This course examines the history of U.S. public health from its colonial period to the twenty-first century. We ask how politics of gender, sexuality, race, class and religion have shaped health care policies and practices at particular moments in U.S. history. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the class will explore topics such as reproductive health, eugenics, experimental research, and societal responses to epidemics and pandemics. We will examine how public health measures at times functioned as mechanisms of social control to reinforce existing inequalities while, at other times, health justice health movements have aimed to dismantle inequalities within the body politic. Students in this upper-level course will have an opportunity to explore their own interests within U.S. public health history by conceptualizing, researching, and writing a final research paper.