Sexual impotence has been a problem since at least the beginnings of recorded history and, since then, people have been striving to cure it. However, the cultural meanings of impotence, (why it matters) and even its definitions, vary wildly over Read more…
Like all things, “fatherhood” has a history. From the enslaved men of the Anglo-American Atlantic to the middling sort to working class daddies and “their chairs,” ideas about fatherhood across socio-economic status in the nineteenth century shared one common trope: Read more…
In 1864, young Daniel Folsom was institutionalized for something that we might consider PTSD. In a letter home to his sister, he promised her, “I shall try and be a man.” Why was Daniel so concerned with his manhood? What Read more…
London was a colorful place in the 1790s, full of vices that the Victorians took great pains to either criticize or euphemize in their histories of England: alcoholism, casual sex, venereal disease, child abandonment, vagrancy, unwed motherhood, and the list Read more…
The Odd Fellows, the Masons, the Knights of Pythias: all ancient, secret, solemn orders full of the pillars of the community, right? Then what do we make of some of the super weird stuff they did, like pushing each other Read more…
If the internet is to be believed, the Illuminati are everywhere, controlling everything. They killed JFK and Tupac, they made Lindsay Lohan famous, they stole antimatter and blew up the Vatican, they run McDonalds, and of course, they started the Read more…
Deadpool, Boba Fett, James Bond, Jason Bourne, Winter Soldier and Kill Bill… from the Assassin’s Creed video games to the John Wick series, professional assassins are vilified and valorized in equal measure. Why do some assassins earn our admiration, even Read more…
At the beginning of the 20th century, eugenics – the belief that the human population could be manipulated through selective breeding – was on the cutting-edge of modern science. Following the example set by American eugenic sterilization and anti-miscegenation laws, Read more…
In 1968, researchers found that one-third of all Puerto Rican women of childbearing age were surgically sterilized. This ignited the U.S. reproductive rights movement and the political demand to end forced sterilization in Puerto Rico. However, Puerto Rican women’s reproduction Read more…
If you are stumbling on this episode because you are someone obsessed with Japanese culture, then you probably already know about the blood-type fad that leaves poor Type-Bs at the bottom of the dating pool. What you may not already Read more…
Assistant Professor of History at Mercyhurst University. Researches sex, gender, and incarceration in modern Ireland. History side hustles: Nursing Clio, DIG, and the LGBTQ Council for the Pennsylvania History Association. Will tell you about maple creamees, just ask.
Clinical Assistant Professor of History for the University at Buffalo. Forthcoming book on disabled Civil War veterans. Administrative Assistant for UB History Department, editor at Nursing Clio. Has participated in Civil War reenactments, and still has the petticoats to prove it.
Independent information professional and PhD candidate in History. 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.
PhD candidate in History writing about Progressive Era women and the formation of the welfare state in the US. 2017-18 UB Gender Institute Dissertation Fellow, 2018-2019 Humanities Institute fellow. Forthcoming article in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly. Might be able to deadlift you. Texas native who married her tattoo artist (not just for the free tattoos).
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