Yep! It was indeed!
Historian of birth control/abortion/suffrage law and policy. Book on early 20th c. birth control politics coming soon. Asst Prof @kennesawstate; Fellow @GSU_HealthLaw; @UVa alum
5,659 followers 2,447 following 536 posts
view profile on Bluesky
Yep! It was indeed!
Definitely! The title is Women's Bodies, Doctors' Rights: The Politics of Birth Control in America, and it's under contract w Rutgers University Press. I've got a little bit of writing left still though
Haha he's gonna be like geez, all of you!? did you have a meeting? Where's my jacket!
I gotta email Peter
Also, i found my book cover image today!!! I'm gonna keep that one close for now. But just know it is "chef's kiss* for a book called Women's Bodies, Doctor's Rights.
@jackiantonovich.bsky.social
Posting this in victory. FINALLY finished a draft of an impossibly complex chapter. Summer writing goals achieved, 1 day early. How did the chaotic landscape of 19th c medicine lay the groundwork for abortion laws&what role did this medico-legal regime play in physicians' claiming of contraception?
CDC employees standing up and walking out in light of the mass shootings, firings, and *waves hands in the air* everything else. #USAnotRFK Lets gooooo
uhhhh
I feel a medical condition coming on, which is that I am very allergic to MAHA bullshit.
children in minneapolis shot while praying, children in DC passing armed military when they take the metro to school, this country is so sick
Looking forward to how the "thoughts & prayers" crowd pretzels their way out of this one. Kids were shot while LITERALLY praying. Your sick joke's on you today in a whole new way. PS: by "looking forward" I mean stfu before you are very sorry your nonsense happened to roll in front of my eyeballs.
How's this?
Ok, but if I dont, it's because I have to read all the Taylor and Travis engagement gossip first 😀 🤷♀️
I am finishing this chapter by Friday, darn it. If so I will have accomplished my summer writing goals which was to have five completed chapters that dont need much on the back end. Almost there
Love that. Love a good light vest!!
Last week, I was complaining how hot it was walking to class across campus. Today, I almost feel like I need a light jacket. #lightjacketseason 🍂
"A lot of people are saying maybe we like a dictator," Trump added. "I don't like a dictator. I'm not a dictator." ...
🙄
Reviewing something for JAMA today and that feels like a fun career milestone.
Clippy!!!
Yeah a few people have brought up his name, Gingrich, and Roberts, though Hanson is more of a "practicing" historian than the other 2 I would argue. But what does his "practice" look like, thats the question. I genuinely don't know as I...don't read his work lol.
😂😂
Can yall tell i kind of love teaching Historical Methods 😂
🙌🙌🙌
It’s very typical that the questions /thesis will need to be refined (sometimes significantly from the original project). And I tell my students this is perfectly ok. The idea is to follow the evidence as it lands, not pound it into place to make it fit…
Love this description
That’s definitely my own experience. I typically have some research questions I’m interested, but those get refined as I go along. The inquiries are often driven by questions that pop up in previous projects that merited their own projects (some book, some article, etc).
Other historians, jump in here too. Maybe others have a better answer than I do! I guess what my thread is warning against is cherrypicking. So your thesis may need to shift and move with what you discover in the box or folder and if you find something that is surprising, it need to be discussed
That's a great question. I think I do because I read the secondary literature first& I often have other historians' thoughts on the matter top of mind. But I also keep a timeline/chronology right there too. "OK this was written in March 1922. What happened in February 1922 that may have shaped this"
You may enjoy following @anthonymkreis.bsky.social who takes special delight in smacking down the originalists. :) I have dabbled with a post or two before too but cant figure out how to search it/link it on here...
I think this is right on. Yep
Lol exactly. Some of these replies are driving me bananas
This is exactly what I tell my students. That we are not scientists. Its difficult, but you have to try to examine sources critically and let them speak. We aren't conducting experiments where we've come up with a hypothesis first. Obviously, there's going to be knowledge of the context/time period.
Does she have a PhD? Big difference between BA and PhD as i describe in the thread
Yeah people pointed out him and Gingrich and others, but in my opinion they are guilty of the same things that Bellisles et al are, nor are they reaching people the way HCR has. Also i am paraphrasing what someone else said somewhere but ethical people follow their professional codes of ethics.
It is fascinating how people always try to explain your own posts to you. This happened on Twitter too. Just a fascinating phenomenon. Why?
Indeed. Sometimes they do history! 😬
Of course. But the question was about "why hasn't someone emerged like HCR w the same credibility" defending the Trump regime's decisions using history. The closest I could think of was judges and law profs doing originalism. But most of the don't have PhDs in history either. Let alone Putin
Thank you, Heather!! For everything you do. ❤️❤️
Thank you, that's lovely to say.
Thank you ❤️ and hi.👋
I live in deep fear of mis-citing, mis-quoting, or accidental misinterpretation. Let alone on purpose
But I want to stress that the vast majority of us take GREAT care to NOT do what Bellisles and others did. It is extremely important to maintain professional ethics in every discipline and profession. We are not exempt!
But I want to stress that the vast majority of us take GREAT care to NOT do what Bellisles and others did. It is extremely important to maintain professional ethics in every discipline and profession. We are not exempt!
Yes. There have been some major scandals in our discipline. I agree that in fact most of them tilt toward people trying to make sources say things they shouldn't in service of "liberal" arguments. A huge no-no. I teach about Bellisles and others in my methods class.
Wow. They sound so different to me. Ugh
He must have tried to keep it on the DL...
Exactly. Don't get me started on originalism and their law office history or we'll be here all night 😂
Yup. But they aren't trained.
I've looked at his dissertation. His committee committed malpractice in allowing him to defend it. Unfortunately, it happens. Not often as far as I know but it does. Also he didn't say he was a trained historian and proceed from that angle back when he was at his political height did he? Maybe
The one example I could think of are judges and law professors who masquerade as historians in their obsession with originalism, but that, my friends, is another thread.
We are not journalists or political commentators. We can't predict the future either. But we are informed and are careful scholars. I know no other historians (and I know a lot, across the nation and abroad) who are MAGA or open Trump supporters. We don't deal in lies so it makes it impossible.
All that is to say, historians know the secondary literature and we understand the context of original sources in a very wide and deep way.
Many people take 7 or even 8 years, but most of us are forced to finish in 6 because of funding constraints. The learning and reading, though, never stops as a professor because you keep up with the literature and new historiographical approaches.
Then a year in the archives, preparation of a dissertation prospectus, followed by more archival research, reading, and writing the dissertation. At the end, you've completed what for many is Draft 1 of a first book.
We spend a minimum of 5 years getting a PhD. Two years of coursework. A year studying for incredibly hard comprehensive exams which make or break you. We read hundreds of books and articles to prepare for a set of exams that take a week, sometimes two, both oral and written.
Its also really important I think to share how rigorously trained historians are, including Heather. But also the rest of us. Her colleagues.
This is especially true of histories of suffrage, abortion, and birth control for example (my own subfields).
Believe me when I say that often the sources show the opposite of what I wish they did. But it is my job to say, "this is the history. It is not an analog. It may not map onto the present in the way you wish."
We follow the direction the primary sources show us. We deal in the business of interpretation too, but the ethics of our training require us to explain what we think the sources are showing. Not our political opinions.
While some historians absolutely have political beliefs that tilt toward classical liberalism or traditional conservatism, our training in the way we read and understand sources requires a particular set of ethics that we have developed as a profession.
There was an interesting question I saw from someone recently that was asking why there are no historians writing "for the other side." Essentially, why are there no "pro-Trump Heather Cox Richardsons?" The answer lies in our training.
Hi! Can you see this?
I am a historian. I look at the primary sources and read them in context. They will forever point to a country caught between the throes of our highest ideals and that America was and is forever defined by slavery. I don't flinch from the truth to save my own feelings or yours.
And published with the excellent @hastingscenter.bsky.social
We are thrilled to have one of our esteemed contributors @barronlerner.bsky.social write this fantastic essay about our book "Do Less Harm: Ethical Questions for Health Historians" for the @hastingscenter.bsky.social bioethics forum. Read it here www.thehastingscenter.org/lets-not-era...
A beautiful and thoughtful essay from @lernerbarron.bsky.social on our new book out with @hopkinspress.bsky.social now! www.thehastingscenter.org/lets-not-era...
I edited a book where the author, without checking first, had an AI application "tidy up" her notes. What it in fact did was redo them entirely, changing real citations to fictitious ones. It made a lot of extra work. AI has no concept of fact, only of probability, and has no place in scholarship.
This doesn’t leave the ring. Ever. Plus, the best western you’re not thinking about with @jackiantonovich.bsky.social & @lmacthompson1.bsky.social jasonherbert.substack.com/p/the-key
Look what came in the mail yesterday!! It’s real!
How is still July! It is July 28,763rd, I swear
@andrewbramlett.bsky.social
U.S. history friends - check out the first standalone conference that SHGAPE is hosting in Chicago in June 2026! Please consider submitting a paper/panel etc! www.shgape.org/shgape-confe...
thx so much, Lauren! This was the first abortion case I researched and it just drew me in. In the book I wrote more about Eliza Wilson but Lindfield really grabbed me... glad to give her space here.
This piece today by @maryfissell.bsky.social is so fascinating! Spencer Lindfield was a British midwife and abortionist. "It was a dreaded fate. Mrs. Lindfield offered better options." maryfissell.substack.com/p/l-is-for-s...
me, the actual average professor: PLEASE for the love of baby Jesus and kittens, stop Chat-GPTing the historical essay on the ideological influences that produced Matt Walsh. And use Chicago-style footnotes!!
We are so excited to see author copies for #dolessharm start to arrive. We’re so proud of this volume and our amazing authors like Lauren. If you’re a historian of health or medicine you need this book! #histmed #histnursing #histpsych #ethics www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/...
Oh my gosh look what came in the mail!!! Thank you Kylie Smith and Courtney Thompson-- such an honor to contribute to this @drkyliesmith.bsky.social @cethompson.bsky.social
Stunning new book by author Nishant Batsha: "A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart." "When I was writing, Roe v. Wade was about to be overturned...I worked with Lauren Thompson, a historian of abortion and contraception, to make sure the representation was accurate" lareviewofbooks.org/article/love...
BREAKING: The Supreme Court allows the Trump administration to resume agency mass-firing plans over the dissent of Justice Jackson, who criticized "this Court’s demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture." More to come at Law Dork:
😂😂
Oh my gosh, take a pic. Yay tell them I sent you haha. The tour guide was very good too. We took a tour of the home and I thought she did an amazing job being extremely truthful about Clay and slavery.
-Indiana Jones and the Budget Cuts of Doom -Indiana Jones and the Last Endowment -Indiana Jones and the Phantom Faculty Line -Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Capital Campaign -Indiana Jones and the Golden Age of Deferred Maintenance -Indiana Jones and the Death of the Humanities
Indiana Jones will be played by a rotating cast of three adjuncts who answer to two different associate deans
Would so wear: "Free soil, free labor, free men"
As a US historian I had to get this shirt at the Ashland gift shop in Lexington.
The "Jefferson Council" is the "organization" (made up of aggrieved white men obsessed with TJ) partially responsible for wielding its political influence to oust Jim Ryan at UVA. They are congratulating themselves in an email that the University will now be...free from political influence.
I don't know what to tell AI dorks who want to remake the book but humans figured out how to organize ideas themselves on paper (rocks, wood, wax, etc.) themselves for probably longer than there have been Homo sapiens (300K Yrs). It works. Your app that "customizes" books an't changing that.
I wrote: “Jefferson dreamed of forging a grand, vibrant Athens on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. Instead, in its third century, the United States seems a lot more like Sparta.” newrepublic.com/article/1973...
@sivav.bsky.social has articulated what has just happened so perfectly. Thank you for writing this. As an alum, I am devastated and disgusted. newrepublic.com/article/1973...
Heck yeah 🙌🎉
the uva faculty senate asks the board of visitors to condemn the demands from the DOJ that led to ryan’s resignation & asks for a meeting with the BOV to clarify the situation
More than 100 UVA faculty (and counting) have signed an open letter condemning political interference in the university. The forced installation of a new president under these circumstances will cast a shadow on teaching and research. Read here: docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Thread. @jeisinger.bsky.social at @propublica.org has an interesting theory about the University of Virginia’s surrender to Trump today. UVA evaded costly litigation — over DEI, a target of white-right Republicans — and sacrificed its president, a sign of its willingness to change its culture.
My statement with @markwarner.bsky.social on reporting that President Jim Ryan was pressured to resign from the University of Virginia by the Trump Administration:
😬