Presented by Mary Tsaltas-Ottomanelli* & Catherine Prescott*
In this installment of Tavern Tastings, Jeanne E. Abrams, author of Revolutionary Medicine: The Founding Fathers and Mothers in Sickness and in Health, will join Keeler Tavern Museum & History Center’s Catherine Prescott and Fraunces Tavern Museum’s Mary Tsaltas-Ottomanelli in exploring the history of public health in colonial North America and the role a handful of Founding Fathers and Mothers played in its evolution.
This lecture will take place via Zoom. Registration ends at 5:30pm on the day of the lecture. Admission is free with a suggested donation of $10.
Jeanne Abrams received her Ph.D. in American History with a specialization in Archival Management from the University of Colorado at Boulder and has been a member of the faculty of the University of Denver since 1983 in the Center for Judaic Studies and University Libraries. In 2006, she was promoted to full Professor. She has also served as the longtime curator of the Beck Archives of Rocky Mountain Jewish History, part of Special Collections at the University of Denver Libraries, and she is well known locally as well as nationally for her expertise in medical, early American, and American Jewish history.
Dr. Abrams is the author of six books including Jewish Women Pioneering the Frontier Trail: A History in the American West (New York University Press, 2006), Jewish Denver, 1859-1940 (Arcadia Press, 2007), Dr. Charles David Spivak, A Jewish Immigrant and the American Tuberculosis Movement (University Press of Colorado, 2009) and Revolutionary Medicine: America’s Founding Mothers and Fathers in Sickness and Health (New York University Press September, 2013), which examines the lives of George and Martha Washington, Abigail and John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Dolley and James Madison through the lens of personal encounters with illness against the backdrop of eighteenth century medicine, Revolutionary Medicine was named one of the “Top Books for Docs” by Medscape for 2013. Her latest book, First Ladies of the Republic: Martha Washington, Abigail Adams and Dolley Madison, was published by New York University Press in March, 2018. Her newest book, A View From Abroad: The Story of John and Abigail Adams in Europe was published in February 2021.
She is also the author of numerous articles in both scholarly and popular journals and magazines, including the highly-cited essay, “Spitting is Dangerous, Indecent, and Against the Law,”: Legislating Health Behavior During the American Tuberculosis Crusade,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences (January, 2011). In 2016, she received the University of Denver’s Lecturer Award for outstanding scholarship and research, the school’s highest award in that area. Her Op Eds have appeared in the Washington Post, History Network News, and Time.
