2026-09-21T01:23:58Z https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/132564 2026-02-20 col_2142_5131 col_2142_8906 com_2142_5130 com_2142_8904 com_2142_8903

application/pdf en text Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2026-02-19 without embargo terms The student, Victoria Stewart, accepted the attached license on 2025-12-03 at 10:08. The student, Victoria Stewart, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2025-12-03 at 10:14. This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2025-12-03 at 11:25. DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #23039 on 2026-02-19 at 18:26:32 Health spectacle in American popular literature, 1790-1870 Stewart, Victoria Lane 2025-12-03 Murison, Justine S Murison, Justine S Littlefield, Melissa M Hilger, Stephanie M Jones, Jamie L eighteenth century American literature nineteenth century American literature health history popular American literature Charles Brockden Brown George Lippard Harriet Beecher Stowe Silas Weir Mitchell eng 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. 2025-12 Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/2142/132564 Copyright 2025 Victoria Stewart English English University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Ph.D. Dissertation