Undergraduate Course: The Public's Health in 19th Century America (HIST10534)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | Over the course of the nineteenth century North Americans in the United States and its territories experienced overwhelming social, political, technological, and economic change. At the same time, they faced significant health challenges from epidemic disease to unfamiliar environmental ills, to feuding physicians. This course addresses such changes in context and introduces students to the debates surrounding the American public's health. |
| Course description |
When the nineteenth century began the United States was a fragile country, newly independent, and with ambitions for expansion. Among the many issues and debates of the day was that of health. Then, as now, healthcare was a serious concern for Americans; then, like now, they disagreed fiercely about who was responsible for the health of whom. In a free market were things like medical licenses safety measures or unfair monopolies? Should baseline health be a requirement for immigrants? What effects could western expansion, warfare, and race have on health outcomes? By the end of the century many of these questions remained, but their answers had changed.
In this course students will explore these and similar questions thematically as we work our way through texts on disease, medicine, and public health. Using class discussions and reading assignments as a baseline students will work to understand the way health, illness, and policy have intersected in history. Each week we will explore a different topic on these themes while students complete independent work on research projects. Classes will include discussion, some direct instruction, student presentations, and peer review work.
The study of History inevitably involves the study of difficult topics that we encourage students to approach in a respectful, scholarly, and sensitive manner. Nevertheless, we remain conscious that some students may wish to prepare themselves for the discussion of difficult topics. In particular, the course organiser has outlined that the following topics may be discussed in this course, whether in class or through required or recommended primary and secondary sources: sexual violence, racial violence, racist and misogynistic language, and graphic depictions of injured and/or ill human bodies. While this list indicates sensitive topics students are likely to encounter, it is not exhaustive because course organisers cannot entirely predict the directions discussions may take in tutorials or seminars, or through the wider reading that students may conduct for the course.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | A pass or passes in 40 credits of first level historical courses or equivalent and a pass or passes in 40 credits of second level historical courses or equivalent.
Students should only be enrolled on this course with approval from the History Honours Programme Administrator. |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students should have at least 3 History courses at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this). We will only consider University/College level courses. Applicants should note that, as with other popular courses, meeting the minimum does NOT guarantee admission.
** as numbers are limited, visiting students should contact the Visiting Student Office directly for admission to this course ** |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 22,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
174 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
80 %,
Practical Exam
20 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Non-written Skills«br /»
Class Participation and group presentation (20%)«br /»
This includes participation in seminar discussions, presentations, and peer-discussion and review of work in progress. 15% will be composed of regular weekly participation in seminars and seminar activities. The remaining 5% of this grade will come from the short group presentation (9-10 minutes).«br /»
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Coursework«br /»
1500 word Review Essay (30%)«br /»
3000 word Essay (50%) |
| Feedback |
Students will receive feedback on their coursework, and will have the opportunity to discuss that feedback further with the Course Organiser during their published office hours for this course or by appointment. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate, by way of coursework as required, command of the body of knowledge considered in the course
- Assess, read, analyse and reflect critically upon relevant scholarship in the history of American medicine and public health
- Understand, evaluate and utilise a variety of primary source material including (but not limited to) medical journals, popular periodicals, letters, and medical dissertations through coursework
- Establish the ability to develop and sustain scholarly arguments in oral and written form, by formulating appropriate questions and utilising relevant evidence
- Develop independence of mind and initiative; intellectual integrity and maturity; an ability to evaluate the work of others, including peers
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Reading List
- Arner, Katherine. "Making yellow fever American: The early American Republic, the British Empire and the geopolitics of disease in the Atlantic world." Atlantic Studies. 7.4 (2010) 447-471.
- Humphreys, Margaret, Marrow of Tragedy: The Health Crisis of the American Civil War. Johns Hopkins University Press (2013)
- Kraut, Alan M. Silent Travelers: Germs, Genes, and the 'Immigrant Menace'" Johns Hopkins University Press (1994)
- Mitman, Gregg. "In Search of Health: Landscape and Disease in American Environmental History." Environmental History. 10.2 (2005): 184-210.
- Mohr, James C. Mohr. Licensed to Practice: The Supreme Court Defines the American Medical Profession. Johns Hopkins University Press (2013)
- Owens, Deirdre Cooper. Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology. The University of Georgia Press (2017)
- Porter, Theodore M. Genetics in the Madhouse: The Unknown History of Human Heredity. Princeton University Press (2018)
- Spears, Ellen Griffith and Rosa Lopez-Oceguera. "Carlos Juan Finlay, William Gorgas, and Water Reed and the U.S. Army Yellow Fever Controversy: Competing Historical Memories." The Alabama Review, 74.1 (2021): 62-76.
- Valencius, Conevery Bolton. The Health of the Country: How American Settlers Understood Themselves and Their Land. Basic Books (2002)
- Willoughby, Christopher D. E. Masters of Health: Racial Science and Slavery in U.S. Medical Schools. University of North Carolia Press (2022) |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Research and Enquiry -Students will review a variety of primary and secondary sources discussing the history of public health, medicine, and policy in the nineteenth-century United States.
Outlook and Engagement - Students will have a greater understanding of the relationship between health and policy in the United States and how they changed over time in the context of geographic expansion and technological change.
Personal and Intellectual Autonomy - Students will be able to evaluate different historical sources and arguments and think broadly about the relationship between individual and community health.
Communication - Students will communicate in written and oral form in a clear, concise, and coherent manner for the organizer and peers. |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Prof Diana Paton
Tel: (0131 6)50 4578
Email: Diana.Paton@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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