: “Silenced indeed, but never forgotten.” And then Mrs. van Melsen tells me the story of the stillbirth of her… Read more →
Health Care in Colonial Peruvian Convents
Last May I had the opportunity to conduct archival research in Arequipa, Peru. I went in search of fodder for my new research project on health and healing in colonial Latin American convents. I was not disappointed because not only did I find a bundle of fascinating documents, but I also got to ramble the… Read more →
Women, Prayer, and Household Authority in Irish History
Traveling through Ireland in 1909, writer Robert Lynd described “a strange crying—almost a lamentation” that one might hear “on some evenings, if you are in a Catholic house in the most Irish parts of the country.” This strange sound, he elaborated, “was the hour of family prayer.”1 In almost all Irish households, nightly prayers were… Read more →
Buried Secrets, Living Children: Secrecy, Shame, and Sealed Adoption Records
Between 1945 and 1973, single mothers in the United States gave birth in an era of secrecy and shame that historians of adoption call the Baby Scoop Era (BSE).1 During this time, millions of unwed mothers gave birth to children who they often unwillingly relinquished for adoption. Although precise numbers are elusive, as many as… Read more →
Mission Nursing, Migration, and Mobility in Twentieth-Century Iran
The American Association for the History of Nursing is so pleased to partner with Nursing Clio for this special series, which showcases some of the innovative and diverse work being done by historians of nursing across the world. The AAHN holds its annual meeting this week in Rochester, New York, and these essays are windows into the… Read more →
Andrew Jackson’s Love Letters
In our era of political “bromances” between leaders who value aggression and belittle sensitivity, it’s easy to forget that expectations as to how men should interact with other men are always changing. In the 1820s, President Andrew Jackson, whose legacy Donald Trump has embraced, fashioned himself as one of the most virile men of his… Read more →
The Miseries and Heartbreak of Backstreet Abortions: Before and After Roe
In 1967, a group of clergy in New York City founded the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion (CCS) to “bring light and hope to the thousands of people who suffer — usually in quiet, and sometimes in death — the miseries and heartbreak of backstreet abortions.” In an era of back-alley butchers, prohibitively high-priced abortions… Read more →