Simone M. Caron joined the history faculty at Wake Forest University in 1991 and was chair of the department from 2005 to 2013. They were also chair of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies from 2018-2021. Their research interests span from 1830 to the present and include American medical history, reproductive issues (birth control, abortion, sterilization), midwifery, alcoholic women, unwed mothers, and infanticide.  Their teaching interests center on gender and medical history; race, gender and the law; the Great Depression; the long decade of the Sixties; and American political, social, economic and cultural history since 1865.  They received the ODK Award for Contribution to Student Life (1994), the Reid-Doyle Prize for Excellence in Teaching (1995),  the Jon Reinhardt Prize for Excellence in Teaching (2014), and the Donald O. Schoonmaker Faculty Award for Community Service (2018).

Education:
B.A. Bridgewater State College 1983
M.A. Northeastern University 1985
Ph.D. Clark University 1990

Academic Appointments
Wake Forest University. Professor (2015-); Associate Professor (1997 – 2015); Assistant Professor (1991 – 1997)
The College of William & Mary. Visiting Assistant Professor (1990 – 1991)
University of Massachusetts, Harbor Campus, Visiting Assistant Professor (January – August 1990)
Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Visiting Instructor (1987 – 1990)

Administrative Appointments
Chair of Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Wake Forest University, 2018 – 2021.
Chair of History Department, Wake Forest University, 2005 – 2013.

Click here for the complete CV.

• HST 102 Europe and the Modern World
  This course will place Europe in the broader world context and introduce students to the study of European civilizations through an analysis of political, social, economic, cultural, and intellectual aspects of history in the modern era.  In keeping with the liberal arts tradition, this course will help students develop core skills for their academic career, namely writing, analysis, and discussion techniques.

• FYS 100 The Great Depression through the Eyes of American Novelists
  This seminar will engage students in a discussion of the various responses to the dire economic situation during the Great Depression.  The novels selected represent a wide array of political and economic critiques of the New Deal.  As such, this course fulfills the intent of the FYS to analyze opposing viewpoints.

• FYS 100 Controversies in American Medical History
  This course examines controversies in American medical history from the colonial period to the present.  Questions driving the class include: What is health?  What is disease?  Who is to blame for disease? Who is responsible for maintaining health – the individual or the state?  Are drug abuse, alcoholism, kleptomania, anorexia nervosa, obesity, Erectile Dysfunction and ADHD, to name a few, social ills, syndromes or public health issues? How do race, class, ethnicity and gender shape societal responses to medical controversies? Some of the issues we will discuss include germ warfare; religious freedom versus state regulation; slave health care; venereal disease; the Right to Die; fetal alcohol syndrome versus “crack babies”;  over-dependence on prescriptions; abortion and sterilization; Human Experimentation; medical marijuana; National Health Care from Teddy Roosevelt to Obama; stem cell and cloning; the anti-vivisection movement; electroconvulsive therapy and lobotomies; PTSD; Gender and Sexuality (Hermaphrodites, Intersex, transgender, and homosexuality); and childbirth. We will also discuss who has the right to practice medicine – Allopaths? Midwives? Chiropractors? Homeopaths? Osteopaths? – and how this right has changed over time.

• HST 113 Health Disease and Healing in World History.
  The history of medicine draws on the larger social, political, economic, and cultural context of various civilizations across temporal and geographic space. This course situates health, sickness and disease within a cross cultural historical analysis to demonstrate how culture and society shape our understandings of medicine, health, and illness. We will examine how various societies transmitted medical knowledge, from formal medical training in academic settings, to formal or informal apprenticeships, to oral traditions of shamans and Native American healers. We will discuss the clinical encounter from the perspective of both the patient and healer, and from community, folk, and popular healing, to family and hospital care. This course analyzes how medical theories have shaped different civilizations’ ideas about the environment, bodies, race, class and gender; have changed to reflect wider cultural concerns; and have served as tools of colonial domination as well as agents of “civilizing” the “other”.

• HST 264 Bitter Contests: Industrialization, Urbanization, and Conflict, 1877-1933.
  This course examines the post-reconstructed nation with special attention to the politics of equilibrium; the economic impact of industrialization and agricultural revolutions; the positive and negative aspects of rapid urbanization; immigration and the class, ethnic, and religious clashes that ensued; Jim Crow and civil rights; the growth of Big Business and labor’s response; Populism; the acquisition of an empire; Progressive reforms at city, state and federal levels; World War I at home and abroad; and the changing notions of femininity and masculinity.  The course ends with the onset of the Depression and Hoover’s response to it.

• HST 265 The US since the New Deal
  This course examines the institution of the New Deal as FDR’s response to the Depression; wars at home and abroad, including World War II, the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq I & II, and Afghanistan; the rise and fall of unionism; various movements from civil rights, women’s rights, welfare rights, Native American rights, to student rights; countercultures from the 1950s through the 1980s; government regulation of the environment; science and technology; the growth of the Imperial Presidency; Watergate and beyond; and liberalism and conservatism.
  

• HST 339 Sickness and Health in American History
  This course is a broad survey of American sickness and health from the pre-colonial period to the present.  Understanding the evolution of medical care provides a basis for comprehending the context of health care in the twenty-first century.  We will examine the indigenous healing methods of Native Americans; the introduction of European methods; the development of medical technology; the use of anesthesia; the professionalization of medicine; the rise of medical education; changes in childbirth procedures; health care during war time; the social impact of diseases; the economics of health care; the ethics of human experimentation; sexually transmitted diseases; the continuing allure of homeopathic healing; and reproductive health issues.

• HST 358 Race, Gender and the Courts since 1787This course is a broad survey of the impact of state and federal court cases upon the evolution of race and gender relations in the U.S. from 1787 to the present. Each case is placed within the political, economic and social historical context for the given time periods. Race includes Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinx Americans. Gender includes issues relevant to women in the legal system as well as to members of the LGBTQ community. This class will analyze government intervention, inaction, and creative interpretation. The class is a combination of lecture and discussion, with an emphasis on the latter. The lectures will provide the basic narrative needed to discuss the primary sources and secondary reading materials for each class period. All readings listed below must be completed prior to coming to class.
• HST 390 The Long Decade of the Sixties, 1956-1974
  This seminar explores changes in American society from the Eisenhower years of domesticity andtance from the professor.  Possible topics include electoral politics, civil rights, women’s rights, student movements, antiwar protest, the counter culture, poverty and welfare, the environment, conservation, gender roles, religion, the arts, medical advancements, and scientific/technological advancements (space exploration, etc.).  As a research seminar, all students will be required to complete a twenty-five to thirty page research paper based on primary and relevant secondary sources. The first six weeks of the class will entail intensive reading and discussion of secondary materials to familiarize students with the background necessary to write the research paper.
• HST 390 Race, Class and Gender in Twentieth Century American History
  In this seminar, we will explore changes in American society from the Progressive Era through the Clinton Presidency. Students will choose their own topic with assistance from the professor. Possible topics include electoral politics, civil rights, women’s rights, student movements, antiwar protest, counter cultures, poverty and welfare, the environment/conservation, gender roles, religion, the arts, medical advancements, and scientific/technological advancements. As a research seminar, all students are required to complete a twenty-five to thirty-page research paper based on primary and relevant secondary sources. The first six weeks of the class will entail intensive reading and discussion of secondary materials to familiarize students with the background necessary to write the research paper.

• Who Chooses?  American Reproductive History since 1830 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2008).  Paper back and audio editions 2010.
• “‘Women Helping Women’: Domestic-skills Training for Unwed Mothers,” Gender and Women’ Studies 2.2 (2019): 1-11.
• “‘We Won’t Go Back’: Abortion before Roe v. Wade,” Journal of Law and Policy 9.2 (2018): 167-98.
• “‘Endeavoring to Carry on Their Work’: The National Debate over Midwives and its Impact in Rhode Island, 1890-1940,” Journal of Nursing History Review 25 (2017): 26-53.
• “Strange Bedfellows in the Political Discourse Surrounding Roe v. Wade.” Reviews in American History 44.4 (December 2016): 621-29.
• “The International Politics of Reproductive History,” Journal of Women’s History 27.4 (Winter 2015): 184-93.
• “‘Poison that Lurks in the Blood’:  Medical Views of Female Alcoholics in Late-Nineteenth Century American Society,” International Journal of Gender and Women’s Studies 2.2 (Summer 2014): 1-41.

• “Capitalism’s Hidden Victims: Desperate Women, Abortion, Infanticide and Single Motherhood,” in Sexuality: Perspectives, Issues and Role in Society, Nicholas E. Peterson and Whitney Campbell, eds(NY: Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2012), 119-36.
• “‘It’s Been a Long Road to Acceptance’: Midwives in Rhode Island, 1970-2000,” Journal of Nursing History Review 22 (2014):  61-94.

For a complete list of publications, click CV.

• “‘Endeavoring to Carry on Their Work’: The National Debate over Midwives and its Impact in Rhode Island, 1890-1940,” Journal of Nursing History Review 25 (2017): 26-53.
• “The International Politics of Reproductive History,” Journal of Women’s History 27.4 (Winter 2015): 184-93.

• “‘Poison that Lurks in the Blood’: Medical Views of Female Alcoholics in Late-Nineteenth Century American Society,” International Journal of Gender and Women’s Studies 2.2 (Summer 2014): 1-41.

• “‘It’s Been a Long Road to Acceptance’: Midwives in Rhode Island, 1970-2000,” Journal of Nursing History Review 22 (2014): 61-94.

• “‘Killed by Its Mother’:  Infanticide in Providence County, Rhode Island, 1870-1938,” Journal of Social History (Fall 2010):  217-41.

• “‘I Have Done it and I Have Got to Die’:  Coroners’ Inquests of Abortion Deaths in Rhode Island, 1876-1938,” The History of the Family 14 (Spring 2009):  1-18.

• “Richard M. Nixon: The ‘Problem of Population’ versus the ‘Sanctity of Human Life’,”  New England Journal of History 56 (Winter 1999-Spring 2000):  101-21.

• “Birth Control and the Black Community in the 1960s:  Genocide or Power Politics?” Journal of Social History 31 (March 1998):  545-70.

• “Recent Perspectives on Abortion,” NWSA Journal 5 (Fall 1993): 393-404.

For a complete list of publications, click CV.