Reproductive Health Histories

Join us this week to discuss two fantastic papers:

Emma Wathen's chapter : "I Am an 'Iron-Lung' Mother": Polio Mothers and the Mothers' March on Polio, 1955-64."

AND 

Carol Williams' piece: "Reproductive Justice and the class action suit against A.H. Robins's products, The Dalkon Shield."

Find both files in the attachment below. 

 
This year, our sessions function as a space for members to give and receive feedback on works-in-progress (WIP). This week we will engage with the following: 
 

• Kate Errington, "Pregnancy Information, Past and Present: Using Historical Materials to spark Contemporary Health Conversations"

Kate is a PhD student at Birkbeck and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, researching the cultural history of pregnancy. She is also the co-founder of the reproductive network and reading group Broadly Conceived. Her piece showcases results gleaned from: ‘Divin’ Worry Mams! Navigating mixed messages during pregnancy’, a Birkbeck Wellcome Institutional Strategic Support Fund (ISSF)-funded workshop that took place in February 2023. 

 
This year, our sessions function as a space for members to give and receive feedback on works-in-progress (WIP). This week we will engage with the following: 
 

• Catherine Medici-Thiemann, "The Man Midwife" Song and Early Modern Attitudes towards Medicalized Childbirth"

Catherine is a historian and women’s and gender studies scholar based at the University of Nebraska Medical Centre. Her WIP uses "The Man Midwife,” a song printed in 1771, as a window into popular attitudes towards the transition from midwives to physicians attending women in childbirth. 
 
*Due to unforseen circumstances, discussion of Kate's paper "Pregnancy Information, Past and Present: Using Historical Materials to spark Contemporary Health Conversations" has been postponed to January 2025. 
 
Please do not circulate WIPs outside of this network. As always, readings can be accessed via this session's downloadable ZIP file (below).

 
This year, our sessions will function as a space for members to give and receive feedback on works-in-progress (WIP). This week we will engage with two pieces: 
 

• Agnes Arnold-Forster, "The National Childbirth Trust and the Margins of Medicine in Modern Britain"

Agnes is an interdisciplinary historian of science, medicine, healthcare, and the emotions and a co-convenor of this working group. She is a Chancellor’s Fellow in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh and has researched the history of cancer, the women’s health movement, the emotional dynamics of healthcare labour, surgery and the surgical identity, vaccine hesitancy and public health, the NHS, and patient complaint. Her piece offers a roadmap of her new project on the history of the National Childbirth Trust. It presents some of her early thoughts and plans for progress.
 

• Jessica Dandona, "In Living Colour: Realism and Abstraction in Anatomical Models of the Female Reproductive Body, 1880–1900."

Jessica M. Dandona, Ph.D. is Professor of Art History in the Liberal Arts Department at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Her current book project, The Transparent Woman: Medical Visualities in Fin-de-Siècle Europe and the United States, 1880–1900, examines the visual culture of medicine at the end of the 19th century.  Her piece is a draft book chapter for an edited volume that looks at the visual & material representation of the female reproductive body/organs (from an art historical/visual culture perspective). This work focuses on anatomical models employed in the teaching of midwifery and gynaecology, including works by French makers Tramond, Deyrolle, and Gustave-Joseph Witkowski. Created during a time of growing interest in public health, widespread anxiety over rising infant mortality, and emerging pro-natalist policies, these pedagogical objects provided a widely-reproduced simulacrum of the female reproductive body and pioneered an enduring "anatomical aesthetic". 
 
Both pieces are both WIPs and should not be circulated outside of this network. As always, readings can be accessed via this session's downloadable ZIP file (below).
 

 
To kick off our first working group meeting of the 2024/2025 year, we will explore the implications of ectogenesis—reproduction outside the body.
 
In advance of the discussion, we encourage participants take a look at the following three pieces--each of which grapples with history and politics of artificial womb technology:
 

• Claire Horn, "Of Incubators, Orchids and Artificial Wombs," in Eve: The Disobedient Future of Birth. House of Anansi Press, 2023.
• Vivien Hamilton, "Mothering Machines" [Draft: Do Not Circulate]
• The Pod Generation, 2023 Sci Fi-Comedy [Availible to stream on Amazon Prime or rent via You Tube or Apple TV]

 
At this session, we will also update members on our July 2024 Hybrid workshop, answer any questions about the upcoming year, and provide dedicated space for participants to share ideas, news, opportunities or updates with the group.
 
To facilitate introductions, new members are welcome to share excerpts of their work related to the working group's theme to our group's shared Google Drive. 
 
PDFs of all readings can be accessed via this session's downloadable ZIP file (below).

 
Reproducing History: Writing Histories of the Personal
 
Our last working group meeting of the year will take place in hybrid format at the University of Edinburgh on 15 July 2024. This event will feature a sneak peek of Agnes Arnold Forster and filmmaker Rita Conry's new Birth Control Documentary: High, Soft and Open. We will also discuss future plans for the working group, develop planned network outputs, and reflect on what it means to research and write "histories of the personal." 
 
Unlike other meetings, this session will be a half-day event (running from 2:30-6:30 BST, or 9:30-1:30 EDT). 
 
Our schedule is as follows: 
 

• 2:30pm BST (9:30 EDT): Hybrid Screening of Birth Control Documentary High, Soft and Open with Agnes Arnold Forster and Filmmaker Rita Conry
• 3:30pm BST (10:30 EDT): Comfort Break
• 3:45-4:45pm BST (10:45-11:45 EDT): Hybrid Discussion: Year 2 of the working group; Next steps for the group
• 4:45pm BST (11:45 EDT): Comfort Break
• 5:00-6:30pm BST (12:00-1:30 EDT): Hybrid History of the Personal Readings Discussion

 
Please feel free to join us online for some or all of these events. 
 
In preparation for this meeting, we ask that members review the following four pieces: 

1. Jaipreet Virdi, "Seeing the Tangled Tendrils Within: Feeling/Seeing Endometriosis beyond Invisibility," Forthcoming in Biomedical Visions: Aesthetics, Epistemology, and Medical Practice, edited by Elizabeth Hughes and Alfred Freeborn. 
2. Madeline Bosco and Connie Clement, “Getting Rid of the Crab,” Healthsharing v 2, n3 (1981):  p4 (brief editorial collective notes) plus pp. 15-19.
3. Susan Perry and Jim Dawson, “Timeline,” Nightmare: Women and the Dalkon Shield (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1985); 242-249.
4.  Agnes Arnold-Forster, Rita Maria Conry, and Gemma Duncan. The UTI Documentary. 2021.

 
We are thrilled to have Agnes Arnold-Forster, Rita Conry, Carol Williams, and Erin Spinney join us this week to discuss how historians can use their own healthcare experiences to complement and inform their research and advocacy work.
 
PDFs of all readings can be accessed via this session's downloadable ZIP file (below). 

Gender, Masculinity and Reproduction
 
Here, we will explore how gender and masculinity shapes how we think about human reproductive experiences and the histories we write about them.
 
This week, we will be joined by Rene Almeling (Yale University) who will help guide discussions and talk about the motivation of and inspiration behind her award winning book GUYnecology: The Missing Science of Men's Reproductive Health.
 
In preparation for the meeting, we ask that participants explore the following pieces: 

1. Rene Almeling, GUYnecology: The Missing Science of Men's Reproductive Health (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2020), Intro & Conclusion 
2. Carolyn Y. Johnson, “Quick-acting male birth control drug shows promise in the lab." Washington Post, 14 February 2023.
3. Cara Jones, "Taking the Woman out of Women’s Health." Nursing Clio, 13 March 2014.

 
PDFs of all readings can be accessed via this session's downloadable ZIP file (below). 
 
 

Reproductive Technologies
 
This session will examine the history and future trends of researching and writing about reproductive technologies.
 
In preparation for the meeting, we ask that participants explore the following pieces: 
 

1. Jesse Olszynko-Gryn, A Woman’s Right to Know: Pregnancy Testing in Twentieth Century Britain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2023. Intro, Conclusion + Chapter 10: Do It Yourself
2. Rayna Rapp, “Reproductive Entanglements: Body, State, and Culture in the Dys/Regulation of Child-Bearing,” Social Research 78, No. 3 (2011): 693-718.
3. Test Tube Women (1984). Intro + chapter of your choice. 

 
This week, we will be joined by Jesse Olszynko-Gryn who will talk to us about his new book and help guide our discussions on the politics and stakes of technological innovations in the field of reproductive health. 
 
The Rapp piece can be accessed via this session's downloadable ZIP file (below). A Woman’s Right to Know: Pregnancy Testing in Twentieth Century Britain is Open Access and can be downloaded via the link above. Test Tube Women can be accessed by visiting the above link and “borrowing” the book from archive.org's collection. To do this, you will need to sign up for a free  user account.
 

Oral Histories
 
In this session we will reckon with the value and challenges of using oral history as a source in humanities and social science research on reproduction.
 
To prepare us for this task, we ask participants to read and reflect on the following four articles: 
 
1) Kristin Hay, "More than a defence against bills’: feminism and national identity in the Scottish abortion campaign, c. 1975–1990." Women's History Review 30, no. 4 (2021): 594-612
 
2) Brianna Theobald, "Epilogue Twenty-First-Century Stories," in Reproduction on the Reservation: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Colonialism in the Long Twentieth Century, 173-183. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019. 
 
3) Kathryn Anderson, Susan Armitage, Dana Jack and Judith Wittner, "Beginning Where We Are: Feminist Methodology in Oral History," The Oral History Review 15, no. 1 (1987): 103-127.
 
4) Anna Sheftel and Stacey Zembrzycki, "Telling Interview Stories: Understanding Oral History from the Perspective of Practice," Active History, 11 November 2013.
 
Kristin Hay,  a tutor in Economic and Social History at the University of Glasgow and expert on women’s reproductive health, rights and oral history. will be joining us to help guide group discussions and offer commentary on her piece. 
 
As always, all readings can be accessed via the embedded hyperlinks, or from this session's downloadable ZIP file (below). 

Taking ‘Patient’ Histories
 
This session will focus on how scholars can engage with ‘patient’ narratives  in both oral testimonies and archival records responsibly, in ways that avoid replicating medicalization and pathologization.
 
This week, we ask that participants explore the following three pieces: 
 
1. Michael Worboys, "The non-patient's view." In Patient Voices in Britain, 1840–1948, edited by Anne Hanley and Jessica Meyer, Manchester University Press, 2021. 
2. Katrina Ackerman, “Before Mifegymiso: A History of Rural Women’s Access to Abortion” Active History, 24 November 2016.
3. Abortion Diary Entry 152: Anonymous, 65 (Poughkeepsie, NY 1969) [Podcast]
 
Further Readings: 
 
1. Roy Porter, “The Patient’s View: Doing Medical History from Below,” Theory and Society 14, no.2 (1985): 175-198.
2. Warwick Anderson, “The Case of the Archive,” Critical Inquiry 39, no.3 (2013): 532-547.
3. Jessica Meyer and Alexia Moncrieff, “Family not to be informed? The ethical use of historical medical documentation.’ In Patient Voices in Britain, 1840–1948, edited by Anne Hanley and Jessica Meyer, Manchester University Press, 2021. 
 
This week, we will be joined by Dr. Louise Williams, who will share some reproductive health materials held at Edinburgh’s Lothian’s Health Services Archive and will help guide discussions on the ethics and practice of using patient histories in historical research. 
 
As always, readings can be accessed via this session's downloadable ZIP file (below). Both required and further readings are included in the file. However, discussions will center around the Worboys and Ackerman piece. 

Reproductive (In)Justice
 
In this session, we will grapple with reproductive politics and injustices and discuss how academic scholarship has and can continue to be used to advance reproductive rights and social justice.
 
To help anchor our discussions, we invite participants to read and reflect on the following three pieces: 

1. Dána-Ain Davis, "Radical Black Birth Workers." In Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy and Premature Birth, 169-197. New York: NYU Press, 2019.
2. lIana Löwy and Marilena Cordeiro Dias Villela Corrêa, "The “Abortion Pill” Misoprostol in Brazil: Women’s Empowerment in a Conservative and Repressive Political Environment," American Journal of Public Health, 110 no.5 (2020): 677-684.
3. Ilana Löwy, "Fetuses: Women, Doctors and the Law," in Viruses and Reproductive Injustice: Zika in Brazil. Baltimore: JHU Press, Forthcoming 2024.*

 
We will be joined by Ilana Löwy (CERMES 3, Paris) who will participate in group conversations and offer commentary on her piece.
 
*For this session, Ilana has generously offered to share a chapter from her very exciting (and relevant) new book: Viruses and Reproductive Injustice: Zika in Brazil. Since this book is not yet published, this piece has not been uploaded to the CHSTM website. Instead, interested readers can get hold of a copy by emailing Jennifer Fraser (jennifer.fraser@kcl.ac.uk) or one of our other working group convenors directly. All other readings can be accessed via this session's downloadable ZIP file (below). 

Reproducing History: Writing Histories of the Present 
This session will foreground contemporary discussions about the role of presentism in history and examine how present-day ideas and perspectives have and continue to inform how we think and write about reproductive health.
 
As prompts, we invite participants to read and reflect on the following essays:
 
1) Regina Markell Morantz, "The Perils of Feminist History," The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 4, no.4 (1974): 649-660.
2) Emily Baughan, "Reading Penelope Leach in Lockdown," PLAYGROUP Substack, 11 April 2023.
 
 This week we will be joined by Emily Baughan (University of Sheffield) who will participate in group discussions and offer commentary on her piece.

Introductions and Overview of Working Group Program
 
In this introductory session, we will reflect on the role that history plays in present-day conversations about reproductive health. To stimulate conversations, we encourage participants to read one of the following pre-selected news articles: 

1. Samira K. Mehta and Lauren MacIvor Thompson, "The Supreme Court’s abortion decision is based on a myth. Here’s why." June 24, 2022.
2. Billy Briggs, "US Christian right ‘dark money’ backed anti-abortion Glasgow students." March 28, 2019.
3. Peggy O’Donnell Heffington, "Don’t want a baby because of climate fears? You’re not alone." 19 April 2023.

 
We will also provide an overview of the reading group's schedule, discuss future directions, and gauge participant interest in potential collaborative outputs. We would also like to use this time for participants to get to know each other.
 
To facilitate introductions, we invite participants to share excerpts of their work related to the working group theme. These pieces (either academic, or more public facing) should be submitted to Dr. Jennifer Fraser (jennifer.fraser@kcl.ac.uk). All excerpts submitted by September 18, 2023, will be circulated to the larger group in advance of the first meeting.