Allyson Poska

Professor University of Mary Washington

  • Fredericksburg VA

Dr. Poska is an internationally known expert on the history of women in early modern Europe and colonial Latin America.

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2 min

UMW professor discusses challenges of delivering vaccines through the ages on 'With Good Reason' Radio

If you thought today’s walk-up and drive-thru clinics to get vaccinated for COVID-19 were a lot of work, imagine how vaccines were safely transported across the Atlantic, without deep freezers or jets? Recently, UMW Professor of History and American Studies Allyson Poska was asked by 'With Good Reason' Radio and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to lend her expert opinion on the history of vaccines and the challenges the world has had trying to keep the public healthy and inoculated. Over two centuries ago, as the Spanish Empire embarked on the first-ever vaccination campaign against smallpox, "getting shots into arms" had an entirely different meaning. And government authorities back then faced as many challenges with promoting vaccinations as they do today.  The First Vaccine Allyson Poska (University of Mary Washington) There’s been a lot of coverage about the challenges of distributing the Covid-19 vaccine. How do we get it to distant areas? How do we use a whole vial before it expires? What about the special refrigerators needed to keep it cold enough? But these problems seem minor compared to the very first vaccine distribution in the early 1800s. Historian Allyson Poska shares the story of 29 orphan boys who crossed the Atlantic Ocean as live incubators for the smallpox vaccine and what lessons we can learn from this early campaign.  July 21 With Good Reason This is a fascinating topic, and if you are a journalist looking to cover this topic, then let us help. Dr. Allyson Poska is available to speak with media regarding this subject simply click on her icon now to arrange an interview today.

Allyson Poska

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Biography

Allyson M. Poska is Professor of History at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia and the author of four books, including Gendered Crossings: Women and Migration in the Spanish Empire (New Mexico, 2016), winner of the 2017 best book prize from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Women and Authority in Early Modern Spain: The Peasants of Galicia (Oxford, 2005), winner of the 2006 Roland H. Bainton Prize. I am coeditor of Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal (with Bernadette Andrea and Julie Campbell). My work has been funded by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (2000 and 2019), the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (2018), the American Council of Learned Societies (2007 and 2018), and the American Philosophical Society (2018).

Areas of Expertise

Spanish History
Latin American History
Women's History
Smallpox Vaccination

Accomplishments

Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities

2001-01-01

Granted for a project on women in northern Spain

Roland H. Bainton Prize

2006-01-01

Her book Women and Authority in Early Modern Spain was awarded the Roland H. Bainton Prize as the best book in early modern history in 2006.

Grant from the American Council of Learned Societies

2007-01-01

Received for a project on transatlantic migration.

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Education

University of Minnesota

Ph.D.

History

1992

Brown University

M.A.

History

1986

Johns Hopkins University

B.A.

International Studies

1985

Affiliations

  • Sixteenth Century Society
  • Society for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies
  • Society for the Study of Early Modern Women

Media Appearances

Small Pox Research

WAMU; KSKA  online

2021-07-27

The Centers for Disease Control invited Allyson Poska to share her research on what worked and what didn't to spread the smallpox vaccine.

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Rapid-Response Grants on Covid-19 and the Social Sciences Recipients

The Social Science Research Council  online

2020-09-18

Allyson Poska: Convincing the Masses: Global Public Health and Smallpox Vaccination in the Spanish Empire (1803–1810)

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Book brief: UMW history professor wins book prize

The Free Lance-Star  print

2017-10-23

Allyson M. Poska, University of Mary Washington professor of history, recently won the 2016 best book prize from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women for “Gendered Crossings: Women and Migration in the Spanish Empire.”

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Research Focus

Contesting Equality: Smallpox Vaccination in the Spanish Empire (1803-1810)

My new project examines the role of race and gender in the responses to the Spanish Crown’s vaccination campaign on the peninsula and the Royal Philanthropic Expedition that carried vaccination around the globe. This project has been funded by the American Philosophical Society, an American Council of Learned Societies Project Development Grant, and a CAORC NEH Senior Fellowship.

Articles

Experiencing Locally, Thinking Globally: Smallpox Vaccination as a Framework for Understanding the Global Early Modern

Modern Philology

Allyson M. Poska

2021

ABSTRACT: At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Spanish Crown extended the use of cowpox as a vaccine against smallpox to its subjects around the globe. As the first global public health initiative, the smallpox vaccination campaign presents a prime opportunity to reconsider the global early modern through an analysis of the relationship between the global imperial structures through which the vaccine was conveyed and the varied local responses to vaccination. In fact, the vaccination campaign prompted a complex and dynamic interchange between the global and the local over issues as diverse as the relationship between subject and king, hierarchies of medical knowledge and authority, and expectations about maternity and motherhood.

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The Case for Agentic Gender Norms for Women in Early Modern Europe

Gender & History

Allyson M. Poska

2018

ABSTRACT: We have reached a critical moment in the historiography on early modern women, as the deeply researched and considered scholarship has slowly chipped away any notion of the all-encompassing influence of early modern patriarchy. In recent years, most scholars have argued for some level of women's agency, asserting that, although patriarchy was a powerful force in early modern women's lives, in this case, this woman or these women successfully resisted patriarchal expectations and/or institutions. In addition, other scholars have worked to redefine and reassess patriarchy.

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Restoring Miranda: gender and the limits of European patriarchy in the early modern Atlantic world

Journal of Global HIstory

2012

ABSTRACT: Atlantic history has become fashionable as a way of linking the histories of Europe and the Americas. However, much work in Atlantic history does little to challenge the national biases of traditional colonial and imperial history. This article argues that gender provides an important conceptual tool for a trans-imperial and comparative exploration, just as it provided important conceptual structures for all the peoples of the Atlantic world. An examination of the research on two gendered issues – work, and family and sexuality – demonstrates that while Europeans attempted to impose their ideas on the various societies that they encountered in Africa and the Americas, such attempts were rarely successful.

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