Update on Exploring American Healthcare through 50 Historic Treasures!

I'm delighted to say that I am done writing my book Exploring American Healthcare through 50 Historic Treasures, which will be published by the American Association for State and Local History book series, a copublisher of Rowman & Littlefield. It's written, I talked with each museum in the book and and got permission to use an image of each artifact and historic site, and I sent the whole thing off to my editor. There's still plenty to do before I'll have a release date to share with you, including review and more editing, but it's an exciting milestone in the life cycle of a forthcoming book. The book has chapters on:

• A didactic card game designed to teach children healthy habits in the 1920s
• Vials of the failed HIV/AIDS drug Compound Q, made famous again by the film The Dallas Buyers' Club 
• A mask granite workers wore to protect them from silica dust in the mid-twentieth century
• Slides from the autopsy of a victim of the early 20th century bubonic plague outbreak
• A bottle of "liquid extract of coca" when coca leaves and cocaine were commonly used for local anesthesia and in over-the-counter health tonics

                ... and 45 other topics.

Here on the blog, I'm going to continue sharing tidbits from my research that I wasn't able to include in the book, and I'll also return to regular Catalog of Curiosity posts, in which I try new-to-me experiences, books, etc. from the list that readers and I created when the blog was new. Thankfully, many things on the list are compatible with social distancing.

I will keep you posted when I have more information about when and where to order the book. You can find up-to-date information here on the blog, or find me on:

• Facebook, @tegankehoewriter -- my page focused on my writing, with occasional other information of interest 
• Twitter, @TeganKehoe -- my general account, which includes writing updates, history and museums content for general audiences and as part of professional conversations, and tweets related to civics and current events
• My newsletter, where I share monthly recommendations of books, blogs, podcasts, events, etc. related to history, museums, civics, and things that are just for fun.