New NLM History of Medicine Banner Exhibition
Posted on behalf of NLM History of Medicine. Questions may be directed to Jill Newmark, Exhibition Registrar in the NLM History of Medicine Division: newmarj(at)mail.nlm.nih.gov
The NLM History of Medicine Exhibition Program is accepting requests to host a new banner exhibition scheduled to be available October 4 2009.
The title is Literature of Prescription: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and The Yellow Wallpaper
In the late nineteenth century, at a time when women were challenging traditional ideas about gender that excluded them from political and intellectual life, medical and scientific experts drew on notions of female weakness to justify inequality between the sexes. Artist and writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, who was discouraged from pursuing a career to preserve her health, rejected these ideas in a terrifying short story titled “The Yellow Wall-Paper.” The famous tale served as an indictment of the medical profession and the social conventions restricting women’s professional and creative opportunities.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/about/exhibition/travelingexhibitions/literature.html
As with NLM’s other banner exhibitions, we are asking host libraries to cover incoming FedEx expenses, which usually run a couple of hundred dollars. The booking period is 6 weeks. The online exhibition will feature K-12 lesson plans and a higher education module and will be available after Labor Day.
An additional note, historian Helen Horowitz advised on the project and developed the higher education module, and is currently writing a book about the topic. She’ll be speaking about her research at the History of Medicine Division Seminar this September 9 for those who are interested. http://www.smith.edu/history/fac_hhorowitz.htm
