Missing Mrs. Medicine: Tracing Doctors' Wives in the Archives of the History of Medicine
Kelly O'Donnell, Visiting Assistant Professor of History, Bryn Mawr College
Missing Mrs. Medicine: Tracing Doctors' Wives in the Archives of the History of Medicine
From fundraising for hospital construction to waging consequential political campaigns, the doctors' wives were an essential part of the growth of the American health care system as we know it. But they are largely missing from histories of medicine and are surprisingly difficult to locate in the archive. This talk examines why, and shines a light on the importance of marriage and domestic partnership in the making of modern medicine.
