The Nursing Clio Reader
Histories of Sex, Reproduction, and Justice

The Nursing Clio Editorial Collective (Edited by), Jacqueline D. Antonovich (Contributions by), Laura Ansley (With), Sarah E. Handley-Cousins (With), Emily Beckman (Contributions by), Cassandra Berman (Contributions by), Ciara Breathnach (Contributions by), Laura Ansley (Contributions by), Scottie Hale Buehler (Contributions by), John A. Carranza (Contributions by), Sara Collini (Contributions by), Kathleen Crowther (Contributions by), Cara Delay (Contributions by), Sarah E. Handley-Cousins (Contributions by), Catherine Denial (Contributions by), Nora Doyle (Contributions by), Michelle Drew (Contributions by), Averill Earls (Contributions by), Lea Eisenstein (Contributions by), Mary Fissell (Contributions by), Gillian Frank (Contributions by), Lara Freidenfelds (Contributions by), Joseph Gamble (Contributions by), Janet Golden (Contributions by), Alicia Gutierrez-Romine (Contributions by), Evan Elizabeth Hart (Contributions by), Sharon Folkenroth Hess (Contributions by), Katrina Kimport (Contributions by), Rebecca M. Kluchin (Contributions by), Elizabeth Zeman Kolkovich (Contributions by), Modupe Labode (Contributions by), Judith Walzer Leavitt (Contributions by), Ian Lekus (Contributions by), Kirsten Leng (Contributions by), Amanda Mahoney (Contributions by), Elizabeth Garner Masarik (Contributions by), Michelle Moravec (Contributions by), Lina-Maria Murillo (Contributions by), Elizabeth Nelson (Contributions by), W. Jake Newsome (Contributions by), P. Mimi Bhatt (Contributions by), Ayah Nuriddin (Contributions by), Kelly S. O'Donnell (Contributions by), Udodiri Okwandu (Contributions by), Sarah Pripas-Kapit (Contributions by), Elizabeth Reis (Contributions by), Susan M. Reverby (Contributions by), Sarah Mellors Rodriguez (Contributions by), J. Nalubega Ross (Contributions by), Kylie Smith (Contributions by), Ronit Stahl (Contributions by), Nina Studer (Contributions by), Sarah Swedberg (Contributions by), P. Mimi Niles (Contributions by), Brianna Theobald (Contributions by), Lauren MacIvor Thompson (Contributions by), Stephanie Tillman (Contributions by), Felicity M. Turner (Contributions by), Theresa Ventura (Contributions by), Maggie Vinter (Contributions by), Anna Weerasinghe (Contributions by), Karen Weingarten (Contributions by), Caitlin Reed Wiesner (Contributions by), Samantha M. Williams (Contributions by), Shannon Withycombe (Contributions by), Cookie Woolner (Contributions by), Jacqueline D. Antonovich (Preface by)

9781978838604

Hardback, published 9 September 2025

246 pages, 22 color and 8 B-W images
23.5 x 15.6 x 2.1 cm, 0.454 kg

"Like the website it comes from, The Nursing Clio Reader fills an enormous need. It brings together seasoned and up-and-coming scholars of gender and medicine to address large, thematic problems, rather than narrow politics of the moment. This volume will surely be as relevant in five or ten years as it is now." - Jennifer L. Holland, author of Tiny You: A Western History of the Anti-Abortion Movement

"The Nursing Clio Reader highlights the struggle for sexual and reproductive freedom, the violation of groups and individuals' sexual and reproductive self-determination, and movements to fight against state control. The diversity of topics and viewpoints is outstanding, and it is similarly impressive how the editors were able to combine a diversity of viewpoints and experiences with intellectual cohesion, always turning the view back to state policies that limit the ability to control sex and reproduction." - Johanna Schoen, author of Abortion after Roe

On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturned Roe v. Wade, stripping federal protection for abortion rights and placing control in the hands of individual states. This monumental shift in policy underscores the need for deeper historical perspectives on reproductive rights.
 
The Nursing Clio Reader answers that call, bringing together essays that examine reproductive health through historical research and personal experience. Featuring both new and classic pieces from the Nursing Clio blog, leading historians of reproductive health provide insights that connect past struggles with today’s ongoing battles over bodies, reproductive rights, and health care. This collection offers intimate, urgent scholarship that speaks to the present moment.
 
A powerful resource for classrooms and individual readers alike, The Nursing Clio Reader invites reflection on how the past informs current debates, urging us to engage deeply with the history of reproductive justice in a time of unprecedented change, underscoring that indeed "the personal is historical." 
 

• Preface
• Part I: Sex Introduction
  • Sister Mariana'
    s Spyglass: The Unreliable Ghost of Female Desire in a Convent Archive
  • "
    Unfortunate Attachments"
    : Interracial Sapphism in Progressive Era Reformatories and Prisons
  • "
    Sex isn'
    t just having babies…
    "
    : Sex Education for Children and Adolescents with Intellectual Disabilities in the US, 1960s-1970s
  • PrEP, The Pill, and the Fear of Promiscuity
  • How to Do It: Sex Education and the "
    Sex Life"
    
• Part II: Contraception Introduction
  • Birth Control on Display
    Or, What Do I Do With All These IUDs?
  • IUDs and Their Legacy in China
  • The Women'
    s Health Movement and the Dream of the Diaphragm
  • "
    Just a Pinch:"
    Pain, IUDs, and Consciousness-Raising
  • The Pills
• Part III: Pregnancy Introduction
  • Where a Pregnancy Can Last for Years: The Remarkable Colonial Reports of Sleeping Pregnancies in the Maghreb
  • Eugenic Babies and the Dark History of Sperm Donations
  • How I Met My Mother: The Story of an Unexpected Pregnancy
  • Midwives and Pregnant Transgender Men: Laboring Towards Ethical Care
• Part IV: Abortion Introduction
  • Pigeons and Blasphemy: Tracing Abortion in Colonial Courtrooms
  • Coat Hangers and Knitting Needles: A Brief History of Self-Induced Abortion
  • The Miseries and Heartbreak of Backstreet Abortions: Before and After Roe
  • What Feminists Did the Last Time Abortion Was Illegal
  • Who Roe Failed: Class and Race in Abortion Before Dobbs
  • Retirement Life: Escorting Clinic Patients
• Part V: Loss Introduction
  • The Evidence of Infanticide
  • Maternal Grief in Black and White: Enslaved Mothers and Antislavery Literature on the Eve of War
  • Infant and Child Mortality and Black Activism in the Progressive Era
  • Historicizing Stillbirth
  • On Mothers Who Kill and the Racialization of Postpartum Mental Illness
  • Enforcing Death Rituals after Miscarriage is Just Plain Cruel
• Part VI: Childbirth Introduction
  • How My Postpartum Guilt Was Healed by a 17th-Century Poet
  • What to Expect When You'
    re Expiring: Pregnancy and Death in Seventeenth-Century England
  • "
    For Serving as Midwife"
    : Enslaved Women and Networks of Care in Revolutionary America
  • Is Childbirth Painful? Or, a Short History of Medicine and Culture
  • Constructing the Modern American Midwife: White Supremacy and White Feminism Collide
  • The Magic Liquid that Guarantees the Life of the Infant –
    Breast Milk as a Superfood
• Part VII: Violence Introduction
  • The Black Politics of Eugenics
  • Training Future Wives and Mothers: Vocational Education and Assimilation at the Stewart Indian School
  • "
    The Torture Began"
    : Symphysiotomy and Obstetric Violence in Modern Ireland
  • What Do You Think I'
    m Worth?: Forced Sterilization in Post-World War II America
  • When the War on Rape Met the War on Crime: A Black Women'
    s Perspective
  • The Stain of Slavery Is Silencing Sexual Violence Against Black and Brown Women
  • "
    Consent"
    -To-Yes and Pelvic Healthcare Examinations
  • "
    If they were white and insured, would they have died?"
    : Contextualizing the 2022 Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Report
• Part VIII: Justice Introduction
  • Why We Need the Pink Triangle in the Era of "
    Don'
    t Say Gay"
    
  • Silence and Noise: What AIDS Activism and Social Memory Can Teach Us
  • The Sex Lady Talks: Disability Rights and the Normalization of Sex in a 1980s Institution
  • Talking Back to the NIH
  • The Politics of US-Mexico Border Rule and Reproductive (In)Justice
  • Sovereignty Over Our Own Bodies: The Women of All Red Nations and Indigenous Reproductive Activism
  • Deep in the Heartbeat of Texas
• Acknowledgments
• About the Editors
• Notes on Contributors
• Index