Mary Hague-Yearl

mary.yearl [at] mcgill.ca 514-399-9316

McIntyre Medical Building, 3rd floor
3655 Promenade Sir William Osler
Montreal, Quebec H3G 1Y6


Subjects

  • History of Medicine
  • Medical Humanities
  • Social Studies in Medicine

Head Librarian, Osler Library of the History of Medicine

Education

  • MLIS, University of South Carolina
  • PhD, History of Medicine and Science, Yale University
  • MA, History, Yale University
  • MPhil, History of Medicine, University of Cambridge
  • BA, Biological Sciences, Wellesley College

Areas of interest

  • History of medicine
  • Medical ethics
  • Medieval and early modern medicine and natural history
  • Religion and medicine
  • Archives
  • Preservation
  • Book history

Selected publications

Hague-Yearl, M. “‘Dear brother-in-trouble’: Casey Wood’s enduring presence in the Osler Library of the History of Medicine.” In Victoria Dickenson and Lauren Williams, eds., Special issue on Casey Albert Wood. Papers/Cahiers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada. 2022; 59(1):151-175. DOI: https://doi.org/10.33137/pbsc.v59i1.36663. [Published 5 July 2023]

Dysert, A., & Hague-Yearl, M. (2023). Medieval Medical School: A primary source critical reading activity. In H. G. Rempel & R. Hamelers (Eds.), Teaching critical reading skills: Strategies for academic librarians, Vol. 1: Reading in disciplines and for specific populations (pp. 33-43). American Library Association.

Yearl, M. “Bloody women,” Hektoen International. Winter 2020.

Yearl, M. “Osler Centenary Papers. Fire at the McIntyre: a tale of response, resilience, recovery,” Postgraduate Medical Journal, 2019;95:652-655. DOI: 10.1136/postgradmedj-2019-137183.

Yearl, M. “Osler Centenary Papers. Osler, inscribed.” Postgraduate Medical Journal 2019;95:637-641. DOI: 10.1136/postgradmedj-2019-136745.

Yearl, M. “Medicine for the wounded soul,” Wounds in the Middle Ages, ed. Cordelia Warr and Anne Kirkham, Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2014, pp. 109-128.

Yearl, M. “Bloodletting as recreation in the monasteries of medieval Europe,” Between Text and Patient, ed. Eliza Glaze and Brian Nance, Florence: Sismel, 2011, pp. 217-243.

Selected talks and presentations

“Received racism: teaching and learning about human variation in France, 1810s-1830s,” American Association for the History of Medicine annual meeting, Saratoga Springs, NY, April 2022

“Maude Abbott from a librarian’s perspective,” Maude Abbott Symposium 2022, Montreal, QC, March 2022.

“Stepping up when pleas for donations fall flat: documenting and collecting community responses to COVID-19,” Society of American Archivists (SAA) annual meeting, August 2021.

“Covering the feminine form in Osler’s Library and the Osler Library of the History of Medicine,” Images et imaginaires du sexe féminin : discours et représentations, 16e-21e, Victoria, BC, May-June 2021.

With D. Cooper Owens, H. Tilley, and R. Vietrogoski, “First Do No Harm: Racism and Memory in the History of Medicine,” Plenary workshop (virtual), AAHM Annual Meeting, May 2021.

“Representation, unconscious bias, and suggestions of supremacy at the Osler Library,” LAMPHHS (Librarians, Archivists, and Museum Professionals in the History of the Health Sciences) annual meeting, May 2021.

With H. Swick, “The American Osler Society at Fifty: Preserving its Past and its Future,” American Osler Society annual meeting, Pasadena CA, April 2021.

With F. Palluault, Virtual moderated discussion, “Appreciating and preserving: archives and special collections,” Historians in the Public Sphere, Oxford University, March 2021.

Response: “How might we assess historical figures, such as Sir William Osler, given today’s societal values?” Perspectives on Sir William Osler in the 21st Century, McGill University, February 2021. 

“The humoral basis of race difference? Depictions of race in medicine within the holdings of the Osler Library of the History of Medicine,” workshop to complement Jonathas de Andrade, Counter-Narratives and other Fallacies, Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery, Concordia University, October 2019.

“‘Necessary for the doctor, unnecessary for the artist’: the anatomical études of Charles Monnet, Margaret Brooke, and Jean-Galbert Salvage,” Canadian Society for the History of Medicine (CSHM) and Canadian Association for the History of Nursing (CAHN), Vancouver, BC, June 2019.

“Fire and the resilience of the Osler Library,” American Osler Society Annual Meeting, Montreal, QC, May 2019.

“Give blood and receive the spirit: monastic applications of an ancient medical practice,” Angelical conjunctions: Crossroads of religion and medicine, 1200-1800, Montreal, QC, April 2019.

“The Wellesley College Artifacts Project,” NEA Spring Meeting, Hyannis, MA, March 2017.

“New paths in archival discovery,” NEA Spring Meeting, Portland, ME, March-April 2016.

“The Pemberton Mill Relief Committee and the Economics of Industrial Medicine in 1860,” AAHM Annual Meeting, New Haven, CT, April-May 2015.

Exhibitions

"The library represents the mind of its collector...and its curators," Osler Library of the History of Medicine, McIntyre Medical Sciences Building, January - August 2023

“The end of life from a historical perspective,” Created to coincide with Projection Week, to encourage dialogue surrounding end-of-life decisions and care, RBSC reading room, McLennan Library, October 2019

“The human zoo: medicine and showbusiness,” Curated to complement speaker series public conversation with Alberto Manguel and Susan Swan, October – December 2019

“Religion and medicine in the early modern period,” RBSC reading room, McLennan Library, April 2019

“De musei fabrica,” Osler Library of the History of Medicine, co-curated with Maude Abbott Medical Museum staff and Text’art, Summer 2018

“Impossible Pathologies,” Osler Library of the History of Medicine, co-curated with Larose-Osler Artist-in-Residence Lucy Lyons, Fall 2017

Teaching

  • PIAT 4th-year medical student selective, "Representation in medicine," spring 2023; spring 2024

Professional Activities

  • Board Member, Medical Heritage Library
  • With colleagues from Wellcome Collection, working group co-convener, “Medieval European Medical Manuscripts,” Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine.

Awards, Honours, Fellowships

  • Librarians, Archivists, and Museum Professionals in the History of the Health Sciences (LAMPHHS) Publication Award, Best article 2020, “Osler Centenary Papers. Fire at the McIntyre: a tale of response, resilience, recovery,” Postgraduate Medical Journal, 2019;95:652-655. DOI: 10.1136/postgradmedj-2019-137183. 
  • Folger Institute Fellowship, 2020-2021. Project title: "Bloodletting in the first 150 years of printing: a window into vernacular medicine."
  • Osler Librarian

Links

Yearl, M. with Jacquelyn Sundberg, "One minute wonder: K. Shibata's pocket phantom." February 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWT6-XFiwVk.

Yearl, M. with Greg Houston, “One minute wonder: Johannes Remmelin’s Catoptrum microcosmicum of 1619.” February 2023. https://youtu.be/cQnIR0XFI-g.

Alam, H. “Search is on for rare Isaac Newton book, with three copies available in Canadian university libraries.” The Canadian Press, 1 January 2021. Globe and Mail link: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-experts-search-for-copies-of-rare-isaac-newton-book-three-available-in/

Susan Schwartz, “In Flanders Fields and its Poet,” Montreal Gazette, 9 November 2019.

Material, research assistance, and non-verbal appearance on Radio-Canada, “Découverte : Aide-mémoire : stethoscope, 200 ans,” 15 September 2019.

McGill Library Matters (contributor)

ORCID 

Osler Library Newsletter (editor and contributor)

Osler Library Instagram account (oslerlibrary)

Osler Library Facebook account (@osler.library)

Osler Library Twitter feed (@OslerLibrary)

 

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