Maybe you thought my Substack would have a tough time finding a topic for the letter Q? LOL no; this week is about quickening.

This week in The Work of Healing we’re exploring how skeletal remains might be analyzed by historians as well as archaeologists, including an extraordinary burial from medieval Lund, pictured here. For more information on our online program, visit hopkinshistoryofmedicine.org/online-progr...

The Committee on Student Affairs is hosting Virtual Co-working Hours, held Fridays between 3-5 ET on Zoom. Whether you're working on seminar papers, dissertation chapters, or abstracts, join the Student Affairs Committee on Zoom for some camaraderie in writing! #histmed histmed.org/committee-on...

This 13th century French silver container held - yes you guessed it — the arm of a saint. This week in The Work of Healing, we are looking at the role of relics in healing. For more info on our online program, visit hopkinshistoryofmedicine.org/online-progr...

The call for papers for the 2026 annual meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine is live now! We hope you will join us in Buffalo! histmed.org/buffalo-2026/

This week's Substack is about pennyroyal, a plant used to end pregnancies for millennia. It's a story about a 17th century village drama.

Delighted that this popped up in my mailbox today! Congrats @sarahebull.bsky.social !

New post on Substack! Wonderful medieval book of recipes that included pregnancy-ending herbs. Yes, abortion *has* been around for about as long as we can see from written records.

Look what came today! Honored to be in this volume. Thx @nursingclio.bsky.social !

If it feels like America is sliding deeper into darkness—with voter suppression, book bans, gag orders, and fear spreading daily—you’re not alone. The truth is, fascism thrives when good people hesitate, but democracy grows stronger when ordinary people take action. youtu.be/CFIL5xrIjHg

Seen in Waterstones Trafalgar Square (not by me, thx Jamie Gianoutsos)! Love the cover @hurstpublishers.bsky.social did for me! www.waterstones.com/book/abortio...

If you're heading to any rallies...

Very exciting: the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography published a cluster of new entries on women stationers. See the intro by Valerie Wayne: www.oxforddnb.com/newsitem/906... ODNB entries are so helpful in identifying women from traces on printed material. So happy to see this work ❤️

New Substack post today. Sigh, 19th century anti-abortion arguments included the all-too-familiar worries that the "wrong people" would have big families.

New Substack post today. Sigh, 19th century anti-abortion arguments included the all-too-familiar worries that the "wrong people" would have big families.

Our Corner Society lecturers this academic year include: @renfro.bsky.social @cethompson.bsky.social @maryfissell.bsky.social @andrewlea.bsky.social @ayahnerd.bsky.social

Mifepristone was not the first mail-order abortion pill. See the new post on my Substack, all about an 1847 book that promoted a NYC abortion clinic and also mailed out pills.

History hivemind, what's best practice for citing stuff from Ancestry.com? Am happily deep in the weeds of 1740s Northampton, Mass (yes, the bad book episode... gasp, Jonathan Edwards finds young people reading Aristotle's Masterpiece). Have some thoughts on who exactly those young people were...

For those planning to drop in around other things, here's the Transcribathon running order (also available on the Eventbrite page) #EarlyModern 🗃️

Today's Substack: the story of Spencer Lindfield, a c19 London midwife and abortion provider. She ran what we might anachronistically call a reproductive services clinic, and birthed babies for a local charity as well as the Poor Law. And... was an inadvertent bigamist. maryfissell.substack.com

Hey! Want to get my book with FREE SHIPPING? And not from The Behemoth? For the next 31 hours, you can get it from Bookshop.org !! And any any other book they carry! bookshop.org/p/books/push...

Check out our newly released special issue, "Reproductive Objects"! Through a collection of stellar articles, it traces the material "stuff" that constitutes the uneven tapestries of power, authority, and knowledge making around human reproduction. www.press.jhu.edu/journals/bul...

Thomas Paine wrote this of British General William Howe during the American Revolution in 1778, but it’s evergreen: “He who is the author of a war, lets loose the whole contagion of hell, and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.”

I’m struck by how little coverage there’s been of this story, because it’s a big fucking deal. jessica.substack.com/p/judge-repe...

Spotted in the wild at Clifton Commons Barnes & Noble in NJ! Still a thrill. thx Sam! bit.ly/3HMMizb

OTD in 1618, Anna Harding was killed as a witch in Eichstatt in Southern Germany. Needless to say, she wasn't a witch, but a courageous healer who specialized in women's reproductive issues, including providing abortion. And a sex worker. RIP. Want to know more? bit.ly/4iwTsoL

The Trevor Project, a nonprofit that has provided that specialized support to L.G.B.T.Q. callers to the 988 suicide prevention hotline, said Wednesday that it had received a stop-work order for that service, effective July 17. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/w...

New SubStack post drops today! Did you know that Mary Wollstonecraft wrote a novel in which a young servant has an abortion after being abused by her employer? All described in the most matter-of-fact way.

Lawmakers vote to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales www.nytimes.com/2025/06/17/w...

Today is set to be an historic day: the decriminalisation of abortion in England and Wales. No more women questioned and criminalised for exercising our human right to bodily integrity.

While I totally get the humour expressed in this plaque (stuck on the side of a late Victorian London house) it’s also a good example of what “Great Man History” does to all of us. I can guarantee something of note happened in this house - birth, death, joy, survival - all deeply noteworthy.

Of course: making abortion legal is the same thing as making it "popular", and legalising it is going to lead to women just constantly having abortions at home because it's just so easy to, and great! 🤡 Jesus, fuck these people.

Peaceful people as far as the eye can see @ Baltimore No Kings!

The latest issue of Social History of Medicine is available online 📚 Includes 7 research articles (5 are open access) plus book reviews academic.oup.com/shm/issue

And in our current turmoil, a lovely moment of calm with an Albrecht Durer, cowslips, at www.nga.gov/exhibitions/.... Great exhibit, lots of 17th c bugs!

Honored to attend an insightful symposium yesterday, Finding Common Ground, abortion research after Dobbs. Great speakers, great research, and in the shadow of the Capitol.

Kristi Noem claimed, "In LA, what we've been going after is the worst of the worst. They're murderers." I'm pretty sure people lined up at Home Depots are looking for landscaping & construction, not work as hitmen. Work to better their children's lives. How very American.

It’s the 60th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Griswold v. Connecticut ruling protecting the right to access contraception. I’m a proud supporter of legislation to enshrine this right into law, because access to personal reproductive care shouldn’t be decided by any politician.

Today's Substack post: Inez Burns, the San Fransisco abortion provider to 1930s Hollywood stars -- and many other women.

Been carving up a book ms. already drafted, to re-structure... it feels kinda like this, but way messier. Painful & has tusks. Playing card from 1693, a whole deck of different meats!

Today MPs will debate e-petition 700014 on decriminalising abortion This petition, which has over 103,000 signatures, states: “I am calling on the UK government to remove abortion from criminal law so that no pregnant person can be criminalised for procuring their own abortion.” Starts at 4:30pm

Out now in History Today! www.historytoday.com/archive/hist...

✨Join the team ✨ The Society's peer reviewed journal Social History of Medicine published by @oxfordacademic.bsky.social has a vacancy for a co-editor. Deadline for applications 27 June 2025 Further details available at sshm.org/notices/ #histmed #skystorians

"Culture war." Today's article pick from Damn History, a free monthly newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer @maryfissell.bsky.social & @historytoday.com! Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe www.historytoday.com/archive/hist...

If you're not worried yet, you should be.

Are you an ECR in the history of medicine? Interested in digital humanities? Apply for a AAHM-Gale DH fellowship. INFO SESSION: 9:30 AM ET, Wed. May 28. histmed.org/aahm-gale-di...

Make sure you catch @maryfissell.bsky.social talking about her recent book and about “abortion’s long durée” open.spotify.com/episode/1pxb...

Are you an ECR in the history of medicine? Interested in digital humanities? Apply for a AAHM-Gale DH fellowship. INFO SESSION: 9:30 AM ET, Wed. May 28. histmed.org/aahm-gale-di...

Substack: story of a c17 German woman who practiced herbal medicine, providing health care to babies and women -- including abortion. And she did sex work on the side. And was accused of witchcraft. Many thx to ‪@jonathandurrant.bsky.social for intel.