In his occupation as a swineherd, Jacob Nufer had performed countless genital surgeries on his pigs. He was an expert gelder. He was convinced he could deliver his child abdominally so that both his wife and child would survive. For Read more…
Childbirth is such a routine part of life that in some ways it can become invisible, especially historically. History, people often assume, is made up of major events, political elections, wars, etc. – not routine biological processes. But for something Read more…
The 1915 silent-film The Birth of a Nation is one of the most popular and controversial films ever made. It’s success catapulted director D.W. Griffith into stardom while cementing the film, a piece of racist propaganda, into the annals of Read more…
Symphysiotomy. Probably not a word you’ve heard before – and if you have, I’m sorry? Symphysiotomy is an obstetric procedure in which a person’s pubic symphysis cartilage is cut to widen the pelvis for childbirth. Yes. Gross. I know. For Read more…
In 1919, the idealistic American President Woodrow Wilson brought with him to the Paris Peace Conference his 14 Points. Among these points were the doctrine of self-determination (the idea that all peoples have the right to determine the nature of Read more…
Historian Cynthia Orozco has a new book out titled Agent of Change: Adela Sloss-Vento, Mexican-American Civil Rights Activist and Texas Feminist, which excavates the importance of a feminist figure of the Mexican American Civil Rights movement, adding to the scholarship Read more…
In popular media, borderline personality disorder has become linked in particular to beautiful, unstable, and ultimately dangerous white women, most famously Glenn Close’s character in the 1987 movie Fatal Attraction. As a diagnosis, borderline personality disorder went through various iterations Read more…
Like many of the Spanish conquistadors who made their way to the Americas, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca joined an expedition to explore “Florida” in search of glory and, ideally, an encomienda of his own. (“Florida” is what the Spanish Read more…
Birth control and abortion are constant flash points in contemporary politics, and they’re often described as signs of a rapidly changing society. But women have always had ways (though not always quite as effective) to control family size through contraception, Read more…
While police investigations have adapted to new technologies, the basic premises of investigative police work have been pretty consistent since the 1880s in the UK, Ireland, and the US. But that does not mean that the philosophical and procedural organization Read more…
Assistant Professor of History at Mercyhurst University. Layout Editor at Nursing Clio. Writes about sex, gender, and policing in modern Ireland. "Solicitor Brown and His Boy" (2020) in Historical Reflections. Will tell you about maple creemees, just ask.
Clinical Assistant Professor of History for the University at Buffalo and Associate Director of UB Center for Disability Studies. Author of Bodies in Blue: Disability in the Civil War North. Editor at Nursing Clio. Has participated in Civil War reenactments, and still has the petticoats to prove it.
ACLS Fellow at Arizona State University, project lead of Journal of the Plague Year and independent information professional. Studies lactating women for hire in the Atlantic world during the Revolutionary era. Has won lots of really cool grants and fellowships, 2015 article on wet-nursing ads in the Journal of Family History. Unhealthy obsession with true crime podcasts.
Assistant Professor of History at SUNY Brockport. Writes about Progressive Era women and the formation of the welfare state in the US. 2019 article in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly. Texas native who married her tattoo artist (not just for the free tattoos).
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