Undergraduate Course: Heartland: Health and History in the American Midwest, 1750-1950 (HIST10537)
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 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 40 |
ECTS Credits | 20 |
| Summary | The Midwest is one of the most enigmatic of American regions. Its flexible borders and association with general 'Americanness' can leave it overlooked and poorly understood. This course will explore how health and illness have helped create a place both representative of a nation and a distinctive region |
| Course description |
Major events in the health history of the United States have roots in the Midwest, yet we rarely think of them as rooted in that place. Indigenous and colonizing populations faced disasters from epidemic disease that helped reshape the political and social orders of the regions. The Mayo and Cleveland Clinics - world leaders in medical research - emerged in Great Lakes States in the early twentieth century. The largest work of American medical geography attempted to catalogue the endemic illnesses of the region in the 1850s. Alternative or sceptical medical movements from the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries have been rooted in these states and key moments in environmental justice (or lack thereof) have influenced important movements for better care and safer communities. What about the middle of America has driven so much change?
In this course we will take a long view to learn about the nebulous region called at various points in its history the middle of the world, the Northwest, the Pays d'en Haut, the Illinois Country, La Louisiane, the Prairies, the Middlewest, the Heartland and the Rust Belt. Starting with the era of contact and colonization we will explore the intersection of health, illness, and place using several key episodes in the history of medicine and the history of the American Midwest. By doing so we will explore the contours of regional history and debate its use in the history of American health, medicine, and disease
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, ill and/or deceased 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.
In this course students will encounter primary sources that contain violent, racist, and misogynistic language as well as secondary literature that addresses these themes and my include depictions of ill or injured human bodies.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | Students must have progressed to Honours to take this course.
Students should only be enrolled on this course with approval from the History Honours Programme Administrator. |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2026/27, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Full Year |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
400
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 44,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 8,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
348 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
50 %,
Coursework
50 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Exam:
Three hour exam (50%)
Coursework:
2,000 word essay (20%)
5 primary source analyses at 1,000 words for a total portfolio length of 5,000 words (30%)
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| 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. Students will also have the opportunity to submit an essay plan for feedback prior to submission and one example primary source analysis prior to submission |
| 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; including primary and secondary sources related to the history of medicine and the historiography of the American Midwest.
- Demonstrate, by way of coursework as required, an ability to read, analyse and reflect critically upon relevant scholarship in the history of American health and medicine with special attention to place-based histories
- Demonstrate, by way of coursework as required, an ability to understand, evaluate and utilise a variety of primary source material including (but not limited to) medical journals, popular periodicals, letters, advertisements, and medical dissertations
- Demonstrate, by way of coursework as required, the ability to develop and sustain scholarly arguments in oral and written form, by formulating appropriate questions and utilising relevant evidence from primary and secondary sources.
- Demonstrate 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
Secondary Sources
Hans A. Baer, Biomedicine and alternative healing systems in America: issues of class, race, ethnicity, and gender, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press (2001)
William Cronon, Nature's metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, New York and London: W.W. Norton (1992)
Elizabeth A. Fenn, Encounters at the Heart of the World, New York: Hill and Wang (2014)
Holly Folk, The Religion of Chiropractic: Populist Healing from the American Heartland, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press (2017)
Bruce W. Fye, Caring for the Heart: Mayo Clinic and the Rise of Specialization, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press (2015)
Kristin L. Hoganson, The Heartland: An American History, New York: Penguin Books (2019)
Josiah Rector, Toxic Debt: An Environmental Justice History of Detroit, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, (2022)
Conevery Bolton Valencius, The Health of the Country: How American Settlers UnderstoodThemselves and their Land, New York: Basic Books (2002)
Primary Sources
Daniel Drake, A systematic treatise, historical, etiological, and practical: on the principal diseases of the interior valley of North America, as they appear in the Caucasian, African, Indian, and Esquimaux varieties of its population, Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co. (1854)
Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith (1925)
Sketch of the History of the Mayo Clinic and the Mayo Foundation, Philadelphia and London: W.B.
Saunders Company (1926 |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Research and Enquiry - Students will analyse a variety of primary and secondary sources discussing the history of medicine, health, and the environment in the context of the American Midwest. In doing so they will develop critical thinking skills and evaluate the historical contributions of multiple scholars and critically interpret primary sources.
Outlook and Engagement - Students will have a greater understanding of the historiography of region in the United States as well as that of the history of health and medicine. They will evaluate the role of regional history in the history of the United States and histories of medicine. In doing so they will be able to critically assess the use of geography, migration, and communication in the construction of medical and scientific knowledge communities over time in primary and
secondary sources.
Personal and Intellectual Autonomy - Students will be able to evaluate different historical sources and arguments with particular attention to primary sources and secondary scholarship that addresses multiple historical fields. They will synthesize key debates in the secondary literature on the American Midwest and history of medicine. They will also clearly and critically use primary sources including novels, newspapers, and medical journals to make historical arguments and judgements.
Communication - Students will communicate in written and oral form in a clear, concise, and coherent manner for the organizer and peers. During seminars students will communicate their ideas in an organized oral form and engage with the views of their peers. In written coursework students will demonstrate their knowledge and ability to critically analyse source material. In the exam, students will synthesise knowledge from the full module in written form. |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Sarah Naramore
Tel:
Email: Sarah.Naramore@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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