Why read Doctoring Freedom?

Book cover of Doctoring Freedom: The Politics of African American Medical Care in Slavery and Emancipation

Book description

For enslaved and newly freed African Americans, attaining freedom and citizenship without health for themselves and their families would have been an empty victory. Even before emancipation, African Americans recognized that control of their bodies was a critical battleground in their struggle for autonomy, and they devised strategies to retain…

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American history

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Why read it?

1 author picked Doctoring Freedom as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Andrew M. Wehrman

Author

Gretchen Long’s book Doctoring Freedom includes remarkable stories not only of how Black people were abused and left out of American health care, such as it was in the 19th century, but centers the book on Black Americans’ efforts to support their health and their citizenship while being denied both. Long’s finely detailed case studies of Black doctors, such as John Donalson Austin who had been an enslaved herbal healer who was denied the right to practice when free, is one of many stories Long uncovers as she details the ways Black healers and doctors used clinics, hospitals, and…

From Andrew's list on The best books to understand health and politics in the early United States.