Jennifer Evans

2025-26 Short-term Fellow

Wounded Wombs and Empty Cradles: Miscarriage and Pregnancy Loss in Early Modern England c.1600-1780

This monograph length project examines medical publications, manuscript recipe books, and personal correspondence to understand the experiences of miscarriage and stillbirth in early modern England, c. 1600-1780. It focuses on three key areas: Firstly, understanding reproductive failure, where it asks how miscarriage represented reproductive failure and therefore was considered a form of infertility. Secondly, experiences of treating the miscarrying body where the project explores the disparities between medical theory and lived experiences and illuminates the ways in which reproductive failures stimulated the creation of a gendered body of knowledge about gestation and birth. Finally, the project will thicken our understanding of responses to loss by considering how travel, manual work, and the weather generated self-recrimination.