Category Archives: History of Medicine

Featured, History of Medicine, Students and Interns

Meet Jennifer Dai!

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Every year, we enjoy hearing more from our graduate student interns who work in the Rubenstein Library. We are thrilled to have Jennifer Dai, the Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine Intern, share more below about her experience. Thank you, Jen, for your enthusiasm and contributions over the past year!

Photograph of Jennifer Dai. In the photo, she is outdoors wearing a black jacket, sunglasses, and a baseball hat.

Tell us a little about yourself.

I am a second-year graduate student at UNC’s School of Information and Library Science. I am working toward my Master’s of Science in Library Science and will be graduating in May. As with everything in my life, I went for the eclectic approach in my studies giving me a varied understanding of library science. Outside of the library I volunteer at Raleigh Little Theatre where I work backstage as a dresser. I am also training with my friends to complete a triathlon in the fall.

What do you find interesting about working in libraries, especially with the Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine Collections?

I was drawn to libraries because of the eclectic nature of the work. I could never decide what exactly I wanted to learn in school or do as a career, but the joy of libraries is that you never really have to make that decision. One minute I’m working with a fringe medical device that does sleep affirmations (the beautiful Psychophone) and the next I’m looking at parapsychology records or anatomical flap books to answer a reference question or prepare for a class. I never feel like I’m stuck in a rut because I am always learning about new topics and interacting with new and interesting materials. I was drawn to the Trent History of Medicine Collections specifically because of my background in science and veterinary medicine. Prior to starting graduate school, I worked as a veterinary assistant for 6 years and learned a lot about medicine in general through that experience. This collection combines my interest in history and science in such an exciting way! I can see how knowledge has grown and changed over time in the Trent History of Medicine Collections, and I can learn about different cultures, people, and events through this lens.

Photograph of the Psychophone, a metal box with a large silver megaphone like attachment on the front.

What is a memorable experience from your internship?

Anatomy Day was such a great learning experience for me. Getting to see over 100 first year medical students look at the collection was so rewarding. They were all so excited and wanted to learn so much about everything we had set out for them. I learned a ton about what kinds of questions people have, how to interact with students, how to manage crowds, and what it takes to create and implement an outreach program. It was such a fantastic experience and I’m so glad I was able to take part in it!

Do you have a favorite item you’d like to share?

Of course, I’m a big fan of the Psychophone and how that weird fringe medical device from the 1920s can still be poignant today. The care and artistry that went into making this device that is not readily known today is both beautiful and tragic to me. I also really like A Collection of the yearly bills of mortality, from 1657 to 1758 inclusive  because it’s so interesting to see the trends and changes in mortality data throughout the years in London. I made a few information visualizations from this book just for the fun of it. It showed me so much about how disease and mortality changed during that time, how the naming of diseases affected these trends, and how people lived and died during the 17th and 18th centuries in London.

 

Bingham Center, Featured, Franklin Research Center, Hartman Center, History of Medicine, Human Rights Archive, Travel Grants

Announcing our 2026-2027 Travel Grant Recipients

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The Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2025-2026 travel grants. Our research centers annually award travel grants to students, scholars, and independent researchers through a competitive application process. We extend a warm congratulations to this year’s awardees. We look forward to meeting and working with you!

The Archive of Documentary Arts awarded no travel grants this year.

Doris Duke Archives

Stephanie Opperman, Faculty, Georgia College and State University, “Ada ‘Bricktop’ Smith and the Legacy of Jazz Clubs in 1940s Mexico City”

Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine Collections

Elon Clark History of Medicine Travel Grants

Sarah Ahmed, Graduate Student, McGill University, “Madness and Methodism: Wesleyan Sick Societies and the Treatment of Madness in the British Atlantic World, 1741-1818”

Lea Eisenstein, Graduate Student, Princeton University, “Coming Out: The Private and Public History of Hysterectomy in America”

Olivia Maddox, Graduate Student, University of California, San Diego, “Maternal Revolutions: A Cultural History of Motherhood in Modern China”

John Hope Franklin Research Center

Jennifer Blaylock, Faculty, Rowan University, “Ghanavision: Ayi Kwei Armaha’s Work in Television in the 1960s”

Peyton White, Graduate Student, University of Texas, “Rastafari, Sovereignty, and Black Religious Nationalism in 20th Century Jamaica”

Halima Haruna, Graduate Student, Northeastern University, “An Intellectual History of African American Women’s Disability Politics, 1900s – 1920”

Christina Thomas, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of South Carolina, “Digitizing Freedom Summer: An Interactive Map”

Corbin Covington, Graduate Student, Northwestern University, “Black Historiography and Psychoanalytic Theory”

Mickell Carter, Graduate Student, Brown University, “Black Men’s Style During the Black Power Movement”

Sydney Smith, Graduate Student, Rutgers University, “Reading for the Revolution: Black Bookstores and the Radical Tradition of Self-Education”

Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History

John Furr Fellowship for JWT Research

Henry Jacob, Graduate Student, Yale University, “Tourism in Flight: JWT, Pan-Am, and the Making of U.S. Power in the Americas”

Mario Uolla, Graduate Student, Northwestern University, “JWT’s T-Plan and the Origins of Consumer Centricity”

Alvin A. Achenbaum Travel Grants

Jennifer Scanlon, Faculty, Bowdoin College, “We Try Harder: Paula Green, Inc.”

Francesca Polletta, Faculty, University of California, Irvine, “Advertising to the New Woman, 1970-1975”

Ijeoma Kola, Faculty, University of Notre Dame, “Kitchen Chemists: Black Women, Medical Neglect, and the Science of the Natural Hair Movement” (joint award with the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture)

Jonathan Marrow, Graduate Student, Cambridge University, “The Development of American Holocaust Tourism, 1945-2000”

Stephen Sonnenfeld, independent Researcher, “The Meaning Makers: A History of the American Advertising Agency”

Human Rights Archive

Jessica Day-Lucore, Graduate Student, Indiana University Bloomington, “The Human Rights Violators Club: The Uruguayan Dictatorship, the United States, and the Regulatory Regimes of the Late Cold War, 1973-1985”

Vivian Hernandez, Graduate Student, University of California Los Angeles, “’Nos interasa a todas’: Voluntary Motherhood and the Reproductive Rights Movement in Late Twentieth-Century to Early Twenty-First Century Mexico”

Ian Glazmer-Schillinger, Graduate Student, Syracuse University, “Web of Hate: White Power Goes Online, 1983-1999”

Eva Baylin, Graduate Student, Vanderbilt University, “Gender and the Radical Right: A Cultural History from the Margins to the Center of American Politics, 1965 – 2014”

Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture 

Mary Lily Travel Grant

Amaluana Brock, Graduate Student, Auburn University, “1990s Young Women Zines as Feminist Identity Building”

Hsiao-Yun Chu, Faculty, San Fransico State University, “Exquisite Boredom: Ladies Fancy Workbooks and the Birth of Leisure Crafts, 1850 – 1910″

Maddy Coy, Faculty, University of Florida, “Feminist Knowledge, Violence Against Women, and Public Policy”

Hannah Dudley-Shotwell and Justina Licata, Faculty, Longwood University, “A History of Abortion Fund in the U.S., 1960s – Present”

Halina Haruma, Graduate Student, Northeastern University, “An Intellectual History of African American Women’s’ Disability Politics, 1900s – 1920″

Ijeoma Kola, Faculty, University of Notre Dame, “Kitchen Chemists: Black Women, Medical Neglect, and the Science of the Natural Hair Movement”

Felicity Palma, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Brown University, “Eurydice in the Underworld”

Hope Tucker, Faculty, University of Iowa, “Feminist Bookstores in the South: A Film”

Lisa Walters, Faculty, University of Queensland, “Forgotten Histories: Renaissance Women and the Science of Atomism”

Jessie Wilkerson, Faculty, University of Tennessee – Knoxville, “In Sisterhood, In Struggle: A History of Feminist Possibilities in the American South”

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Travel Grant

Rachel Haines, Graduate Student, University of Virginia, “Close Reading as Queer Reading: Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s ‘kind of formalism’”

Jennifer Hamilton, Faculty, University of New England, Australia, “Exploring the Relationship Between Queer Theory, Buddhism, and Textile Art in Sedgwick’s Body of Work”

Samuel Rutherford, Faculty, University of Glasgow, “Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick, Transmasculinity and the History of Queer Ideas”

Suzanne Scanlon, Faculty, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, “In Time, a novel”

Featured, From Our Collections, History of Medicine, Travel Grants

Sterilization and the State

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Post contributed by Jessica Brabble, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, College of William & Mary . Jessica was a recipient of an Elon Clark History of Medicine Travel Grant. 

Excerpt from a pamphlet under the heading "Human Sterilization" discussing eugenicist ideas including "race degeneration." The font and design seem from the early 20th century
A pamphlet, published by the Human Betterment Foundation, explaining why human sterilization is “needed”. Found in the John S. Bradway Papers.

Shortly after the end of World War II, some of North Carolina’s most powerful businessmen and physicians felt the state was facing a major problem. The state’s  young men faced a high rate of rejection by Selective Service during the War for physical disabilities or “mental causes,” leading to worries that Carolinian men were inferior (Herbert Clarence Bradshaw Papers). In response, Winston-Salem native James G. Hanes and Procter & Gamble heir, Clarence Gamble, joined forces to create the Human Betterment League of North Carolina.

Thanks to the very generous History of Medicine travel grant, I recently traveled to Durham to consult collections on eugenics and public health at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library for my dissertation, “’Her Best Crop’: Eugenics, Agricultural Programming, and Child Welfare in North Carolina, 1900-1964.” My research analyzes the connection between agriculture and eugenics in the first half of the twentieth century. I’m particularly interested in how organizations like the Better Babies Bureau and 4-H integrated ideas about eugenics into programming offered to rural youth. Many of the individuals in charge of such programming were involved in the Human Betterment League, leading me to these documents in the Rubenstein Library.

Founded in 1947, The Human Betterment League of North Carolina was created to address the “concern for disturbing conditions already prevalent [among North Carolina’s men] but brought to public knowledge and attention” by World War II. The organization quickly got to work in studying North Carolina’s population to determine why men were being rejected from the draft at such high rates. According to their studies, there was a “disturbing incidence of mental disabilities” among North Carolina’s children, leading the League to throw their full support behind North Carolina’s sterilization laws (Herbert Clarence Bradshaw Papers). These laws, first passed in 1929 and updated in 1937, allowed the state to sterilize individuals considered “defective” or a “burden” on the state. This intentionally broad definition meant that a wide array of people—including non-white, poor, or disabled people—were targeted.

The Human Betterment League went on to publish a wide variety of pamphlets and advertisements that attempted to positively spin sterilization as a way to prevent “unwanted” children and improve the lives of “defective” patients. One pamphlet touted that “families of the sterilized patients likewise approve almost universally of the operation…many of the feebleminded girls have married after sterilization and these marriages have been reasonably successful” (John S. Bradway Papers). By 1957, more than 575,000 pieces of literature had been distributed by the League.

Color-coded map of North Carolina showing infant mortality by county.
Map of North Carolina Depicting Infant Mortality Rates by County from 1951-1955

Ironically, North Carolina seemed to be facing an infant mortality crisis at the same time as the Human Betterment League was promoting sterilization practices. The above image, found in Elizabeth Roberts Papers, shows us that infant mortality was devastatingly high in the state. Over half of all counties experiencing 30 or more infant deaths per 1,000 live births between 1951-1955, yet the Human Betterment League persisted in campaigning for sterilization well into the 1970s. By 1988, the League had disbanded, but its history is well preserved thanks to places like the Rubenstein Library.

Featured, From Our Collections, History of Medicine, Students and Interns

Finding Humanity in the Archives

Post contributed by Jennifer Dai, Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine Intern.

As I near the end of my first semester as the Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine Intern at the Rubenstein Special Collections Library, I’ve started reflecting on some of the amazing materials I’ve had the opportunity to work with. From Vesalius to the Four Seasons, I’ve handled exquisite and priceless items, often becoming caught up in their splendor and rarity. In those moments, I’ve found it easy to forget the human side of medicine. I look at hand-colored drawings and notice the artistry and the time it took to create such pieces but forget that the depictions are often of actual events that happened to real people.

I’ve spent the past few months researching patent medicine (aka quack medicine). Its colorful advertisements, deadly undisclosed chemicals, statistics, and fun facts are flashy and interesting. But they distract from the humanity of medicine. How did these cure-alls truly affect those who were on the receiving end of these treatments? How and why were they used? This is where the story of William Anderson Roberts comes in.

Letter from William to his wife depicting a horseback riding show he attended after the war.

The William Anderson Roberts Papers start in the 1850s with a young William corresponding with friends and family about his faith, work as a portrait painter, and love life. By August 1859, letters that used to be addressed “Dear Brother” are now addressed “Dear Brother and Sister”, implying he has married (which he did, to a woman named Mary earlier that year). In 1861, William enlists in the Confederate Army and, throughout the war, is consistently in and out of the hospital. Despite numerous letters and attempts to be discharged due to a chronic medical condition called Neuralgia, he remains in the army until the end of war in 1865.

Letter describing Gold Remedy as a cure for opium addiction from 1886.

This lifelong affliction led to William’s first prescription for opium. He states that it not only “relieved the dreadful pain, but it soothed and quieted my irritable nervous system and stimulated my mind to act with double strength and quickness.” Later in his writing, he claims he could have stopped the habit if it hadn’t been for the “Cruel War.”

During the “Cruel War” in 1864, a doctor prescribed opium to help with ongoing diarrhea and dysentery after William had a bad case of measles. This treatment continued for weeks, and when he tried to stop, he found that he could not complete his assigned duties. He tried for years to overcome his dependence but was unable to paint or function without taking morphine.

Note from William describing his poor relationship with his wife and troubles with morphine addiction.

William never overcame the addiction. By the 1880s the effect of continued opiate use is apparent in his correspondence. Where he had previously been requesting assistance from patent medicines, he now practically begs for cures. He states that his wife doesn’t understand him and has never even tried and goes as far as to say she would be better off if he were no longer alive. He mourns the life he could have had and discusses his guilt over not being a healthy and happy husband and father.

Fittingly, the last item attributed to him, and how his date of death is estimated, is a receipt for morphine dated between June and September 1900. Based on this estimate, he died at 63 years old.

Receipt for opium from 1900.

William’s story isn’t particularly unique. Many people then became addicted to opium after taking the medicine under a doctor’s orders. Many people still do.

What is remarkable about this collection is that we have access to his letters over 150 years after they were received. This collection, and those like it, give us the chance to see the humanity in individuals from over 100 years ago. To understand a person’s struggle and see firsthand the effects it has on them is something deeply intimate. Looking beyond the titles or rarity of items, you may just find the humanity of someone you will never meet.

 

 

 

 

Further reading on William Anderson Roberts

Caswell County post about William Anderson Roberts

Archive of Documentary Arts, Bingham Center, Do Your Research, Featured, Franklin Research Center, Hartman Center, History of Medicine, Human Rights Archive, Travel Grants

Research Travel Grants Open for 2026 – 2027

The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library is now accepting applications for the 2026 – 2027 Research Travel Grant Programs, offering awards of up to $1,500 to support research projects associated with the following collecting Centers, subject areas, and collection holdings:

  • Archive of Documentary Arts General Grant
  • Archive of Documentary Arts Sidney Gamble Travel Grant
  • Doris Duke Foundation Travel Grant
  • Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Travel Grant
  • Harry H. Harkins, Jr. T’73 Travel Grant
  • History of Medicine Collections
  • Human Rights Archive
  • John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History
  • John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History
  • Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture (Mary Lily Research Grants)

Anyone whose research would be supported by resources from the Rubenstein Library’s research centers is eligible to apply. We encourage applications from students at any level of education; faculty and teachers; visual and performing artists; writers; filmmakers; public historians; and independent researchers.

For assistance determining the eligibility of your project, please contact AskRL@duke.edu with the subject line “Travel Grants.”

Eligibility

Applicants must reside beyond a 100-mile radius of Durham, N.C., and may not be current Duke students or employees.

Information Session

An online information session will be held Wednesday, January 14, 2026, 2-3 PM EST. This program will review application requirements, offer tips for creating a successful application, and include an opportunity for attendees to ask questions of staff involved with the travel grant program. This information session will be recorded and posted online afterwards. You can register for the session here.

Timeline

The deadline for application will be Friday, February 27, at 8:00 PM EST. Decisions will be announced by the end of April 2026 for travel during May 2026 – June 2027. Awards are paid as reimbursements for personal expenses after completion of the research visit(s).

Events, Featured, History of Medicine, New at the Rubenstein Library

Celebrating the Dr. Thomas Bashore Collection

Date: Wednesday, October 29, 2025
Time: 4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Location: Rubenstein Library Room 153, Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room
Contact: Rachel Ingold (rachel.ingold@duke.edu)

The History of Medicine Collections recently received the Thomas Bashore, M.D., Collection of Artifacts. Dr. Bashore is Professor Emeritus of Medicine at the Duke University Medical School, where he specialized in treatment of cardiovascular conditions and congenital heart disease. He first began collecting historic medical artifacts, such as mechanical devices relating to electrotherapy and cardiology, and expanded his collection to include fringe medical instruments and treatments.

Please join us on Wednesday, October 29, at 4:30 p.m. to celebrate the Thomas Bashore Collection. Dr. Bashore will provide remarks.

Items from the Thomas Bashore, M.D. Collection are currently on display in the Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine Room and the Hubbard Case.

Featured, From Our Collections, History of Medicine, Students and Interns

Psycho-Phone: 100 Years of Unlocking Unconscious Powers

Post contributed by Jennifer Dai, Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine Intern.

Image of Psycho-Phone printed on wax cylinder case.

The History of Medicine Collection has recently acquired a fringe medical device, known as the Psycho-Phone, as a part of the Thomas Bashore Collection. Little is written about this item; upon immediate inspection it looks like every other wax cylinder phonograph, however, when you dive deeper you learn the interesting history of this hypnotic device.

In June 1927 the popular psychology magazine titled “Psychology: Health, Happiness, Success” advertised an instrument that claimed it would “enable you to use your vast unconscious powers to get more out of life.”  This instrument, called the Psycho-Phone, would allow users to listen to recorded messages of affirmation while sleeping.  Created by Alois Benjamin Saliger, this device utilized a clock which would be set to the time when an individual would be at their “most receptive cycle of sleep”. At that time, the device would turn on and play recordings of Mr. Saliger himself reading affirmations such as “you are being rejuvenated in perfect health.” “Your weight is normal.” “Your hair is growing in luxurious abundance.” and “I am now having a wonderful rest.” Once the affirmation was completed the device would automatically turn off and the listener would continue to sleep as a better version of themselves.

Recorder for the wax cylinder psycho-phone.

There were two variations of this device, either utilizing a disc or a wax cylinder to play these recordings. One major difference, aside from price, is that the wax cylinder version would allow users to record their own affirmations. In our collection we have a wax cylinder Psycho-Phone surrounded by numerous empty wax cylinders just waiting to hold affirmations. Enclosed in the travel case which holds the Psycho-Phone is a letter from Mr. Salinger himself from October 1927. He states that they had also sent “some information regarding affirmations which we think you will find useful as it has been prepared in the light of much expertise.” Unfortunately, we do not have the materials Mr. Saliger spoke of in his letter, leaving us to wonder what affirmations he personally recommended to buyers of his device. After allegedly selling 2,500 devices by 1933, the company disappeared, as did many of those devices.

Nearly 100 years later, we have apps and television shows that promote mental health in similar ways to Mr. Saliger’s device. A quick Google search will show numerous videos and podcasts promoting sleep affirmations. With this in mind, I see the Psycho-Phone as more than a heavy device that once resided on a few bedside tables, it’s the physical proof that no matter when in history you happen to live, we’re always striving for betterment any way we can.

Psycho-Phone without horn.

 

Sources and Further Reading:

Technogalerie Post for a Psycho-Phone for sale.

Cumming’s Center blog post by Dr. Ludy T. Benjamin Jr.

Archived post from Antique Phonograph News about the Psycho-Phone

PBS History Detectives Special Investigation episode about the Psycho-Phone

 

Featured, Franklin Research Center, History of Medicine, Travel Grants

The Complicated Legacies of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company

Post contributed by Michael Ortiz-Castro, PhD, Lecturer, Department of History, Bentley University. Micheal was a recipient of the John Hope Franklin Research Center Travel Grant & Elon Clark History of Medicine Travel Grant. 

Life insurance seems, perhaps, like one of the duller aspects of adulthood. For late 19th century Americans, life insurance represented and marshalled a number of concerns and anxieties about value, life, and community. Coming to force in the mid to late 1800s, life insurance—acquiring it, maintaining it, using it, and its meaning—all intertwined with questions about race, nation, and community—not surprising given that life insurance dealt with some of the most intimate aspects of individuals’ lives—their health, the health of their families, and the economic and social wellbeing.

As a historian of citizenship, my research discusses the history of life insurance as part of a broader analysis of the transformation of ideas of citizenship in the wake of the civil war. My book project, presently titled Acts of Citizenship: Belonging and Biology in Post-Reconstruction America, discusses life insurance in the context of the language companies used to sell policies to Americans, how folks in and outside the industry discussed the business of calculating the value of human lives, and the industry’s associated practices. These practices had a vision of citizenship yoked to ideas of biology and racial purity and helped shape the culture of life insurance—which would come to center round keywords like race, family, and citizen. At its intellectual heart was a project of racial differentiation, materialized in Irving Hoffman’s “Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro”. Written in his capacity as Statistician for the Prudential Life Insurance Company, the tract used mortality rates to not only advocate for denying insurance policies to black Americans, but to popularize the “extinction thesis”, a theory that black Americans were simply biologically unfit for equality.

What did black Americans make of this evolving discourse? With the generous support of the History of Medicine Collections and the John Hope Franklin Research Center at the Rubenstein Library, I began to answer this question by consulting the records of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, the largest black-owned life insurance company in the nation. Their records highlight the complicated place of black life insurance companies in the economic landscape; they highlight the complicated ways in which black Americans sought to both prove their fitness for citizenship and resist the terms that condemned death to permanent exclusion.

**

Black life insurance companies like North Carolina Mutual grew in a lacuna. The first black insurance companies came up to help black Americans cover funeral costs; North Carolina Mutual marketed itself as a life-oriented project; like other life insurance companies, the stated goal of North Carolina Mutual was to “help Negroes … accumulate … a fortune in life”, to make burial insurance unnecessary. Though life insurance companies faced significant headwinds in their early days due to the perceived sacrilege of putting a value to human life, they participated in and benefitted from a cultural transformation that saw it worthwhile to invest in one’s own life.

North Carolina Mutual’s insistence that black lives could yield value for the user was complicated for two reasons. The first reason was that, according to white insurers, black lives were too risky to include in the risk pool—better to keep them out, for no value or benefit could be generated for the community. In constructing their own risk pool, North Carolina Mutual posited a different vision of the community. However, the notion that black lives could yield value for their owner drew eerie parallels to the slave insurance policies of the antebellum era—it had been commonplace for owners to ensure the lives of their slaves and receive payment in the case of death. In attempting to both affirm and challenge the prevailing association between value, appreciation, and race, North Carolina Mutual affirmed that black lives were appreciable assets—and could be a boon when that wealth was owned by the individual themselves. This logic seems to have been a motivating factor for other black-owned business companies—for example, as seen below, the Atlanta Life Insurance Company similarly sold its mission as “a dream to develop economic independence” among black Americans.

North Carolina Mutual insisted on more than just that black lives could be considered appreciable assets. At the heart of their industry was the assumption that black lives were insurable to begin with—that is to say, a good risk. To do so, it had to assert that black lives were not, say, any riskier than white customers. One bulletin from Clyde Donnell, the Medical Director, makes the logic clear. An excerpt of the document, which discussed tuberculosis mortality rates among black Americans, can be seen below. Below that, you can see another piece, also written by Donnell, which discusses the issue of finding enough black Americans to ensure.

The doctor’s argument in both documents once more ambivalently positions black American’s health to that of their white counterparts. White insurance executives, like Hoffman, argued that high mortality rates across diseases between black and white Americans was indicative of innate biological inferiority. Black intellectuals like W.E.B. DuBois often tried to argue that these disparities were the result of racist measurements and biases; in his magisterial The Health and Physique of the Negro American, DuBois used modern sociological methods to prove that, in aggregate, mortality rates were consistent across race according to class. This was not the strategy of North Carolina Mutual—they affirmed the notion that black folks did in fact have higher mortality rates. However, rather than cast these higher mortality rates as evidence of biological inferiority, Dr. Donnell instead asserts that this means that white folk should become more invested in the uplift of black Americans—“the negro means much to the economic welfare of the southern white man”. In the latter, Donnell references the environmental factors DuBois preferred while maintaining the fact of disparate health outcomes according to race. In tying their destinies together, Donnell’s logic resisted the idea that a white America was the inevitable result.

As materially important as it was for black Americans to have access to life insurance and the financial means to support themselves through death and emergencies, like other life insurance companies, North Carolina Mutual understood that its project was not just about securing the financial wellness of its members—no, the goal was to secure the political and economic uplifting of the people

This can be seen below, where the writings double as political mission: “it is better not to have lived, than to have lived and not contributed anything to the success of any one else’s life”.

At the time of its founding, North Carolina Mutual found itself serving a community that had achieved massive cultural victories alongside the entrenchment of Jim Crow in the South. As a business that believed in racial uplift, it relied on the language of progress and assimilation evinced by leading intellectuals by Booker T Washington. However, as a business oriented towards the advancement of black Americans in the face of racism, it had to take a stand on discourses of racial inferiority. Life insurance singularly combined questions of individual health and the future of the community that animated many of the driving cultural transformations of the late 19th century—the records of NC Mutual prove useful in understanding how black Americans navigated their place in the nation, and how the fight for equality extended to the domain of health, wellness, and the everyday.

Exhibits, Featured, From Our Collections, History of Medicine, Students and Interns

Announcing “Defiant Bodies: Discourses on Intersex, 1573-2003”

Post contributed by Madeline Huh, Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine Intern.

As this year’s Trent History of Medicine Intern, I was given the exciting opportunity to curate an exhibit for the Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine Room. I’m pleased to say that my exhibit, entitled “Defiant Bodies: Discourses on Intersex, 1573-2003,” is now open to the public in the Rubenstein Library. The exhibit explores changing dialogues around nonbinary sex and intersex identity over six centuries, from early modern medicine to 21st-century activism and (some of) the many interdisciplinary representations in between. There is also an online version of the exhibit, which you can explore here.

Thank you to all who have helped me during the process of creating this exhibit, especially Rachel Ingold, Meg Brown, Yoon Kim, and Grace Zayobi–I am very grateful for all your feedback along the way and your consistent willingness to engage in discussion with me on this complicated and important topic with such sensitivity.

“Defiant Bodies” will be on view from May 13, 2025 to October 4, 2025 in the Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine Room. I am so very excited for you to explore it in-person and online!

Featured, History of Medicine, Students and Interns

Meet Madeline Huh!

Every year, we enjoy hearing more from our graduate student interns who work in the Rubenstein Library. We are thrilled to have Madeline Huh, the Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine intern, share more below about her experience. Thank you, Madeline for your work and contributions over the past year!

Tell us a little about yourself.

My name is Madeline Huh, and I am currently finishing up my first year in the MSLS program at UNC School of Information and Library Science in Chapel Hill. For my undergraduate, I attended Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, where I studied Greek & Latin language and worked in the department of Special Collections in the library.

My study of classical languages is what introduced me to working with special collections, and more specifically rare books and early manuscripts, in the first place. I took a course in Medieval Latin my freshman year of college, and a significant part of that course was learning to transcribe early Latin manuscript fragments and get that transcription into a machine-readable format, so the library’s description of the fragments could be improved. My interest in special collections stuck after that experience. As the years have passed, I’ve developed strong interests in the history of the book, medieval Latin manuscripts, and early modern print culture. Ideally, I hope to pursue a career as a rare book librarian.

Outside of work and school, I enjoy running, reading for fun, spending time with my cat, and going to concerts!

What do you find interesting about working in libraries, especially our History of Medicine Collections?

For me, it’s wonderful to be in close contact with historical books, papers, and artifacts and to feel connected to the past in such a material way. I think there’s so much value in being able to work directly with physical materials in the library and better understand their historical context through the lens of materiality. Likewise, it’s special to be able to share this with patrons and students who come to the Rubenstein Library’s reading room and instruction sessions, especially those who are just beginning to learn about special collections research. Each person brings their own unique interests and experiences to the library, and it’s rewarding to do what I can to help people’s research blossom.

Beyond that, I am personally interested in histories of gender and sexuality, particularly in medieval and early modern Europe, which has made working in the History of Medicine Collections a great fit for me. Working here has allowed me to consider the many ways that the study of women, gender, and sexuality intersects with health and medicine–just a few of these are the development of the fields of obstetrics and gynecology, global health outcomes for women, changing definitions of “deviant” gender and sexuality, the development of contraceptive care, and medical responses to queer identity. These topics are strongly represented in the History of Medicine Collections, also often having some overlap with materials from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture. I consistently learn so much through my work here, which is a huge part of why I enjoy working in libraries.

What is a memorable experience from your internship?

Oh, there have been so many! It’s hard to choose just one.

There were a couple days where Rachel Ingold, Meghan Lyon, and I worked on creating an inventory for the Thomas Bashore Collection of artifacts. There were so many surprising and remarkable items to look at during these meetings, from a leech jar, to various bloodletting tools, to electro-therapy devices, to a physician’s sample of LSD.

small box labelled as containing LSD. It is stamped "Physician's Sample"
Physician’s Sample of LSD

We would open up a box with a vague idea of what was inside, unwrap the artifacts from tissue paper (which felt a little like unwrapping gifts, in a strange way), and then try to figure out what we were looking at more specifically. Rachel came equipped with reference books on medical instruments that were so interesting to look through as well.

I’ve deeply enjoyed getting to learn more about the artifacts in the History of Medicine Collections throughout this year. These are things you might not expect to find in a library, but they have such great teaching and research potential and are such a great compliment to the other print and archival materials in the collections. Beyond that, learning about donors and the donation process in the History of Medicine Collections has been so interesting to me.

Do you have a favorite item you’d like to share?

I especially love the items in the History of Medicine Collections that show the intersection of art and medicine. One famous example of this is the frontispiece of Andreas Vesalius’s De humani corporis fabrica, which was so cool to see in person and regularly use during instruction. A few years ago, I read Katharine Park’s book Secrets of Women, and since then, I’ve been so fascinated with the woman depicted at the center of the Vesalius frontispiece.

One book that I wasn’t familiar with before working in the History of Medicine Collections is a 1551 edition of Hans von Gersdorff’s Feldtbuch der Wundt Artzney, which might be translated as the “Fieldbook of Surgery.” For one thing, this book features the original of the woodcut Josiah Charles Trent adopted for use as his bookplate, which depicts an amputation:

On the left is a woodcut illustration show someone having their leg amputated using a bonesaw. It's been hand colored and is in a book. On the right is a book plate with the same illustration and the name of Josiah Charles Trent, M.D.
Illustration of an amputation from Feldtbuch der Wundt ArtzneyJosiah (left) and Dr. Josiah Trent’s bookplate (right)

There are so many interesting hand-colored woodcut images in this book, such as this skeleton with a vibrant green background, which I love.

On the left is a foldout illustration from an early printed book showing a skeleton with the bones labelled. The background is painted green. On the right is a woodcut illustration of various metal medical tools.
Additional illustrations from Hans von Gersdorff’s Feldtbuch der Wundt Artzney

Early printed books like these are so interesting to me because of the way they show the connection between the artisanship of printing and the pursuit of understanding of the human body. I’m deeply grateful for experiences I’ve had during this internship, being exposed to familiar and unfamiliar materials alike and developing a knowledge of the kinds of print and archival materials that make up the History of Medicine Collections.

I’m very grateful for the experiences I’ve been able to have this year as the intern for the History of Medicine Collections!