Dr. Sarah Naramore

Assistant Professor of History

Education

• Ph.D. History of Science; University of Notre Dame
• M.A. History of Science; University of Notre Dame
• A.B. History and Biology; Lafayette College

Courses Taught

Academic Interest

I am a historian of medicine and the early American republic interested in the intersections of science, medicine, and politics. My first book Benjamin Rush, Civic Health, and Human Illness in the Early American Republic, explores the way in which Benjamin Rush and his students promoted medical theories they believed were best suited to the new republic. In doing so Rush not only founded a distinctly American medical profession but used his position an expertise to argue for a range of political and social reforms in the name of a healthy republic. In short, this book argues that Rush’s work in science and medicine played a foundational role in the American transition from colony to nation and the social structures that characterized it in the nineteenth century. My next project will move beyond the years of the revolution and examine the rise and fall of competing ideas surrounding disease etiology (the cause of illness) in the United States.

• History of Medicine
• History of Science
• Early American History

Scholarly Activity

Publications: Books

• Benjamin Rush, Civic Health, and Human Illness in the Early American Republic. University of Rochester Press (2023)

Publications: Book Chapters

• “An American Plague: Yellow Fever in the United States, 1793-1820” In Rethinking America Disasters edited by Cynthia. A Kierner, Matthew Mulcahy, and Liz Skilton. Louisiana State University Press (2023)
• “Science and the American Revolution” In  The Routledge History of American Science, edited by Timothy W. Kneeland, Routledge (2023)

Publications: Articles

• "'My Master and Friend': Social Networks and Professional Identity in American Medicine, 1789-1815," Social History of Medicine, 34.3 (August 2021): 742-765. https://academic.oup.com/shm/advance-article/doi/10.1093/shm/hkaa016/5861180?guestAccessKey=2a310add-535e-4008-b457-47e374f505fe
• “Making Endemic Goiter and American Disease, 1800-1820,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 76.3 (July 2021): 239-263. https://academic.oup.com/jhmas/article/76/3/239/6307190?guestAccessKey=346a1aea-4646-4dba-bc68-e88ce8e32cde
• “Recommended for ‘frequent perusal’ and ‘improving the science of medicine’: Benjamin Rush’s American editions and the circulation of medical knowledge in the Early Republic,” Endeavour, 45.1-2 (March-June 2021) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016093272100020X
• “A Different Kind of Expert,” Nursing Clio (June 25, 2020) https://nursingclio.org/2020/06/25/a-different-kind-of-expert/

Selected Conference Presentations

• “Sense and Amiability: Julia Rush and the character of American medicine, 1776-1815,” American Association for the History of Medicine Annual Meeting, Saratoga Springs, NY, April 21-24, 2022
• “Iodine and Endemic Goiter: A Specific Therapy in a Changing Medical World,” History of Science Society Annual Meeting, Virtual, November 18-21, 2021
• “The Social Side of Medicine: Benjamin and Julia Rush’s Roles in Promoting ‘American Medicine,’” Great Lakes History Conferences, Virtual, October, 22, 2021
• “our part of the country being very sickly”: Creating American Medicine Through Patient Correspondence,” Southern Association for the History of Medicine and Science annual meeting, New Orleans, LA, March 6, 2020
• "Same Story, Different Setting: Using Goiter to Understand Calls for American Science at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century," History of Science Society Annual Meeting, Utrecht, Netherlands, July 24, 2019
• “Who You Know: How Social and Educational Networks fostered Professional Identity Among American Doctors, 1780-1815,” American Philosophical Society, "Networks: The Creation and Circulation of Knowledge from Franklin to Facebook," Philadelphia, PA, June 7, 2019
• "The Medical Network: Social Ties and Expertise in American Medicine, 1780-1820," American Association for the History of Medicine Annual Meeting, Columbus, OH, April 27, 2019

Student Group Advisement

• Northwest Student Senate, co-advisor

Other Professional Experiences

Selected Fellowships and Honors

• Research Fellowship, Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine (2022)
• Faculty Research Grant, Northwest Missouri State University (2022)
• Sloan Prize for an outstanding graduate student in the Notre Dame History and Philosophy of Science program (2018)
• Albert M. Greenfield Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, Library Company of Philadelphia (2017)
• Short-Term Fellowship, Philadelphia Area Consortium for the History of Science (now Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine) (2014-15)
• Travel Grant, C. Wood Institute for the History of Medicine at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia(2014)

Other

• National History Day – Regional Coordinator, Northwest Missouri
• American Friends of the Hakluyt Society – Board Member
• History of Science Society – Chair of the Committee on Education and Engagement
• American Association for the History of Medicine – Member