Andrew Wehrman
@ProfWehrman
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Historian at CMU. Author of The Contagion of Liberty: The Politics of Smallpox in the American Revolution (JHU Press, 2022), “Expert in old-timey vaccines”
Mt Pleasant, MI
Joined December 2012
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I told you I wrote a book, and now here’s the proof (just arrived for final edits)! Now I need finish grading, pack up my office (moving to a new building on campus), and edit these before summer truly begins.
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Andrew Wehrman Retweeted
We know you have questions about the history of women’s health care, abortion, and reproductive justice right now - and we’re here to help! Join us today at 4 pm EST for a Twitter q&a hosted by founder
@jackiantonovich
and editor
@lmacthompson1
. Ask us anything!
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But reading the primary sources closely and carefully, comparing and contrasting them to prepare for those way-too-hard tests somehow made me love reading Revolutionary-era documents.
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I wouldn’t call it great pedagogy, but my professor would give us like 15 quotations taken from these sources, and you had to match them to the titles. It was so hard. Was that line from the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut or the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina.? Yikes.
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Doing history? These primary source readers edited by Jack Greene that were assigned in my undergrad U.S. Colonial and American Revolution classes. I wasn’t really taught using primary sources in high school, and the stuff in these was fascinating.
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Her book Revolutionary Conceptions is one of the best books on health and medicine during the American Revolution and early United States.
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"The beginnings of family limitation are not to be found in the Progressive Era or in the 1960s, but in the ideals and values emerging from the American Revolution..."--Historian Susan Klepp
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Fantastic! And great company to be in, thanks!
One of the most fun things I get to do is to put the books of historians that I follow here into our pool of potential purchases. So far
@megankatenelson
's book has been purchased (in large print too!) and
@ProfWehrman
is in the hopper for later this year ❣️
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One more: Do you know why most of the soldiers had never had smallpox before? Because Colonial Americans were really good, arguably the best in the world, at keeping smallpox out through strict quarantines, inspections, and isolation of the infected.
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The very few people who had been inoculated or exposed to smallpox prior to the war who enlisted were medical personnel, who were obviously the ones *giving* the inoculations. So if a soldier said they were already immune, the reaction was “great, you can be a nurse.”
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I mean if your company was all getting inoculated and you vaguely thought you had smallpox as a kid but now had to share tight quarters with dozens of symptomatic smallpox carriers for a month, I think you’d accept the inoculation. And essentially all soldiers did, gratefully.
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There were hardly any soldiers who were immune to smallpox when Washington gave the order. Even those who thought themselves immune typically got inoculated again (it did no harm), and they were expected to care for their fellow soldiers throughout the process.
Fact check: Title is FALSE and MISLEADING
Reality: Gen. George Washington exempted troops with natural immunity.
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Andrew Wehrman Retweeted
Due to the Roe decision this morning,
@jvn
and his team thought it was important to release the first 15 minutes of our conversation on abortion history. The full episode will air later in July.
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Andrew Wehrman Retweeted
With the horrible Supreme Court decision overturning Roe out today, a few things Michiganders should know:
(1) Abortion (for now) REMAINS PROTECTED IN MICHIGAN.
Though there is an old law criminalizing abortion on the books, it's been blocked from being enforced by a judge. /1
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