Pure Food

January 19, 2026January 8, 2026 / Susan O. / Leave a comment

The FDA has been under increased scrutiny in recent years. When discussing its value and the ways it promotes public health, it’s important to dive into its history.

A hundred years ago, infant mortality in New York City was 25% – one out of FOUR children would die before the age of one. While diphtheria, whooping cough, measles, small pox, mumps, polio, scarlet fever, cholera, and pneumonia were as common as fleas in crowded, dangerously sub-divided tenements, the greatest cause of infant mortality was… milk. Toxic milk.

Back then, cows were often fed cheap “swill” – the discarded mash from distilleries. Sometimes it was still boiling hot, and needless to say, it made cows – who stood in filth up to their bellies and were often tubercular and covered in udder abscesses – malnourished and ill. They gave off a rancid, thin, blue-gray milk that had no nutritive value. To counteract public opinion, it was often “recolored” with chalk or even plaster. Bread was full of fillers such as sawdust, alum, and plaster. Spoiled meat might be colored up with toxic copper. Lead, copper, and mercury were used to color candies.

Babies died.

Enter the Pure Food and Drug act of 1906. Partly fueled by the nascent science of chemistry which could detect what was really in the food, and partly by the publication of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, a novel based on real events that exposed the horrific true conditions of the Chicago stockyards and meat packing industry, people began to raise a stink about the condition of their food supply. Teddy Roosevelt, a libertarian at heart, was opposed to regulation. He was heavily lobbied by the industries, but eventually signed laws against selling tainted food. Milk, a major spreader of tuberculosis, had to be pasteurized if it was to be sold across state lines. Meat could not have more than a minute amount of contamination. Items sold as remedies had to list their actual ingredients. Infant mortality dropped by 68%.

By 1938 (note: 32 years later), the US Food and Drug Administration was created after more than 100 people died from cough syrup that used anti-freeze as a sweetener. Because of legal loopholes, the only law it broke was mislabeling. The FDA was in charge of overseeing and regulating food, drugs, and cosmetics, making sure that such items were safe for the general public, to the wails of businessmen. The FDA was designed to work alongside the US Department of Agriculture, founded under Abraham Lincoln. Hairs are often split between the two, pushing responsibility back and forth. When a food poisoning outbreak was traced to frozen pot pies, the blame was focused on the FDA for not watching the factory. BUT, the culprit was further traced to the grain in the crust, and grain safety falls under the USDA.

It is almost impossible to eradicate all sources of food poisoning. Chickens can be born Salmonella positive. Listeria survives in soil, then gets tracked on animal feet and into your food. The toxic dose of botulism – that thing people willingly inject in their faces to paralyze muscles? – is so minute it is measured in nanograms (that’s a billionth of a gram. A raisin is about one gram, so think of a raisin in one billion pieces). One single gram – a raisin’s worth – can kill more than a million people. Food poisoning – usually through inadequate cooking – kills more than 3,000 people a year, with an estimated 48 million illnesses in the US alone. As always, children and the elderly are most at risk, as many of these bacteria target kidneys.

Every law regarding food safety –every law – has been enacted because people have been sickened or killed by toxic food. Sellers are trying to maximize profit, and since most US food is owned by a small number of companies (just 4 companies own 90% of US meat production), they can afford an unstoppable army of lobbyists to pressure lawmakers to vote against public interest. So what can you do? Buy from quality sources. Read your labels. If your bread doesn’t mold in 5 days (like all those name-brand hot dog buns), consider it suspect for chemical preservatives, approved or not. Know that meats should be cooked to a specific temperature (depending on the meat), and that no food – hot or cold – should be left out more than 2 hours, probably less in hot weather.

Think you don’t have to worry? Frozen food was recalled last September because six people had died from listeria contamination. In November, more than 10 infants were infected with botulism from baby formula. Poisoned food kills. Support the agencies fighting for you.

Check out these books, and keep yourself informed!

Protecting America’s health : the FDA, business, and one hundred years of regulation by Philip J. Hilts

Eating Dangerously: Why the Government Can’t Keep Your Food Safe, and How You Can by Michael Booth

The Poison Squad by Deborah Blum

Death in the Pot by Morton Satin

Outbreak: Foodborne Illness and the Struggle for Food Safety by Timothy Lytton

Swindled: The Dark History of Food Cheats by Bee Wilson

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Poisoned: The True Story of the Deadly E. coli Outbreak That Changed the Way Americans Eat by Jeff Benedict

Recent Reads for Hesitant Historians

September 15, 2025September 11, 2025 / Lauren / 1 Comment

I am surrounded by history lovers. My husband is a history professor who uses me as a sounding board when he’s talking through new articles. A good friend does deep dives into English monarchs, and she shares memes that mash current events together with Medieval art. And I have to confess: I have no idea what they’re talking about.

I’m very useful when you want to assemble some IKEA furniture, or if you want to differentiate between an American crow and a common raven, but listening to me explain the American Revolution is like watching an episode of Drunk History (and sadly, without the negronis). I don’t dislike history. It’s just that the kind of history you get in school – politics, wars, rich people – does nothing for me. What I want is an exhibit of decorative arts, a reconstructed peasant house, a display of medical instruments. Maps of migrations laid over topography or ecological changes. A poster. A piece of metal. I want something that’s alive with meaning and has a story to tell.

If a relaxing evening involves hooks, needles, or rippers:

Threads of Empire: A History of the World in Twelve Carpets by Dorothy Armstrong (2025)

I can’t get through biographies of monarchs, but give me a book on how their clothing was constructed and I will drink it up like a chocolate fountain in Versailles. Threads of Empire tickles the same part of me that loves dresses and chain mail at art museums. This isn’t just about who owned history’s beautiful rugs, but the people that made them, the materials and techniques they were working with, and what was going on in their world.

Related read:

Silk: A World History by Aarathi Prasad (2024)

This is another great read that takes a close look at how a prized textile is made, then zooms out to examine its place in time and geography.

If you never got past your childhood fascination with pirates:

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann (2023)

We’re attracted to stories of things gone wrong, whether it’s hikes or music festivals. As you can guess from the subtitle of this book, there are quite a few things that went wrong with the HMS Wager in 1741. This is a true crime novel, a survival tale, and a look into 18th century British naval life – did you know expeditions routinely sailed with dedicated scientists on board? – with a little dusting of world politics. Grann crafts an engaging narrative well worth the hype.

If you can’t get enough of the British Navy, you can circumnavigate again with Hampton Sides’ bestseller from last year. Sides’ narrative doesn’t move with the same momentum as Grann’s book, but it’s a voyage well worth taking.

If you can’t look away from technological disasters:

Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham (2024)

Nobody synthesizes story and science quite like Adam Higginbotham. Last year he released this book on the Challenger space shuttle, which exploded during liftoff in 1986. He’s on par with the best thriller writers in terms of building suspense, and he’s just as adept at breaking down complex engineering concepts.

This book has haunted me: not only in its emotional impact, but in how amazing it is that we’ve accomplished space travel at all. It compelled me to make a pilgrimage to the Intrepid Museum in Manhattan to get an up-close look at the Enterprise, the very first orbiter NASA made for the space shuttle program.

Higginbotham is making quite a name for himself writing about 1980s technological disasters. His award-winning debut focused on the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown, and it’s just as good (and horrifying) as Challenger.

If you’re a news junkie:

Looking at Women Looking at War: A War and Justice Diary by Victoria Amelina (2025)

“I have just bought my first gun in downtown Lviv,” starts the diary of this Ukrainian novelist and mother turned war documenter. Amelina’s diary tells the story of how she and other women – librarians, lawyers, writers – were experiencing the war in Ukraine and participating in the resistance. She was killed by a Russian missile in 2023, and this book collects her unedited and uncompleted notes. It’s a chilling reminder that her life was suddenly cut short at 37 years old.

Related read:

Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Svetlana Aleksievich (2017)

Alexievich is well-known for her oral histories of the Soviet Union, and this book is an accessible look at how people in Russia experienced the fall of the Soviet period and the emergence of a new Russia. The experiences and viewpoints are as diverse as if you’d selected a random group of Americans and asked them how they viewed the 2024 election. If you’re looking to understand modern Russia, this is a really great place to start.

If David Attenborough narrates your inner thoughts:

The Beast in the Clouds: The Roosevelt Brothers’ Deadly Quest to Find the Mythical Giant Panda by Nathalia Holt (2025)

Can you imagine a world in which people think pandas are imaginary creatures? Apparently, it was only a century ago. This book chronicles the sons of Teddy Roosevelt (who lent his name to a different type of bear) as they explored the Himalayan mountains in search of this very real animal.

Related read:

Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life by Jason Roberts (2024)

You’ve probably heard of Carl Linnaeus, one of the most famous Enlightenment-era catalogers of the natural world. But have you heard of mathematician and fellow naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon? There are reasons for one man’s obscurity and the other’s fame, Roberts argues, including the convenience of Linnaeus’ theories of racial hierarchies and Leclerc’s aristocratic status (probably not the best thing to be in 1780s France).

If you’re fascinated by architecture and buildings:

Twelve Churches: An Unlikely History of the Buildings That Made Christianity by Fergus Butler-Gallie (2025)

Butler-Gallie presents a fun and often funny history of the world’s largest religion by focusing on twelve buildings in particular. You’ll visit an amazing church complex in Ethiopia that was carved into volcanic rock with medieval tools, Japan at the cusp of its isolationist Edo period, and the site of a tragic bombing during the Civil Rights movement. Religion is a fascinating way to view world history, and this book has something for everyone regardless of your personal faith.

Related read:

The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore by Evan Friss (2024)

From the publisher: “Evan Friss’s history of the bookshop draws on oral histories, archival collections, municipal records, diaries, letters, catalogs, and interviews with leading booksellers to offer a fascinating look at this institution beloved by so many–not just as a merchant, but as a gathering place for like-minded people who cherish books.”

If you held onto your science textbooks from college:

Say Anarcha: A Young Woman, a Devious Surgeon, and the Harrowing Birth of Modern Women’s Health by J. C. Hallman (2023)

If you enjoyed Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks or the many fistulas in Mary Roach’s Gulp, then this one is for you. Modern gynecology and obstetrics are relatively recent innovations, and their development was due to experimentation on poor and enslaved women, such as Anarcha. This books covers what we know about her, including her life beyond the operating table.

Imagine you’re a young woman who just found a great-paying job painting glowing watch faces in Waterbury. Now, imagine you and your coworkers start getting too sick to work – and your employers try to paint you as a promiscuous partier. This is the horrifying true story of the radium girls, factory workers in the early 20th century who were exposed to radioactive material while business owners looked the other way. It’s also the story of the uphill battle for worker protections and safety standards.

And another one just for fun:

A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn (1980)

Instead of a triumphant story of great mens’ achievements, Zinn’s history looks at everyday people, such as workers in early factories, immigrants, women, native Americans, slaves, and servants – those whose exploitation arguably fueled the power of those great figures. It’s been republished several times since its release in 1980, and it has influenced hundreds of works (including titles on this list) that take a more critical look at our national narratives.

Able and Willing

September 1, 2025August 25, 2025 / Susan O. / 2 Comments

Disability is a loaded word.

I won’t debate the semantics of the term, what the current politically correct term is, or how to make your workplace more variant friendly.

Let’s talk about something far more inflammatory. The rights of the disabled to carry out adult relationships. At best, a disabled person is able to find a partner despite their difficulties, marry (or not), and live a happy adult life together, with or without kids (popular example: the TV show Little People, Big World). Sometimes, it’s disabled people fighting in court for the right to marry or raise their own children (the movie I Am Sam). At the very worst, it’s vulnerable people being preyed upon, taken advantage of, or controlled to the point of involuntary sterilization.

I grabbed the book Hunchback, partly because it was short, and partly because I’ve been in the field of disabilities for 40 years. Hunchback, a novella by Saou Ichikawa, was not the book I’d expected, despite winning multiple awards. Ichikawa’s character, Shaka, suffers from congenital myopathy (same as the author—write what you know), which has left her with progressively weak muscles. Her back is so hunched over she can’t breathe when holding a book, and she spends half the day using a ventilator. She can walk short distances, but her body is twisted and one leg is far shorter than the other. She has a tracheostomy, which makes talking difficult, so she uses a lot of alternative communication devices. Shaka spends her time writing erotica online, the money from which she spends on food for poor people and women.

Winner of several Japanese awards, Hunchback calls out ableism on many levels. Ichikawa considers it political: Disabled people are hidden away by society, never considered because they’re never seen. People in wheelchairs are rarely mentioned in literature at all, unless they’re being “cured,” like in Heidi or A Secret Garden. Disabled people are portrayed as a drain on society, dependent on charity, so by making a wealthy disabled character (who generates income through pornography), she pokes a hornet’s nest.

Another book that touches on the subject of sexual autonomy is James Cole’s Not a Whole Boy. Cole was born in the 60’s with a severe case of exstrophy – most of his organs were born outside his body, and his pelvis malformed. Most babies with this condition do not survive. Due to Cole’s mother’s determination and a great team of doctors, Cole managed to thrive despite severe obstacles. While he seemed more or less normal to other kids, Cole hid the fact that he had double ostomies – all his waste was collected in bags, as he didn’t have the needed parts and couldn’t use a toilet. As he got older and puberty kicked in, it became necessary to undergo multiple surgeries just to have a sense of comfort, normalcy, and proper biological function. Cole’s book documents his struggles with medieval children’s hospitals, lack of pain management, and his eventual success with a career in art and film – certainly not hidden away.

A book that took me by complete surprise was Riva Lehrer’s Golem Girl, a golem being a creature formed from dirt or clay. Riva was born with Spina Bifida in 1958, a time when most afflicted infants did not survive, and almost certainly didn’t walk. She suffers dozens of painful surgeries to keep her mobility, most of which do nothing to ease her issues – she’s just a guinea pig for the surgeons. Although she attends a grade school for the disabled (disability laws hadn’t been written yet), she attends a mainstream high school, then university, where she gets a degree in fine art, all while dealing with surgeries and intense feelings of revulsion toward herself. Amplifying it is her mother’s overprotective codependency, spitting out helpful comments such as “You don’t need a nose job. No one wants to marry a cripple,” and “You shouldn’t have children; pregnancy will just mess up your spine worse,” – culminating in an involuntary hysterectomy at 15 on the mother’s order.

Riva goes on to have multiple affairs with both men and women. While some relationships work out, many times she’s still hit with prejudice – “I can’t love a cripple.” Riva remains unstoppable. She becomes more comfortable with herself through meeting up with other people – often activists – with disabilities. As an artist, she gains renown (and awards) through her paintings of disabled people (and others) she has met.

This book was so hard to put down, and read like you were in the middle of a conversation with her. Lehrer doesn’t go into detail on her disability or surgeries; she talks about herself, not her medical issues. After doing time as an anatomical artist, she sees people not so much as disabled, but as human variants – no one is “normal,” there is no “normal,” just human variations. But everyone has a right to love and happiness.

At the heart of it, people with physical disabilities are still people. It doesn’t mean they don’t have the same dreams, desires, or feelings as people who aren’t. All of these books will give you deep new insights into the strength of humanity.

Serial Solving

April 28, 2025April 22, 2025 / Susan O. / Leave a comment

I never know what I’ll read next. What ever sparks my interest, either by title, by book cover, or by subject. I have no special direction or particular interest, but if I found one book on a subject interesting, I’m far more likely to read another on the subject, or by the same author. Hence I’ve read an inordinate amount of books on Ebola, fast fashion, tea, books on the making of various movies, and, well, serial killers.

We know the names. Son of Sam. Ted Bundy. Green River Killer. BTK Killer. Long Island Killer.

I have no fascination with them, find most of them repellent and frightening beyond description, and did not shed a tear when Jeffery Dahmer died in prison, but I find the psychological processes and forensics involved in tracking them down utterly intriguing. The science end, not the murder end. And there is SO much to be fascinated about.

Most recently, I read the book American Serial Killers: The Epidemic Years, by Peter Vronsky, and I was blown away by the premise. America – which has more serial killers than any other country (well, that are reported and connected. Other countries have mass murders by corrupt governments, so maybe we’re better off) – had a major epidemic of serial killers (those that intermittently kill more than three people, as opposed to a spree all at once) from around 1970 to the mid 1990’s – more than 600 a year, and then it tapered off sharply. Why? Why did we have terrible trails of serial murders for 25 or 30 years, and then few? Vronsky makes a very strong, documented case for the fact that most of these killers were born in the late 40’s and early 50’s (25 or 30 by 1975) and their fathers fought in World War II. Vronsky documents that many of these fathers came back damaged from the war – PTSD, violent, depressed, alcoholic, received no help, and were unable to nurture their children. These boys – coming of age with violent sex images in men’s magazines, pulp fiction novels, and comics – grew up with attachment issues, poor self-image, and violent fantasies about sex, which they slowly began to work up the nerve to carry out. Why did things taper off? Most of those killers were either dead, in prison for other crimes, or had worn themselves out and were living a quiet life until something might trigger them again, unknown to their neighbors. Vietnam Vets received more services than soldiers in the 40’s, there was more public support, it wasn’t as big a deal to divorce a man, and those children did not have the same issues their grandfathers did. Those children of Vietnam vets would have been 25-30 in 1990-95 – years when serial killers were in decline.

Another utterly fascinating book – one that sent me down a long, long wormhole of research – is Barbara Rae-Venter’s I Know Who You Are: How an Amateur DNA Sleuth Unmasked the Golden State Killer and Changed Crime Fighting Forever. The Golden State Killer was alleged to have killed 13 people and committed more than 50 rapes across California between 1974-1986. Because police departments didn’t talk to each other or share information, no one was ever able to piece together all the information. Enter Rae-Venter. Rae-Venter spent her days helping people trace their genealogy and find their families using her home computer. Asked if she could do the same for a suspect, Rae-Venter needed 63 days and $200 to make a genetic profile of the killer from her dining room – something 30 years and $10 million of taxpayer money had never been able to do, leading directly to the apprehension of the killer. Since Rae-Venter, a huge number of backlogged, dead-end cases have been solved and cleared (like the Long Island Killer) due to the methods she used.

Spurred on by her methods, I fell down a rabbit-hole of genealogical research, aided by ancestry.com (free at the library), and in a week was able to trace my mother’s ancestry back 12 generations, connect some gaps, discover my grandmother had an older sister we never heard of (probably because she died at 5 months), and my grandmother’s younger sister was four when she died, not the two my grandmother remembered. Sometimes books are dangerous!

Through both of these books, several names kept popping up, and I realized I’d already read books by both men. John Douglas was the first real FBI criminal profiler, starting in the 1980’s, creating many of the procedures we use today. His book, Mindhunter, chronicles how he began, in a time where every department wanted the glory of solving the case, and thus no one ever shared information, and no one ever solved the cases.

Unmasked: My Life Solving America’s Cold Cases by Paul Holes, is another. Holes learned the business under Douglas, pursuing cold-case investigations from the 1990’s into the 2000’s. Some of the cold cases that perplexed them the most and they were never able to solve were later solved by Barbara Rae-Venter’s methods, like the Long Island Killer and the Golden State Killer.

If you don’t care so much about crime but like psychology and sociology, and want to find out why people kill, try I Am a Killer, by Danny Tipping. It’s a sad book that dwells on the murderers and not so much the crime. Time after time, the horrific backgrounds of these killers are revealed (one father, to hide the bruises and welts on his kid when Social Services was coming, tied him to a mattress, poured lighter fluid on him, and set his back on fire). Many did not deserve the sentences they received, responding to unimaginable abuse. There are no winners in this book.

Though he technically didn’t kill anyone, if you want local flavor, read Incendiary: The Psychiatrist, The Mad Bomber, and the Invention of Criminal Profiling, by Michael Cannell. Many people claim to have invented criminal profiling, but this was an early case. In the 1940’s, a bomber went around exploding devices all over New York City, then teasing the police through letters. After twenty years, he was determined to be George Metesky – from Waterbury, Connecticut, and the criminal profiling was eerily correct.

If you like crime stories and investigations, these are excellent books. If you like psychology and deviant behavior, these are also excellent books. The difficult part is that they had to be written at all.

Optimism for Earth Day

April 14, 2025April 9, 2025 / Lauren / Leave a comment

I’d say I think about death more than your average sub-40-year-old. I could blame my high school English teacher for introducing me to existentialist thinker Albert Camus, or childhood Don Bluth films, but I probably just came out this way. Saying somebody “passed” feels strange in my mouth, inaccurate, as if the total and unequivocal departure from this plane of existence is akin to expelling a kidney stone. When I was pregnant, instead of choosing color palettes for a nursery like many expectant mothers, I went shopping for life insurance and wrote detailed directions for the disposal of my body (with relevant phone numbers).

“This is a great start to a post about optimism,” you might be thinking. But my acute awareness of mortality isn’t a pool I sit and wallow in. Instead, it spurs me to use my brief time to make a positive impact in this world. That’s how I feel about climate change. We’re inundated with data on warming temperatures, declining wildlife populations, more frequent severe weather events. We could collectively sit and wallow in a pool of doom. Or, we can arm ourselves with hope, draw up an imperfect plan of action, and try our best to leave whatever mark we can in the time we have.

If you’re stuck in the doom-pool and need some help, let one of these books be a hand extended to pull you out.

What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (2024)

In the throes of the terrible summer of 2020, a tiny bright spot emerged: How to Save a Planet, a cheery podcast that discussed tangible solutions to the problem of climate change. The podcast and its parent company were swallowed up and digested by Spotify, but biologist and policy wonk Ayana Elizabeth Johnson continues to spread the gospel of actionable solutions, most recently in this book.

Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World by Katharine Hayhoe (2021)

We all have a stake in the health of our planet. Instead of assailing you with facts about why you need to act on climate issues, Hayhoe gives you strategies to help you start conversations with almost anyone who isn’t on board (yet).

Cheaper, Faster, Better: How We’ll Win the Climate War by Tom Steyer (2024)

Streyer is excited about the future of clean energy, to the point where he left a lucrative job at an investment fund to start – well, another investment fund, but one dedicated to climate solutions. You’ll learn how investors, inventors, and entrepreneurs are harnessing the power of capitalism for the good of the planet.

How Can I Help?: Saving Nature with Your Yard by Douglas Tallamy (2025)

Stand on the corner of gardening and conservation long enough, and you’ll run into Doug Tallamy. He’s published on the importance of native plants and the virtues of oak trees. His newest book gives property owners and gardeners a host of actions that they can take in their own yard to help the environment.

Holy Ground: On Activism, Environmental Justice, and Finding Hope by Catherine Coleman Flowers (2025)

Flowers advocates for the rural poor in areas where a lack of infrastructure, paired with climate change-related flooding, makes it difficult for families to access sanitary water. This book is a series of essays on her work and personal experiences with environmental and racial justice, and it’s an inspiration for others to join in the fight for a safer, healthier future for our neighbors.

Hope Dies Last: Visionary People Across the World, Fighting to Find Us a Future by Alan Weisman (2025)

Previous books in the list have looked at specific solutions and people, but Weisman’s upcoming book (which conveniently comes out right on Earth Day) takes a wider approach to see what the fight against climate change means for us as human beings. He talks with architects, scientists, artists, and religious leaders to ultimately paint a portrait of hope.

Islands of Abandonment: Nature Rebounding in the Post-Human Landscape by Cal Flyn (2021)

Years ago, in the middle of a long hike in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, I looked down at the rocks beneath my feet and realized I would be very happy if, many thousands or millions of years from now, the elements in my body were to become part of a rock underneath a foot as someone or something moved through a beautiful place. Everything alive is going to die. But nature and the processes of the physical world will go on. In Scotland, rare flowers grow on a heap of 19th century waste. Elk and wolves wander the irradiated exclusion zone around Chernobyl. With beautiful prose, this book travels to places ravaged by war, pollution, and human-made disaster to show how life continues in our absence. With or without us, Earth will eventually heal itself, and I find that deeply comforting.