Susan Brandt on Women Healers: Gender, Authority and Medicine in Early Philadelphia

In this episode of Perspectives, we speak with Susan Brandt, author of Women Healers: Gender, Authority, and Medicine in Early Philadelphia. Drawing on extensive archival research in Consortium collections, Susan Brandt demonstrates that women of various classes and ethnicities in early Philadelphia found new sources of healing authority, engaged in the consumer medical marketplace, and resisted physicians’ attempts to marginalize them. Brandt reveals that women healers participated actively in medical and scientific knowledge production and the transition to market capitalism. For additional resources on this topic and others, please see https://www.chstm.org .