Health spectacle in American popular literature, 1790-1870

Stewart, Victoria Lane

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/132564 Copy

Description

Title

Health spectacle in American popular literature, 1790-1870

Author(s)

Stewart, Victoria Lane

Issue Date

2025-12-03

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Murison, Justine S

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Murison, Justine S

Committee Member(s)

• Littlefield, Melissa M
• Hilger, Stephanie M
• Jones, Jamie L

Department of Study

English

Discipline

English

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• eighteenth century American literature
• nineteenth century American literature
• health history
• popular American literature
• Charles Brockden Brown
• George Lippard
• Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Silas Weir Mitchell

Abstract

This project takes up health spectacle, which I identify as a prevailing concept for late eighteenth and nineteenth century American health history, first beginning in the 1790s and concluding in the 1860s and 70s. Through a study of popular literature of the period and other circulating medical thought in journals and newspapers, I investigate how instances of health spectacle shaped the development of professionalized health and medicine. Ultimately, I argue that reading for health spectacle in popular literature reveals a prevailing tension between medical expertise and medical democratization of knowledge in the United States.

Graduation Semester

2025-12

Type of Resource

Thesis

Handle URL

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/132564

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2025 Victoria Stewart

Owning Collections