Archives, the foundational resource for historical research, do not emerge from a vacuum. What materials are included in the archive, and why?
In this conversation, author Don James McLaughlin explores how phobia — first tied to diseases like hydrophobia (rabies) — became a flexible suffix attached to various fears and social concerns, shaping political, medical, and aesthetic thought from the colonial period through the early 20th century.
By researching and writing the life and experiences of the ambitious, charismatic Angelica Schuyler Church, Beer tells the U.S. origin story from the perspective of a woman situated at the heart of the American Revolution and the founding era.
