DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

Interests

Geographic Field(s):  American History, Since 1900

Thematic Field(s):  Political and Policy History; History of Science, Technology, and Medicine

Principal Research Interest(s):  history of education, medicine, science, and the business of taste

Biography

Jane S. Smith was born in New York City, received her BA from Simmons College and her Ph.D. from Yale University.  She has been affiliated with Northwestern University in departments ranging from English to Preventive Medicine and is currently a non-teaching adjunct professor in the Department of History.  She lives in Chicago, where she works in a very small room with a very large window.

Publications

• Elsie de Wolfe: A Life in the High Style
• Jacoby’s First Case (fiction)
• Nightcap (fiction)
• Patenting the Sun: Polio and the Salk Vaccine
• A Paralyzing Fear: The Triumph over Polio in America (with Nina Gilden Seavey and Paul Wagner)
• Fool’s Gold (fiction)
• The Garden of Invention: Luther Burbank and the Business of Breeding Plants
• In Praise of Chickens
• A Blacklist Education: American History, A Family Mystery, and a Teacher under Fire

Awards and Honors

• Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology (Patenting the Sun)
• Society of Midland Authors Award, Adult Fiction (Fool’s Gold)
• Caroline Bancroft History Prize for Western American History (The Garden of Invention)