Research and Publications
My research focuses on relationships between gender, class, health, and welfare in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century England.
My book Beyond the Reproductive Body (Ohio State University Press, 2004) explores competing models of the female body in the 1830s and 1840s, and the impact these competing models had on public policies and the ways poor women thought about their health and work.
My current project examines the impact of men's unemployment and/or absence on family survival strategies from about 1870 to 1930 in England's Black Country. This study involves research into the ways assumptions about gender influenced welfare and employment policies and practices.
Most of my research takes place in county record offices in England, and I try to get to the UK at least once a year.