Anne Taylor Kirschmann

Full-Time Lecturer

Office:  Group I, Room 330

Phone:  508-999-8970

Fax:  508-999-8890

Email:  akirschmann@umassd.edu

Degrees: 

B.S. History

University of the State of New York, Albany

Ph.D. American History

University of Rochester

Teaching Interests:

In addition to teaching survey courses in American History and African American history, I teach a variety of advanced courses focusing on reform, perfectionism, and the creation of the "good" society.   These include courses on the family in history, the eugenics movement,  nineteenth- and twentiety-century utopian communities.   Most recently, I co-taught a course on American Beauty in contemporary and historical perspectives and am currently developing a course on "race and representation."

Research Interests:

My research and publications have centered on the issue of medical reform, specifically nineteenth- and twentieth-century challenges to mainstream medical theory and therapeutics.  I have authored several articles on homeopathic medicine, and have revealed the large role of women in popularizing alternative medicine.  My book, A Vital Force:  Women in American Homeopathy, 1850-1930, was published by Rutgers University Press in 2004.  Most recently, my research is directed towards the persistence of alternative medicine during the middle decades of the twentieth century--considered the "Golden Age" of American medicine--a time when such alternatives seemed to have disappeared.