Spring Semester Welcome Back Event: A critical reading of Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls
Host: Kelly O'Donnell, Towson University
The Pharmacy History Working Group is a space for exploring how pharmacy has shaped and been shaped by science, society, and culture across time and around the world. From ancient materia medica to modern pharmaceutical giants, pharmacy has always been more than just pills and prescriptions. It is a profession, a science, a business, and a deep human endeavor. This group delves into the multifaceted nature of pharmacy: as a healing art, a site of knowledge production, a tool of empire, and a driver of global economics.
We intend to spark interdisciplinary conversations among historians of science, medicine, and technology, as well as scholars in pharmaceutical studies, STS, and medical anthropology. We aim to think across borders—geographic, temporal, and disciplinary—and bring together individuals who are curious about how pharmacy has evolved in various contexts, from colonial drug trades to contemporary AI-driven drug development.
Our regular meetings will feature a mix of book talks, manuscript workshops, roundtables, and introductions to the archive. We are accepting proposals for presentations/workshops for our 2026 meetings.
Upcoming Meetings
Wednesday, January 21, 2026, 12:00 - 1:30 pm EST
Wednesday, February 18, 2026, 12:00 - 1:30 pm EST
Speaker: Audrey Ke Zhao, UC Santa Cruz & CHSTM Research Fellow
Format: Presentation with Q&A
Title: The Global Journey of Ginseng: A Study of its Impact on Early Modern Trade and Cultural Exchange
Abstract: Zhao's research argues that ginseng's transformation into a vital commodity of the Qing Dynasty was driven by its integration into the empire’s administrative and economic systems, with Pierre Jartoux’s identification fundamentally shifting ginseng trade from inland to maritime routes. This transformation not only expanded ginseng’s global circulation and accessibility but also reshaped patterns of early modern commerce, intertwined cultural and economic exchanges, and influenced understandings of ginseng's therapeutic uses across diverse contexts.
Wednesday, March 18, 2026, 12:00 - 1:30 pm EDT
Speaker: Ryan A. Kashanipour, University of Arizona
Title: Epidemics and Epistemologies: Experiencing Illness in Colonial Yucatán
Abstract: From decade long outbreaks of smallpox and measles to recurrent eruptions of typhus and influenza, epidemic outbreaks of disease were a part of the everyday experiences of the inhabitants of colonial Yucatán. Across the colonial period, from the sixteenth and into the nineteenth centuries, the region served as the mainland entry point for many Old World diseases. So endemic were these diseases that a chronicler of the seventeenth century remarked that “it was rare for someone to even pass through the land and without falling sick with one epidemic disease or another.” Local populations lived with and negotiated diseases at an everyday level, so much so that it shaped the nature of knowledge and colonial relations. This talk examine colonial remedies for diseases and aim to open up conversations about how past experiences with epidemics can open up new forms of understanding and interaction. This talk examines colonial remedies for diseases and aims to open up conversations about how past experiences with epidemics can open up new forms of understanding and interaction.
Wednesday, April 15, 2026, 12:00 - 1:30 pm EDT
TBA
Wednesday, May 20, 2026, 12:00 - 1:30 pm EDT
TBA
Past Meetings
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Speaker: Laurence Totelin, Cardiff University.
Talk: Beyond medical pluralism: Interactions between physician-pharmacists and other craftspeople in the Graeco-Roman world
Abstract: While there is a growing body of scholarship on the ancient ‘medical marketplace’, that is, the plurality of healers available to patients in the ancient world, the interactions between healers and other types of craftspeople are far less studied. Yet, physicians and pharmacists, which within the context of this paper are considered as a single category, interacted with and relied upon numerous craftspeople in the exercise of their trade: potters moulded various pots; smiths created instruments and pans; woodworkers crafted storage systems; stone engravers inscribed medicinal stamps; perfume makers provided key ingredients for the preparation of medicinal products.
This paper examines several examples of these interactions between healers and other craftspeople: some are explicitly discussed by ancient medical authors, such as Galen; others are more implicit and must be teased out from our sources. The paper concludes that healers generally, and physicians in particular, were part of an ecosystem of craftspeople, in which hierarchies may not always have been those that we find presented in the works of medical authors.
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Speaker: Lauren MacIvor Thompson, Kennesaw State University
Format: Chapter Workshop
A word from our speaker: "Thank you for reviewing this draft chapter of my book, Women’s Bodies, Doctors’ Rights: The Medical Politics of Birth Control in the United States (under contract with Rutgers University Press). The book consists of seven chapters which trace the arc of birth control's legalization in the United States through the lens of how women reformers ("Feminists," "Suffragists" and "Mothers") shaped the disparate responses of male experts and officials ("Doctors," "Legislators," "Eugenicists," and "Prescribers") to contraception and control of women's health. "Prescribers" examines the relationship between two court cases (US v. Dennett in 1930 and U.S. v. One Package in 1936) and how their rulings for medical privacy and physician prerogative became the "medical profession's bill of rights in the field of contraceptive medicine." Doctors like Clarence Gamble and Robert L. Dickinson became part of a new generation of "Prescribers" of contraception, setting the stage for the development of the ultimate medical achievement in birth control by the middle of the twentieth century: the emergence of the Pill."
The chapter is attached below. You must be signed in to access it.
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Pre-Modern Pharmacy between Theory and Practice
Format and Theme: Roundtable on the History of Pharmacy and Pharmaceuticals (HoPP), forthcoming special issue.
Host: Lucas Richert (University of Wisconsin - Madison)
Speakers: Claire Burridge (University of Oslo), Petros Bouras-Vallianatos (University of Athens), Amanda Repress (Ohio State University)
Group Conveners
Claire Burridge
Claire Burridge is a Senior Researcher at the University of Oslo, working on the MINiTEXTS project. Her research on early medieval health and medicine draws on a range of disciplines, bringing together textual, archaeological, and (bio)codicological evidence. Broadly, Claire is interested in tracing the movement of medical knowledge and exploring the relationship between medical knowledge and practice. Her first book, Carolingian Medical Knowledge and Practice, c.775-900: New Approaches to Recipe Literature, is available open access.
Kristen Huset
Kristen Huset is the Program Manager at the American Institute of the History of Pharmacy and holds a BA in Art History, an MLIS with a focus on Archives, and has decades of experience in museums and cultural history institutions. Her interests in pharmacy history include botanicals and poisons. Kristen is passionate about connecting people with information and fostering collaborative environments that support historical scholarship.
Kelly O'Donnell
Kelly O’Donnell is an Assistant Professor of History at Towson University and a Contributing Editor of History of Pharmacy and Pharmaceuticals. Her research focuses on women, medicine, and health politics in modern America. Her first book, The Pill Hearings (under contract with Rutgers University Press), examines how concerns over the birth control pill’s side effects reshaped debates about reproductive health, pharmaceutical regulation, and scientific and medical authority in the 1960s and 1970s.
JJ Reynolds-Strange
JJ Strange is a Ph.D. Candidate in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology and East Asia History programs at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. She is currently working on her dissertation project, tentatively titled Defined by Molecules: Chemical discipline(s) and the reimagining of Traditional Chinese Medicine 1915-1960," which follows the creation and dissolution of a research program in China where chemists and pharmacists worked together to investigate Chinese herbs for biochemical properties. Her research interests include the history of chemistry, pharmacy, traditional Chinese medicine, 20th-century Chinese nationalism, Chinese scientism, and the intersection of research programs and political rhetoric. Along with her dissertation research, she has worked with UW-Madison’s School of Pharmacy to illuminate the lives and work of Chinese pharmacists, who studied under Dr. Edward Kremers. She curated an exhibit in 2023 titled: Translating Tradition: Traditional Chinese Medicine and UW- Madison School of Pharmacy.
Lucas Richert
Lucas Richert is a historian of medicine and pharmacy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He focuses on legal and illegal drugs, drug science and technology, alternative therapies, and mental health. He is the author of three monographs and one anthology: A Prescription for Scandal, Strange Trips, Break On Through, and Cannabis: Global Histories. These publications all emphasize the evolving nature of health knowledges and logics over time. Richert holds the George Urdang Chair in the History of Pharmacy within the UW-Madison School of Pharmacy and he is housed within the Clinical Practice, Innovation, and Research Division, and mostly teaches within the School of Pharmacy. He also serves as the Executive Director at the American Institute of the History of Pharmacy.
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