DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

Interests

Geographic Field(s):  American History, Since 1900; Latin American and Caribbean History

Thematic Field(s):  History of Science, Technology, and Medicine; Environmental History; Colonial, Imperial, & Diasporic History

Principal Research Interest(s):  Mining; Politics; Health & Healthcare; US-Mexico Borderlands; Latinx History

Biography

Sarah-Louise Dawtry completed her BA in History and MA in Art History at the University of Cincinnati. Her dissertation, completed at Northwestern University in August 2024, is entitled "The Performance of Care: Hospitals as Advertisements and Centers of Healing in the Mining Districts of the United States and Mexico at the Turn of the Twentieth Century." In it, she examines the significance of mining hospitals in the late 19th and early 20th century US-Mexico borderlands as indicators of capitalist growth and symbols of Statebuilding, and shows how marginalized groups, particularly Mexican women, were able to use these institutions to further their own interests. While historical in nature, her work is intended to be a direct commentary on contemporary debates on the politics of care, the roles of state and private practice in public health, and the recent resumption of industrial mining in the Southwest. She is currently a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at Northwestern's Chabraja Center, and will be teaching a senior research seminar, "Depicting America," on visual culture in the United States in Spring 2025.