From the Bibliography of Exploring American Healthcare
From the Bibliography of Exploring American Healthcare
By Tegan Kehoe
To write a book on fifty different subjects, I did a lot of reading! Here are 25 books I cite in Exploring American Healthcare through 50 Historic Treasures that I think readers might particularly enjoy. They're engaging reads and have good historical analysis. I stuck to modern histories rather than primary sources for this list; things like The Little Book of Information and Advice for the Young Woman Who Is Looking Forward to Motherhood from 1922 are not included.
Exploring American Healthcare Through 50 Historic Treasures
Tegan Kehoe
$46.00Not from the bibliography, but here's the book itself!
Influenza: The Hundred-Year Hunt to Cure the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic
Jeremy Brown
$17.00 $15.81This is an interesting and fairly comprehensive look at the legacy of the 1918 flu pandemic.
Devices and Desires: A History of Contraceptives in America
Andrea Tone
$20.00 $18.60This history is one that a few of the other sources I read cited over and over, and for good reason.
A Warrior of the People: How Susan La Flesche Overcame Racial and Gender Inequality to Become America's First Indian Doctor
Joe Starita
$18.99 $17.66A compelling biography of a very interesting person.
Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty
Dorothy Roberts
$19.00 $17.67This book is more sociology than history, but it's an excellent resource for understanding the intersection of racism and reproductive health issues.
Vitamania: How Vitamins Revolutionized the Way We Think About Food
Catherine Price
$19.00 $17.67This book is a great summary of both the scientific discoveries around vitamins and the various cultural shifts and marketing trends around vitamins.
A Disability History of the United States
Kim E. Nielsen
$17.95 $16.69A worthwhile introduction to a subject that isn't medical history, but needs to be understood to understand medical history!
The Body Electric: How Strange Machines Built the Modern American
Carolyn Thomas de la Pena
$36.80A great account of technology (real, quack, and in between) in concepts of health and the body.
Healing with Herbs and Rituals: A Mexican Tradition
Eliseo Torres
$19.95 $18.55This book discusses the past and present of curanderismo, Mexican and Mexican-American folk medicine, with an emphasis on herbal medicine.
Bubonic Panic: When Plague Invaded America
Gail Jarrow
$22.99 $21.38This is a short and engaging book, designed for younger readers but informative and interesting enough that it's a great introduction for anyone interested in the early 20th century plague outbreak.
The Mold in Dr. Florey's Coat: The Story of the Penicillin Miracle
Eric Lax
$23.00 $21.39This book goes beyond the iconic story of the discovery of penicillin and gets into the twists and turns of the later part of the story, as scientists worked to develop the discovery into a viable drug.
Marketplace of the Marvelous: The Strange Origins of Modern Medicine
Erika Janik
$20.00This book is a great introduction to the ways that the alternative medicine of the 19th century has ripples into the present, and to why people would choose alternative medicine.
Herbs and Roots: A History of Chinese Doctors in the American Medical Marketplace
Tamara Venit Shelton
$49.20This book helped me better understand both the role of Chinese medicine for Chinese immigrants in America, but also the influence of Chinese medicine on American medicine more broadly.
Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums
Samuel J. Redman
$42.00An engaging dive into the history of medical museums collecting bodies in the name of science and anthropology, and a great analysis of the often-racist motivations and often-exploitative practices used to procure them.
Silent Travelers: Germs, Genes, and the Immigrant Menace
Alan M. Kraut
$37.95I kept coming back to this book while I was researching different topics. Immigration and attitudes towards immigration touch so much of American history, especially in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, this exploration of attitudes towards health and medicine in anti-immigration sentiment is quite valuable.
Vaccination Investigation: The History and Science of Vaccines
Tara Haelle
$37.32A very quick and digestible read for such a complicated subject.
The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine
Lindsey Fitzharris
$19.00 $17.67A compelling window into a time of a lot of change.
Learning from the Wounded: The Civil War and the Rise of American Medical Science
Shauna Devine
$37.38This book filled a number of former gaps in my understanding about mid-nineteenth century medicine and science, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in that period whether or not you're specifically interested in the Civil War.
Artificial Parts, Practical Lives: Modern Histories of Prosthetics
$36.80
While only a small part of the book is medical history, this collection of essays and historical inquiry is valuable for understanding disability history and concepts of technology and the body.
Carville: Remembering Leprosy in America
Marcia Gaudet
$33.60This is my favorite overview of the history of Carville, although there are also many memoirs written by former residents that are worth checking out.
Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization
Iain Gately
$20.00 $18.60A history spanning several hundred years, on a fascinating subject.
The Tainted Gift: The Disease Method of Frontier Expansion
Barbara Mann
$90.00This book takes a close look at the ways in which European settler-colonists used contagious disease for their own purposes while expanding into more and more Native territory in the 18th and 19th centuries. It covers smallpox blankets but also disease during forced migration and other issues.
A History of Public Health (Revised Expanded)
George Rosen
$40.25This is a 20th century classic with some recent additions. It's a little textbook-like, but very informative.
The Toadstool Millionaires: A Social History of Patent Medicines in America Before Federal Regulation
James Harvey Young
$59.80An older book and it sometimes shows in the writing style, but well worth a read.
Polio Voices: An Oral History from the American Polio Epidemics and Worldwide Eradication Efforts
Julie Silver
$90.00There are many great works on the polio epidemics out there, but this one was particularly helpful in my research.