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In the early twentieth century, Americans often waxed lyrical about “Mother Love,” signaling a conception of motherhood as an all-encompassing identity, rooted in self-sacrifice and infused with social and political meaning. By the 1940s, the idealization of motherhood had waned, and the nation’s mothers found themselves blamed for a host of societal and psychological ills. In Mom, Rebecca Jo Plant traces this important shift by exploring the evolution of maternalist politics, changing perceptions of the mother-child bond, and the rise of new approaches to childbirth pain and suffering. Plant argues that the assault on sentimental motherhood came from numerous quarters. Male critics who railed against female moral authority, psychological experts who hoped to expand their influence, and women who strove to be more than wives and mothers—all for their own distinct reasons—sought to discredit the longstanding maternal ideal. By showing how motherhood ultimately came to be redefined as a more private and partial component of female identity, Plant illuminates a major reorientation in American civic, social, and familial life that still reverberates today.
"Handling the Sick is the story of 838 women who entered St. Luke's Hospital Training School for Nurses, St. Paul, Minnesota, from 1892-1937. Their story addresses a fundamental question about nursing that has yet to be answered: is nursing a craft or a profession? It also addresses the colliding visions of nursing factions that for more than a century have disagreed on the inherent traits and formal preparation a nurse has needed." "The women of St. Luke's were engaged in the most practical of all occupations open to women, a rare one in which their strength, experience, and skill were prized above all else. They firmly believed that the key to success in nursing was apprenticeship training...
""An outstanding contribution to the history of medicine and gender, "Don't Kill Your Baby" should be on the bookshelves of historians and health professionals as well as anyone interested in the way in which medical practice can be shaped by external forces." -Margaret Marsh, Rutgers University How did breastfeeding-once accepted as the essence of motherhood and essential to the well-being of infants-come to be viewed with distaste and mistrust? Why did mothers come to choose artificial food over human milk, despite the health risks? In this history of infant feeding, Jacqueline H. Wolf focuses on turn-of-the-century Chicago as a microcosm of the urbanizing United States. She explores how e...
Dangerously Sleepy explores the fraught relations between overwork, sleep deprivation, and public health. Health and labor historian Alan Derickson charts the cultural and political forces behind the overvaluation—and masculinization—of wakefulness in the United States.
Deceit and Denial details the attempts by the chemical and lead industries to deceive Americans about the dangers that their deadly products present to workers, the public, and consumers. Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner pursued evidence steadily and relentlessly, interviewed the important players, investigated untapped sources, and uncovered a bruising story of cynical and cruel disregard for health and human rights. This resulting exposé is full of startling revelations, provocative arguments, and disturbing conclusions--all based on remarkable research and information gleaned from secret industry documents. This book reveals for the first time the public relations campaign that the lead...
Winner of the Arthur Viseltear Award for Outstanding Book in the History of Public Health from the American Public Health AssociationSelected by Choice Magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title During the twentieth century, lead poisoning killed thousands of workers and children in the United States. Thousands who survived lead poisoning were left physically crippled or were robbed of mental faculties and years of life. In Brush with Death, social historian Christian Warren offers the first comprehensive history of lead poisoning in the United States. Focusing on lead paint and leaded gasoline, Warren distinguishes three primary modes of exposure—occupational, pediatric, and environmental....
The contributors to this collection look into the experiences of women in the Western world going through pregnancy and birth over the last hundred years.
"In the 1920s, a few Cleveland women perceived a need for reliable birth control. They believed that health and social service professionals denied women, especially poor and working-class women, critical health care information. Any Friend of the Movement tells the story of these women, their actions, and the organization they created - the direct forerunner of a modern Planned Parenthood affiliate. The disparate threads of this particular tale include the suicide of a pregnant woman, the gift of a bereaved inventor, smuggling contraceptive supplies across state lines, and sponsoring ice skating galas to fund the work." "Any Friend of the Movement breaks new ground in the history of birth control activism in North America. Meyer argues that private philanthropy and voluntary action on the part of clinics like the Maternal Health Association (MHA) and their clients vitalized the larger movement at its roots and pushed it forward."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
By the end of the nineteenth century, Pittsburgh emerged as a major manufacturing center in the United States. Its rise as a leading producer of steel, glass, and coal was fueled by machine technology and mass immigration, developments that fundamentally changed the industrial workplace. Because Pittsburgh’s major industries were almost exclusively male and renowned for their physical demands, the male working body came to symbolize multiple often contradictory narratives about strength and vulnerability, mastery and exploitation. In Bodies of Work, Edward Slavishak explores how Pittsburgh and the working body were symbolically linked in civic celebrations, the research of social scientist...
This collection of twenty-four original essays by leading scholars in American women's history highlights the most recent important scholarship on the key debates and future directions of this popular and contemporary field. Covers the breadth of American Women's history, including the colonial family, marriage, health, sexuality, education, immigration, work, consumer culture, and feminism. Surveys and evaluates the best scholarship on every important era and topic. Includes expanded bibliography of titles to guide further research.