Jill Briggs In 1934 Jamaica was gripped by a moral panic. According to a well-publicized British naval report, the island was “rife” with venereal diseases, particularly syphilis. Some venereal disease experts speculated that infection rates topped eighty percent of the population and included children as young as eight. The root […]
Tag: race
The Cologne Sexual Assaults in Historical Perspective
Michelle Lynn Kahn “Are you safe?” Emails from loved ones flooded my inbox the first days of 2016. All assumed the worst-case scenario: that I was among the victims of the coordinated sexual assaults on New Year’s Eve at the Central Train Station in Cologne, Germany, where I am writing […]
Sex & Food in the Nineteenth-Century American Metropolis
Scandal erupted in a Philadelphia marketplace one Saturday morning in August 1839.
Teaching with Tumblr: Building a Digital Archive of Gender, Race & Empire
I am interested in the potential of digital media as a way to engage students.
Race, Class, and Sex Education in Early Twentieth-Century South Africa
The purpose of sex education for most of the century was conservative.
Interracialintimacies.org: An Online Interactive Archives and Teaching Tool
Mavis’ family photo album opened a door on a life of interracial intimacy.
Disciplining Black Bodies: Racial Stereotypes of Cleanliness and Sexuality
Victoria M. Wolcott There was a fascinating question raised during the comment period of the panel “Sex, Fitness, and Self-Control: Racial Hierarchies in U.S. Public Health Histories (1890-1995)” during the 2015 Organization of American Historians conference in St. Louis. An audience member asked the panelists why they used the term […]