Emily Abel

Emily K. Abel is a historian of medicine and public health. She is the author of sixteen books with major university presses. Her book, Hearts of Wisdom: American Women Caring for Kin, 1850-1940 (Harvard University Press, 2000), was selected as a Choice Outstanding Book. Tuberculosis and the Politics of Exclusion: Public Health and Migration to Los Angeles (Rutgers University Press, 2007) won the 2008 Viseltear Award, from the Medical Care Section, American Public Health Association. In 2024 she received the Genevieve Miller Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association for the History of Medicine.

Education

  • PhD, University of London, London, UK
  • MPH, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, Los Angeles, CA
  • MA, Columbia University, New York, NY
  • BA, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA

Related Tags

Areas of Interest

  • Health Services & Women's Studies
  • Historian of Medicine and Public Health
  • Tuberculosis

Selected Publications

  • Co-Editor, Circles of Care (State University of New York Press, 1990).
  • Who Cares for the Elderly? Public Policy and the Experiences of Adult Daughters (Temple University Press, 1991).
  • Hearts of Wisdom: American Women Caring for Kin, 1850-1940 (Harvard University Press, 2000).
  • Suffering in the Land of Sunshine:  A Los Angeles Illness Narrative (Rutgers University Press, 2006).
  • Tuberculosis and the Politics of Exclusion: Public Health and Migration to Los Angeles (2007).
  • After the Cure: The Untold Stories of Breast Cancer Survivors, with Saskia Subramanian (New York University Press, 2008).
  • The Inevitable Hour: A History of Caring for Dying Patients in America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013).
  • Living in Death’s Shadow: Family Experiences of Terminal Care and Irreplaceable Loss (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017).
  • Prelude to Hospice: Florence Wald, Dying People, and Their Families (Rutgers University Press, 2018).
  • Sick and Tired: An Intimate History of Fatigue (University of North Carolina Press, 2021).
  • Mable Jones: A Black Children’s Nurse in a Northern White Household (with Margret K. Nelson) (University of Virginia Press, 2021).
  • Elder Care in Crisis: How the Social Safety Net Fails Families (New York University Press, 2022).
  • Gluten Free for Life: Celiac Disease, Medical Recognition and the Food Industry (New York University Press, 2025).
  • Listening to Dementia: Advocating for Dignity and Autonomy (New York University Press, September 2026).