Mary Ellen Wilson

Origins of Child Protection

Legend has it that the campaign to save abused children in New York was driven by the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The truth is more complicated.
French lawyer and politician Simone Veil, the Minister of Health, addresses the French Senate in Paris, on the subject of abortion, 13th December 1974

The Manifesto of the 343

In a dramatic act of civil disobedience, more than three hundred French women publicly confessed to having had an illegal abortion.
J. Edgar Hoover, 1932

The FBI and the Madams

J. Edgar Hoover saw the political effectiveness of cracking down on elite brothel madams—but not their clients—in New York City.
Art class at the Portland, OR YMCA, 1899

Scandal at the YMCA

Troubles grew at the Portland institution when one of its older residents attempted to poison himself after being questioned by police about same-sex relations.
closeup of the hancduffed hands of a person patterned as the gay pride flag

Teaching LGBTQ+ History: Queer Women’s Experiences in Prison

This instructional guide is the first in a series of curricular content related to the Reveal Digital American Prison Newspaper collection on JSTOR.
A banquet to HH Ranjit Nawanagar in India, 1907

Gender, Meat-Eating, and British Colonialism

As the power of the East India Company grew, British writers embraced the idea that the (alleged) passiveness of Indians was due in part to vegetarianism.
Portrait of a baby in a light coloured stroller

The Imperative to Buy the Best Stroller

The baby stroller is only the most visible symbol of the ethos of consumer capitalism that saturates American pregnancy and parenthood.
Boston Public Library

Out of the Card Catalog Closet

Librarians gathered in 1970 to challenge Library of Congress classifications and catalog subject headings that aligned homosexuality with deviance. 
An illustration for a 1957 Kotex magazine advertisement

The Feminine Art of Bow Hunting

Although hunting is often styled as a sport of men, American magazines marketed bow hunting to women in an attempt to legitimize and civilize the sport.
Group of strawberry pickers in a strawberry field in Bell, California, ca.1910

Internationalism and Racism in the Labor Movement

A commitment to internationalism helped build multi-ethnic campaigns within the more radical and anti-authoritarian side of the US labor movement.