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A flier with profiles of women's faces and the words "Speak-out on abortion."

“I Called Jane” for a Pre-“Roe” Illegal Abortion

No woman should have to go through what I went through, and no woman should have to overcome barriers to obtain a safe abortion.
by Carol Chapman via The Nation on June 29, 2022
Image of plastic human figurine hunched over at a desk and computer.

How the Personal Computer Broke the Human Body

Decades before 'Zoom fatigue' broke our spirits, the so-called computer revolution brought with it a world of pain previously unknown to humankind.
by Laine Nooney via Vice on March 12, 2021
A drawing of a person with a facial expression of pain with "Simple Bodily Pain" written above

The Fifth Vital Sign

How the pain scale fails us.
by Gracia Dodds via Nursing Clio on October 28, 2020
19th caricature of a dentist extracting a tooth

Sicko Doctors: Suffering and Sadism in 19th-Century America

American fiction of the 19th century often featured a cruel doctor, whose unfeeling fascination with bodily suffering readers found unnerving.
by Chelsea Davis via The Public Domain Review on July 1, 2020
Portrait of George Washington with lips pursed.

George Washington's Biggest Battle? With his Dentures, Made From Hippo Ivory and Maybe Slaves' Teeth

The British were a pain, to be sure, but what really caused him trouble were his teeth.
by William Maloney via The Conversation on July 2, 2019

The (Historical) Body in Pain

How can we understand the physical pain of others?
by Cassia Roth via Nursing Clio on April 9, 2019
Lethal injection table.
partner

Lethal Injection Is Not Based on Science

The history of the three-drug combo used in death-penalty executions. 
by Corinna Barrett Lain via HNN on April 29, 2025
William Faulkner and Ralph Ellison.

What the Novels of William Faulkner and Ralph Ellison Reveal About the Soul of America

The postwar moment of a distinctive new American novel—Nabokov’s "Lolita"— is also the moment in which William Faulkner finally gained recognition.
by Edwin Frank via Literary Hub on November 19, 2024
Advertisement promoting cocaine toothache drops, 1889.

An Undulating Thrill

Once lauded as a wonder of the age, cocaine soon became the object of profound anxieties. What happened?
by Douglas Small via Aeon on October 4, 2024
WTO protestors in 1999.

How Activists Across the Pacific Northwest Planned the 1999 Seattle WTO Protests

Looking back on the environmentalist and anti-globalization movements of the 1990s.
by D. W. Gibson via Literary Hub on June 21, 2024
A drawing of a burning ship engaged in battle at sea.

Burnt Offerings

Aaron Bushnell and the age of immolation.
by Erik Baker via n+1 on February 29, 2024
A family of Greek immigrants disembarking on Ellis Island.

For We Were Strangers in the Land of America

Comparing the struggles of Mexican and Greek immigrants to the United States.
by Paul Apostolidis via New Lines on January 24, 2024
Bessel van der Kolk.

How Trauma Became America’s Favorite Diagnosis

Psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk’s once controversial theory of trauma became the dominant way we make sense of our lives.
by Danielle Carr via Intelligencer on July 31, 2023
The leaders of the Continental Congress: Adams, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Morris.

The Disabled Founding Father who Put the ‘United’ in ‘United States’

Newly digitized journals reveal the life of Gouverneur Morris, the Constitution preamble writer, vocal opponent of slavery and disabled congressman.
by Gillian Brockell via Retropolis on July 30, 2023
Tina Turner singing on stage

America Loved Tina Turner. But It Wasn’t Good To Her.

Over the course of her 83 years, the megawatt star that was Tina Turner kept telling us who she was in the hopes that we would see her — all of her.
by Soraya Nadia McDonald via Andscape on June 6, 2023
Denise Lajimodiere stands in an empty room of a former American Indian boarding school.
partner

Forced into Federal Boarding Schools as Children, Native Americans Confront the Past

Native Americans demand accountability for a federal policy that aimed to erase Indigenous culture.
via Retro Report on May 11, 2023

The Making of Norman Mailer

The young man went to war and became a novelist. But did he ever really come back?
by David Denby via The New Yorker on December 19, 2022
Illustration of African American Civil War soldier examining newspaper by torchlight as a Black family watches.

On War and U.S. Slavery: Enslaved Black Women’s Experiences

Enslaved women’s experiences with war must be extended to include the everyday warfare of slavery.
by Karen Cook Bell via Black Perspectives on November 7, 2022
A photo of three young girls smiling seated around a table with dolls next to them.

Reading Disability History Back into American Girl

The author's personal history with the dolls, and an argument for American Girl to make a new doll with a disability.
by Marissa Spear via Nursing Clio on November 1, 2022
Black and white lithograph drawing of a white man dragging away a Black woman as another white man holds her baby.

Maternal Grief in Black and White

Examining enslaved mothers and antislavery literature on the eve of war.
by Cassandra Berman via Nursing Clio on September 22, 2022
A drawn portrait of James Baldwin in front of a line drawing of a classroom with desks.

The Fire This Time

How James Baldwin speaks to lethal myths of white innocence—and why his work belongs in public-school classrooms.
by Sana Hashmi via The Forum on August 30, 2022
A lithograph of a Shaker congregation worshipping by performing a step dance.

The Sects That Rejected 19th-Century Sex

Why three religious groups traded monogamy for celibacy, polygamy, and complex marriage.
by Stewart Davenport via Zócalo Public Square on February 14, 2022
Photograph of prison warden T. M. Osborne and two other men in a penitentiary hallway.

Were Early American Prisons Similar to Today's?

A correctional officer’s history of 19th century prisons and modern-day parallels. From Sing Sing to suicide watch, torture treads a fine line.
by Charles Neal via JSTOR Daily on January 19, 2022
Illustrations from Twelve Years a Slave, by Solomon Northup, 1853, depicting an African American man hugging his family.

A Dark Cloud over Enjoyment

Refusing myths of joy and pain in slave narratives.
by Erin Austin Dwyer via Lapham’s Quarterly on December 7, 2021
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
An illustration of broken and bloody pieces representing awareness of Missing and Murdered Native Women and Girls.

Traumatic Monologues

On the therapeutic turn in Indigenous politics.
by Melanie K. Yazzie via The Baffler on September 6, 2021
Black mother holding baby

The Persistent Joy of Black Mothers

Characterized throughout American history as symbols of crisis, trauma, and grief, these women reject those narratives through world-making of their own.
by Leah Wright Rigueur via The Atlantic on August 11, 2021
A worker removes the Sackler name from a building at Tufts University in 2019.

The Problem of Pain

It’s easier to blame individuals for the opioid crisis than to attempt to diagnose and cure the ills of a society.
by Sophie Pinkham via Dissent on April 5, 2021
Artistic rendition of a boy with an explosion.

Can Historians Be Traumatized by History?

Their secondhand experience of past horrors can debilitate them.
by James Robins via The New Republic on February 16, 2021

Ashes to Ashes

Should art heal the centuries of racial violence and injustice in the US?
by Taylor Rees via Psyche on October 21, 2020
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