By Laura Gowing (NHC Fellow, 1999–00) This pioneering book explores for the first time how ordinary women of the early modern period in England understood and experienced their bodies. Using letters, popular literature, and detailed legal records from courts that were obsessively concerned with regulating morals, the book recaptures seventeenth-century popular understandings of sex and … Continued
By Richard A. Soloway (NHC Fellow, 1986–87) Richard Soloway offers a compelling and authoritative study of the relationship of the eugenics movement to the dramatic decline in the birthrate and family size in twentieth-century Britain. Working in a tradition of hereditarian determinism which held fast to the premise that "like tends to beget like," eugenicists … Continued
By Paula A. Michaels (NHC Fellow, 2008–09) The Lamaze method is virtually synonymous with natural childbirth in America. In the 1970s, taking Lamaze classes was a common rite of passage to parenthood. The conscious relaxation and patterned breathing techniques touted as a natural and empowering path to the alleviation of pain in childbirth resonated with the feminist … Continued
By Monica H. Green (NHC Fellow, 1996–97) Making Women's Medicine Masculine challenges the common belief that prior to the eighteenth century men were never involved in any aspect of women's healthcare in Europe. Using sources ranging from the writings of the famous twelfth-century female practitioner, Trota of Salerno, all the way to the great tomes of … Continued