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Full-Text Articles in History of Gender

'A Hundred Times A Man': Chastity, Martial Culture And Manhood In Franco's Spain, Ava M. Golde Sep 2026

'A Hundred Times A Man': Chastity, Martial Culture And Manhood In Franco's Spain, Ava M. Golde

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

Using the military as a case study, this essay seeks to understand how chastity became a symbol of complete regeneration for Spanish society, both in terms of a physical revival of a soldier’s health but also a moral and spiritual reawakening of the Catholic soul. In analyzing military magazines, instructional pamphlets, and the memoirs of soldiers, this paper unpacks the relationship between enforced male chastity and Francoist military masculinity, demonstrating how ideas of manhood were deliberately altered to fit a nationalist project of regeneration. Finally, I place this conception of the “New Spanish Man” within the broader context of militarized …


Attempted Book Bans: The Censorship Of Queer Themes In The 1950s, María J. Quintana-Rodriguez Jun 2023

Attempted Book Bans: The Censorship Of Queer Themes In The 1950s, María J. Quintana-Rodriguez

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

This article aims to explore queer book banning during the 1950s in response to Cold War national defense tactics. The decade witnessed the formation of the first public LGBTQ+ rights organizations in the United States as well as a rise in queer literature and publications. This publicization of queerness in society was seen as a rejection of traditional societal norms and threatened the Cold War-imposed gender ideology. In addition, the fear of Communist expansion led to the conflation of homosexuals and Communists, categorizing queerness and queer-related themes as immoral and as an interference in the United States' fight for democracy. …


The Rise Of Russian Peasant Witchcraft: A Response To Social Unrest In Imperial Russia, Katrina Sommer Jan 2023

The Rise Of Russian Peasant Witchcraft: A Response To Social Unrest In Imperial Russia, Katrina Sommer

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

Imperial Russia became home to a unique form of witchcraft from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. Combining its religious history, patterns of imperial expansion and governance, and social hierarchies, witchcraft accusations arose during especially troublesome economic and political times. Differing from eighteenth-century America Witchcraft trials, these trials were not only femicide. Targeting anyone who might subvert established social or cultural norms, these accusations often led to violent expungement, ending with a ritual of communal bonding.


"Either On Account Of Sex Or Color": Policing The Boundaries Of The Medical Profession During Reconstruction, Adam Lloyd-Jones Jan 2023

"Either On Account Of Sex Or Color": Policing The Boundaries Of The Medical Profession During Reconstruction, Adam Lloyd-Jones

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

In 1868, the American Medical Association (AMA) was asked to permit consultation with female physicians and admit them as delegates. In 1870, a delegation of Black doctors sought entrance to an Annual AMA meeting. The AMA refused entrance to both female and Black physicians. This paper argues that these meetings, and the question of inclusion for Black and female practitioners, arose out of the political climate that Reconstruction created. Expanding from previous scholarship, this paper further analyzes the role of Chicago doctor Nathan Smith Davis in the perpetuation of a white medical profession.


Bastardy And The New Poor Law: Redefining The Undeserving, Bianca M. Serbin Feb 2022

Bastardy And The New Poor Law: Redefining The Undeserving, Bianca M. Serbin

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

The English New Poor Law, enacted in 1834, signaled a new era of welfare in England, shedding the paternalistic provision of aid that was characteristic of the Old Poor Law. Existing scholarship positions the New Poor Law as an important landmark in the capitalist development of the English economy. This paper analyzes the text of the Bastardy Clause of the New Poor Law––which overturned the existing bastardy laws and said that mothers of illegitimate children could no longer receive aid from the parish––and contextualizes it as a major rethinking of charity in 19th century England. The debate on the …


Reevaluating The Pension System: The Struggles Of Black Widows Following The Civil War, Samantha E. Carney Feb 2022

Reevaluating The Pension System: The Struggles Of Black Widows Following The Civil War, Samantha E. Carney

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

Following the Civil War, the United States government invested heavily in the U.S. Pension Bureau: a government agency that distributed monetary aid to wounded veterans. This paper discusses the impact of race and gender with regards to pensions in black communities, as evidenced by the pension files of the 34th Regiment of the South Carolina United States Colored Troops. In particular, it addresses the lack of education and documentation amongst black widows which was largely due to their enslavement, in concert with the inherent racist and sexist prejudice of white Special Examiners hired by the Pension Bureau. This combination …


Full Issue: Volume 2, Issue 1, Editorial Board Feb 2021

Full Issue: Volume 2, Issue 1, Editorial Board

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

The first issue in the second volume of the Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal.


Educated To Death? Women’S Higher Education, Reproductive Health, And The Scientific Method In The United States, 1870-1900, Eleanor Naiman Jun 2020

Educated To Death? Women’S Higher Education, Reproductive Health, And The Scientific Method In The United States, 1870-1900, Eleanor Naiman

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

From 1870-1890, American gynecologists positioned themselves at the center of debates about women’s education. Gynecologists manipulated social anxiety about shifting demographics and falling birthrates among white middle class women in order to legitimate their emerging discipline. In doing so, they couched American understandings of infertility in a politics of blame and demonized women for their inability to reproduce. Although doctors’ conversations about “sterility” primarily took place within the pages of journals published by all-male medical associations, many women engaged in this debate and challenged medical authority in the pages of popular magazines and newspapers. Female doctors, teachers, scholars, women’s college …


Full Issue: Volume 1, Issue 1, Editorial Board Jun 2020

Full Issue: Volume 1, Issue 1, Editorial Board

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

The first issue of the Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal.