90 Second Narratives

“In 1972 the evangelical celebrity preacher Billy Graham filmed a television interview with talk show host Phil Donahue in a unique location: a women’s prison in Marysville, Ohio…”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Aaron Griffith.

For further reading:
God’s Law and Order: The Politics of Punishment in Evangelical America by Aaron Griffith (Harvard University Press, 2020)

Episode transcript:
https://skymichaeljohnston.com/90secnarratives/

“At the heart of my book are two questions. How was an Indian elected to the British Parliament in 1892? Why would an Indian—a colonial subject from a land five thousand miles away—want to stand for election to Parliament in the first place?”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Dinyar Patel. 

For further reading:
Naoroji: Pioneer of Indian Nationalism by Dinyar Patel (Harvard University Press, 2020)

Episode transcript:
https://skymichaeljohnston.com/90secnarratives/

This special episode combines all the stories from Season 4...

“'Do you Bant?' Diet and Deafness in Victorian England" - Dr. Jaipreet Virdi, Assistant Professor, Department of History at the University of Delaware

"Black Women’s Exercise at Greater Bethel Gymnasium" - Dr. Ava Purkiss, Assistant Professor of American Culture and Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Michigan

"Menopause and the Mongols" - Dr. Susan P. Mattern, Distinguished Research Professor, Department of History at the University of Georgia

"Stephen Ricks and Childhood in the Antebellum North" - Dr. Crystal Lynn Webster, Assistant Professor, History Department at the University of Texas at San Antonio

"Diabetes, Science, and Race in the Early Twentieth Century" - Dr. Arleen Marcia Tuchman, Nelson O. Tyrone Jr. Chair and Professor of History, Vanderbilt University

"Finding Lu Gwei-djen in the Archive of Chinese Medical Science" - Dr. Lan A. Li, Assistant Professor, Department of History at Rice University

"Renaissance Women as Frontline Healers" - Dr. Sharon T. Strocchia,  Professor of History, Emory University

"Intimate Exchanges and Public Health in Colonial Mexico" - Dr. Paul Ramírez, Associate Professor, Department of History at Northwestern University

"The History of Nursing in the Context of COVID-19" - Dr. Barbra Mann Wall, Thomas A. Saunders III Professor and Director of the Eleanor Crowder Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry, University of Virginia School of Nursing

Episode transcript:
https://skymichaeljohnston.com/90secnarratives/

“As the novel coronavirus began to spread in the United States, people across the country turned to historians for crucial insights regarding the history of disease and nursing…”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Barbra Mann Wall.

For further reading:
Nurses and Disasters: Global, Historical Case Studies edited by Barbra Mann Wall and Arlene W. Keeling (Springer, 2015)

The Eleanor Crowder Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry

Episode transcript:
https://skymichaeljohnston.com/90secnarratives/

“In 1916, Elliott P. Joslin, the foremost diabetes specialist in the United States, insisted that…”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Arleen Marcia Tuchman.

For further reading:
Diabetes: A History of Race and Disease by Arleen Marcia Tuchman (Yale University Press, 2020)

Episode transcript:
https://skymichaeljohnston.com/90secnarratives/

“This is a little story about a little child. In 1822 the Philadelphia Shelter for Colored Children opened as the first formalized, private orphanage to admit African American children…”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Crystal Lynn Webster.

For further reading:
Beyond the Boundaries of Childhood: African American Children in the Antebellum North by Crystal Lynn Webster (University of North Carolina Press, 2021) 

Episode transcript:
https://skymichaeljohnston.com/90secnarratives/

“In 1923, a group of black women from the South Side of Chicago did what many women do when they want to lose weight—they joined a gym…”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Ava Purkiss.

For further reading:
Ava Purkiss, “‘Beauty Secrets: Fight Fat’: Black Women’s Aesthetics, Exercise, and Fat Stigma, 1900-1930s,” Journal of Women’s History, 29 (2), 2017: 14-37. 

From Slave Cabins to the White House: Homemade Citizenship in African American Culture by Koritha Mitchell (University of Illinois Press, 2020)

Episode transcript:
https://skymichaeljohnston.com/90secnarratives/

“Genghis Khan’s mother was abandoned by her clan with seven small children in 1170. Her husband was dead. Her oldest son, who would go on to conquer much of Asia, was nine…”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Susan P. Mattern.

For further reading:
The Slow Moon Climbs: The Science, History, and Meaning of Menopause by Susan P. Mattern (Princeton University Press, 2019)

Episode transcript:
https://skymichaeljohnston.com/90secnarratives/

“William Banting was a British funeral director who, at age 66, was obese, weighing 202 pounds at 5'5", and needed a truss to hold an umbilical rupture in place. His weight was so troublesome that he could not tie his shoes and had to walk down the stairs backwards to limit the pain of weight on his knees and ankles. He tried losing the weight but his efforts were in vain…”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Jaipreet Virdi.

For further reading:
Hearing Happiness: Deafness Cures in History by Jaipreet Virdi (University of Chicago Press, 2020)

Episode transcript:
https://skymichaeljohnston.com/90secnarratives/

“Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the Spanish Crown developed a policy of strict quarantine whenever an epidemic broke out in its American colonies…”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Paul Ramírez. 

For further reading:
Enlightened Immunity: Mexico's Experiments with Disease Prevention in the Age of Reason by Paul Ramírez (Stanford University Press, 2018) 

Episode transcript:
https://skymichaeljohnston.com/90secnarratives/