Synopses & Reviews
Traditionally, the history of the birth control movement has been told through the accounts of the leaders, organizations, and legislation that shaped the campaign. Recently, historians have begun examining the cultural work of printed media, including newspapers, magazines, and even novels in fostering support for the cause.
Broadcasting Birth Control builds on this new scholarship to explore the films and radio and television broadcasts developed by twentieth-century birth control advocates to promote family planning at home in the United States, and in the expanding international arena of population control.
Mass media, Manon Parry contends, was critical to the birth control movementandrsquo;s attempts to build support and later to publicize the idea of fertility control and the availability of contraceptive services in the United States and around the world. Though these public efforts in advertising and education were undertaken initially by leading advocates, including Margaret Sanger, increasingly a growing class of public communications experts took on the role, mimicking the efforts of commercial advertisers to promote health and contraception in short plays, cartoons, films, and soap operas. In this way, they made a private subjectandmdash;fertility controlandmdash;appropriate for public discussion.
Parry examines these trends to shed light on the contested nature of the motivations of birth control advocates. Acknowledging that supporters of contraception were not always motivated by the best interests of individual women, Parry concludes that family planning advocates were nonetheless convinced of womenandrsquo;s desire for contraception and highly aware of the ethical issues involved in the use of the media to inform and persuade.
Review
andquot;Hansen's narrative reveals a remarkably rich engagement between laboratory work and the curiosity of ordinary citizens. Hansen's work is well grounded in primary research and includes the footnotes expected by medical historians, but at the same time it is completely accessible to any reader interested in the history of medicine. Hansen has done an admirable job of excavating the role played by images of medical progress in the popular media. Picturing Medical Progress From Pasteur to Polio is both a remarkable work of medical history and an entertaining account of medicine's golden age viewed through the eyes of the public.andquot;
Review
andquot;Even as a long-time collector of medical prints, I learned a lot from this extraordinary book. Hansen's digging has turned up many discoveries, providing a new perspective on graphic art in popular culture. The images are wonderful, but this is not just a picture book; it's a great read as well, filled with remarkable insights.
andquot;
Review
andquot;That doctors and their work routinely populate all forms of popular American culture is a historical aberration. Bert Hansen begins his illustrated account of the start of this phenomenon with the observation that until late in the 19th century, no one really wanted any more contact with doctors than was necessary-certainly not in publications intended to entertain. Louis Pasteur changed all that. As scientific triumphs accumulated, the hagiography of the doctor spread throughout the media, from print advertisements to radio spots, from comic books to adoring photo essays in Life magazine.andquot;
Review
"Hansen reveals a remarkably rich engagement between laboratory work and the curiosity of ordinary citizens. Hansen has done an admirable job of excavating the role played by images of medical progress in the popular media. Picturing Medical Progress From Pasteur to Polio is both a remarkable work of medical history and an entertaining account of medicine"s golden age viewed through the eyes of the public."Journal of the American Medical Association
Review
andquot;At the start, the practice of medicine is accorded little positive public recognition. The medical profession as pictured in magazines and newspapers is ineffective and unprofessional, in collusion with the funeral industry, and tolerant of inferior public health. By the 1950s, with the advent of the Salk polio vaccine, medicine has become a highly esteemed profession grounded in scientific research. Hansen documents the transition, making a detailed examination of images in both print and film media. Recommended.andquot;
Review
andquot;This book is analytical, nostalgic, sensitive, and just plain fun. Bert Hansen's meticulous privileging of the visual is a pathbreaking achievement for methods in the social and cultural history of medicine. You can be rewarded simply by looking at the wonderful pictures, but you will 'see' so much more in his lively prose.andquot;
Review
"This deeply researched book is the first major study of the large-scale World War II antimalarial project and is the indispensable starting point for future investigation of synthetic antimalarials."Journal of the History of Medicine
Review
andquot;Picturing Medical Progress from Pasteur to Polio is an authoritative, well-written account that will be a significant contribution not only to the history of American medicine, but to the history of American popular culture.andquot;
Review
andquot;Hansen presents material previously unexplored by medical historians, while maintaining a clear narrative style.andquot;
Review
"Picturing Medical Progress from Pasteur to Polio is an authoritative, well-written account that will be a significant contribution not only to the history of American medicine, but to the history of American popular culture." William Helfand - author of five books on medical imagery and a trustee of the Philadelphia Museum
Review
andquot;This skillfully written volume reminds us how books such as Microbe Hunters, films such as Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet, and even some of the old comic books and Life magazines in our basements once celebrated medical history and inspired the young to study science and medicine. Bert Hansen's rich exploration of the intersection of popular culture and the history of medicine opens wide a window on a time between the 1880s and the 1950s when physicians, nurses, and scientists were highly regarded warriors against disease and human suffering. It is a major contribution to our understanding of how medicine's cultural authority was established and expanded in the United States, vital to scholars and valuable to those who hope to spark a renewed enthusiasm among Americans for the study of science and medicine.andquot;
Review
andquot;For historians of all kinds, whether of science, of medicine, or of media, Hansen's book provides a strong argument for paying more attention to images.andquot;
Review
andquot;This is the best synthetic treatment we have of the role the mass media played in shaping and promoting the high esteem enjoyed by the American medical profession across the first half of the twentieth century. Hansen has given us both a richly detailed account of the images widely circulated to the public and a convincing analysis of the aggregate image those pictures of medicine fostered.andquot;
Review
andquot;Martin Halliwell offers fresh and inventive insights into the postwar period, showing mastery over an amazing range of material to demonstrate how fully the therapeutic triumphed in American culture.andquot;
Review
andquot;Following varied terms of health and illness, mind and body, through successive changes in the healing arts, Halliwell shows the postwar 'triumph of the therapeutic' in a wholly new light.andquot;
Review
andquot;To examine the broadcasting of birth control information from the silent era to the Internet, Parry thoroughly researched extensive media archives. Highly recommended.andquot;
Review
andquot;Manon Parryandrsquo;s engrossing book,
Broadcasting Birth Control, takes readers through the arguments early sexual and reproductive health advocates had when deciding what would be the best messaging to gain popular support for the use of contraception in America.andquot;
Review
andquot;Parry's clear, compelling, meticulously researched, and accessible book is the first to specifically examine the extensive use of mass media to garner support for the legalization of birth control during the twentieth century.andquot;
Review
andquot;By showing how the popular media helped win over a skeptical public, Parry deepens our understanding of the history of birth
control . . . a subtle and persuasive reinterpretation.andquot;
Review
andquot;
Broadcastingand#160;Birth Control is jam-packed with surprising historical tidbits on ways the media has been used by the family planning movement since its inception. Manon Parry has done a major service to the family planning field by capturing the history of its early engagement with the media and the evolution of that engagement with all the pitfalls and challenges along the way.andquot;
Review
andquot;Parry reveals to us many important parts of the [birth control] story we have for too long overlooked.andquot;
Review
andquot;[A] fine survey of the meditation of birth control.andquot;
Review
andquot;Therapeutic Revolutions makes a very good read. It should be on the reading list of every scholar concerned with postwar America, especially with the nature of therapeutic culture.andquot;
Synopsis
Today, pharmaceutical companies, HMOs, insurance carriers, and the health care system in general may often puzzle and frustrate the general publicand#249;and even physicians and researchers. By contrast, from the 1880s through the 1950s Americans enthusiastically embraced medicine and its practitioners. Picturing Medical Progress from Pasteur to Polio offers a refreshing portrait of an era when the public excitedly anticipated medical progress and research breakthroughs.
This unique study with 130 archival illustrations drawn from newspaper sketches, caricatures, comic books, Hollywood films, and LIFE magazine photography analyzes the relationship between mass media images and popular attitudes. Bert Hansen considers the impact these representations had on public attitudes and shows how media portrayal and popular support for medical research grew together and reinforced each other.
Synopsis
Picturing Medical Progress from Pasteur to Polio offers a refreshing portrait of an era when the public excitedly anticipated medical progress and research breakthroughs. This unique study with 130 archival illustrations drawn from newspaper sketches, caricatures, comic books, Hollywood films, and LIFE magazine photography analyzes the relationship between mass media images and popular attitudes. Bert Hansen considers the impact these representations had on public attitudes and shows how media portrayal and popular support for medical research grew together and reinforced each other.
Synopsis
Therapeutic Revolutions examines the evolving relationship between American medicine, psychiatry, and culture from World War II to the dawn of the 1970s. In this richly layered intellectual history, Martin Halliwell ranges from national politics, public reports, and health care debates to the ways in which film, literature, and the mass media provided cultural channels for shaping and challenging preconceptions about health and illness.
Synopsis
Therapeutic Revolutions examines the evolving relationship between American medicine, psychiatry, and culture from World War II to the dawn of the 1970s. In this richly layered intellectual history, Martin Halliwell ranges from national politics, public reports, and healthcare debates to the ways in which film, literature, and the mass media provided cultural channels for shaping and challenging preconceptions about health and illness.
Beginning with a discussion of the profound impact of World War II and the Cold War on mental health, Halliwell moves from the influence of work, family, and growing up in the Eisenhower years to the critique of institutional practice and the search for alternative therapeutic communities during the 1960s. Blending a discussion of such influential postwar thinkers as Erich Fromm, William Menninger, Erving Goffman, Erik Erikson, and Herbert Marcuse with perceptive readings of a range of cultural text that illuminate mental health issues--among them Spellbound, Shock Corridor, Revolutionary Road, and I Never Promised You a Rose Garden--this compelling study argues that the postwar therapeutic revolutions closely interlink contrasting discourses of authority and liberation.
About the Author
MARTIN HALLIWELL is a professor of American studies and deputy pro-vice-chancellor for Internationalization at the University of Leicester, U.K. He was the 18th chair of the British Association for American Studies (2010-13), he is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and the author of eight monographs and two edited volumes, most recently
William James and the Transatlantic Conversation.
Table of Contents
Part 1. The SettingMedicine in the Public Eye, Then and Now
Before There Were Medical Breakthroughs
Part 2. A New Regime of Medical Progress
How Medicine Became Hot News, 1885
Popular Enthusiasm for Laboratory Discoveries, 1885-1895
Creating an Institutional Base for Medical Research,1890-1920
Part 3. Medical History for the Public, 1925-1950
The Mass Media Make Medical History Popular
andquot;And now, a word from our sponsorandquot;
Popular Medical History in Children's Comic Books of the 1940s
Part 4. The Modern Imagery of Medical Progress
Life Looks at Medicine
The Meaning of an Era
Appendix
Notes
Index