Molly Ladd-Taylor
My research focuses on the histories of women’s health, maternal and child welfare policy, and eugenics in the United States.
My early work explored how middle-class “maternalists” used the image of the good mother, burdened by poverty and overwork, to build a public health and welfare system they thought would protect mothers and children. Later, I shifted my attention from "good" to "bad" mothers, as I sought to understand the ideas and social policies that defined some women as “bad” mothers, unfit to rear or even bear the nation’s citizens.
My new research focuses on post-World War II legacies of eugenics in popular thinking about “bad” kids.
Research Interests
Research Interests: 20th Century U.S. History, health and welfare, gender, childhood, eugenics, History
- Education
Ph.D., American Studies, Yale University
M.A., American Studies, Case Western Reserve University
B.A., Honors in History, Oberlin College
Source: York University
Books by Author
Videos
