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Black nurses and Sea View Hospital.

The ‘Black Angels’ Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis

Professional nurses who moved north during the Great Migration worked in New York City’s most contagious sanatorium — and changed the course of public health.
by Maria Smilios via The Emancipator on May 9, 2024
A photograph of the Arizona desert at sunset with cacti in the foreground.

I Want Settlers To Be Dislodged From the Comfort of Guilt

My ancestors were the good whites, or at least that’s what I’ve always wanted to believe.
by Natasha Varner via Electric Literature on February 8, 2024
Edgar Allen Poe.

Did Voter Fraud Kill Edgar Allan Poe?

The death of mystery writer Edgar Allan Poe is its own mystery. But new research suggests election fraud may have contributed to his demise in Baltimore.
by Randy Dotinga via Retropolis on March 26, 2023

Seeing the Pandemic Through the Shuttered Bungalows of an L.A. Sanatorium

Once a haven for tuberculosis patients, Barlow Respiratory Hospital is uniquely suited to the COVID and post-COVID eras.
by Elizabeth Svoboda via Atlas Obscura on July 15, 2021
Prison security guard wearing a mask.
partner

The Policy Mistakes From the 1990s That Have Made Covid-19 Worse

Being tough on crime and cutting benefits from the poor left millions more susceptible to disease.
by Heather Ann Thompson via Made By History on May 4, 2020
Fanny Angelina Hesse in front of article about her accomplishments.

Meet the Forgotten Woman Who Revolutionized Microbiology With a Simple Kitchen Staple

Fanny Angelina Hesse introduced agar to the life sciences in 1881. A trove of unpublished family papers sheds new light on her many accomplishments.
by Corrado Nai via Smithsonian on June 25, 2024
A flower.

A Structural History of American Public Health Narratives

Rereading Priscilla Wald’s "Contagious" and Nancy Tomes’ "Gospel of Germs" amidst a 21st-century pandemic.
by Amy Mackin via Assay Journal on March 25, 2023
Illustration of body being loaded on to a cart

Pandemic Syllabus

Disease has never been merely a biological phenomenon. Instead, all illnesses—including COVID-19—are social problems for humans to solve.
by David S. Barnes, Merlin Chowkwanyun, Kavita Sivaramakrishnan via Public Books on July 13, 2020

How Epidemics Shaped Modern Life

Past public health crises inspired innovations in infrastructure, education, fundraising and civic debate—and cleaned up animal carcasses from the streets.
by Katherine A. Foss via Zócalo Public Square on April 1, 2020
Virus seen through a microscope.

How Pandemics Change History

The historian Frank M. Snowden discusses the politics of restricting travel during epidemics and more.
by Frank M. Snowden, Isaac Chotiner via The New Yorker on March 3, 2020

Mange, Morphine, and Deadly Disease: Medicine and Public Health in Red Dead Redemption 2

The video game offers a realistic portrayal of illness and public health in the 19th-century American West.
by Leah Richier via Nursing Clio on March 12, 2019

Rewriting My Grandfather’s MLK Story

In excavating the story of King’s visit to Harlem Hospital, I uncovered my grandfather’s own fight for civil rights.
by Lena Felton via The Atlantic on April 3, 2018
California gold miners, ca. 1850–1852.

A Gold Rush of Witnesses

Letters, diaries, and remembrances shared on JSTOR by University of the Pacific reveal the hardships of day-to-day life during the California Gold Rush.
by Matthew Wills via JSTOR Daily on April 23, 2025
A painting of a Staten Island harbor filled with boats, captioned "View of the Marine Hospital and Quarantine Grounds, Staten Island, New York."

Quarantine Scenes in Staten Island History

Staten Island's long battle against quarantine restrictions, from yellow fever to COVID-19.
by Carlos A. Santiago via The Gotham Center on March 19, 2025
American Indian children in boarding school.

More Than 3,100 Students Died at Schools Built to Crush Native American Cultures

The Washington Post has found more than three times as many deaths as the U.S. government documented in its investigation of Indian boarding schools.
by Dana Hedgpeth, Sari Horwitz, Joyce Sohyun Lee, Andrew Ba Tran, Nilo Tabrizy, Jahi Chikwendiu via Washington Post on December 22, 2024

Infectious Diseases Killed Victorian Children at Alarming Rates. Novels Show the Fragility of Health

Between 40% and 50% of children didn’t live past 5 in the US during the 19th century. Authors documented the common but no less gutting grief of losing a child.
by Andrea Kaston Tange via The Conversation on December 11, 2024
Skeletons in a museum posed with varying postures, as if they are performing different tasks.

Why Americans Are Obsessed With Poor Posture

The 20th-century movement to fix slouching questions the moral and political dimensions of addressing bad backs over wider public health concerns.
by Zoe Adams via The Nation on November 20, 2024
A boy sitting inside of an enclosed porch while his mother looks in from outside the door.

Inside Out

The magical in-betweenness—and surprising epidemiological history—of the porch.
by David Owen via The New Yorker on July 27, 2024
Statue of Pocahontas.

Pocahontas, Remembered

After 400 years, reality has begun to replace the lies.
by Victoria Sutton via Unintended Consequences on December 24, 2023
original

Edgar Allan Poe’s America

Tracing the life of the author who seemed to be from both everywhere and nowhere.
by Ed Ayers on October 2, 2023
Kentucky family with hookworm standing in front of their house.

The American Murderer

Hookworm eradication efforts, along with the development of institutionalized public health, often neglected the health of the Black community.
by Katie R. Gibson via Nursing Clio on June 28, 2023

The Country That Could Not Mourn

The Covid-19 pandemic has shown just how hard it is for Americans to grieve.
by Sarah Jaffe via The New Republic on September 23, 2022
A room full of empty hospital beds.

Modern Medicine Has Improved Our Lives, But What About Our Deaths?

Anthropologists study the hormones in hair to compare the stress levels of people nearing death today with those who died 100 years ago.
by Katie East via Nursing Clio on August 30, 2022
A red circle with a slash through it over a pair of puckered lips, superimposed on anti-kissing newspaper articles. Screenshots via Newspapers.com, lips vector by Vecteezy.

The Woman Who Fought to End the 'Pernicious' Scourge of Kissing

New understandings of how disease spread informed Imogene Rechtin's ill-fated 1910 campaign to ban a universal human practice.
by John Last via Smithsonian on May 31, 2022
Photo of Ethel Barrymore over collage of citrus, eggs, and toast.

The Golden Age Hollywood Diet That Starved Its Famous Starlets — And Then America

In 1929, Ethel Barrymore went on the ‘18-Day Diet.’ From there, it took the country by storm. Until, that is, its disciples began dying.
by Ian Douglass via MEL on March 31, 2022
Illustration of Achsa Sprague by Fan Pu

She Spoke to the Dead. They Told Her to Free the Slaves.

In 1850s Vermont, Achsa Sprague swore that the spirits who helped her walk again also possessed her with a crucial mission: freeing every soul in America.
by Madeline Bodin via Narratively on October 21, 2021

The Hospital Occupation That Changed Public Health Care

The Young Lords took over Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx on July 14, 1970. Their demand? Accessible, quality health care for all.
by Emma Francis-Snyder via New York Times Op-Docs on October 12, 2021
Illustration of Edgar Allen Poe looking out window at raven, painted by Eduard Manet

Edgar Allan Poe Needs a Friend

Revisiting the relationships of “a man who never smiled.”
by Matthew Redmond via Lapham’s Quarterly on September 7, 2021

Remembering Past Lessons about Structural Racism — Recentering Black Theorists of Health and Society

A look at African-American scholars' contributions to health disparity discourse.
by Jeremy A. Greene, Alexandre White, Rachel L. J. Thornton via The New England Journal Of Medicine on August 26, 2021
Donald Trump and Greg Abbott on a stage.
partner

The GOP is Reviving the Old History of Blaming Outsiders for Disease

But the evidence never backed it up before, and it doesn’t support such claims today either.
by Jonathan Zimmerman via Made By History on August 15, 2021
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