Dr Janet Greenlees
Journal Co-Editor
Janet Greenlees is one of the Co-editors of Social History of Medicine and was the managing editor during 2024-25.
Janet is a Reader in Health History at Glasgow Caledonian University and leads the GCU side of the Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare, a collaboration with University of Strathclyde. Her research focuses on a variety of themes in nineteenth and twentieth century American and British history, including intersections between maternity, poverty and healthcare, occupational health, forced family separation and reproductive health and healthcare. She also has a strong interest in labour history. Her publications include: When the Air became Important: A Social History of the New England and Lancashire Textile Industries (Rutgers, 2019); Female Labour Power: Women Workers’ Influence on Business Practices in the British and American Cotton Industries, 1780–1860 (Routledge, 2007); an edited collection, with Linda Bryder, Western Maternity and Medicine, 1880-1990 (Taylor and Francis, 2013) and numerous articles. She is currently completing a monograph with the provisional title Marginal Maternity: Poverty, Pregnancy and Medicine in the United States, 1880-1943 (Rutgers).
Janet is committed to outreach and using history to engage with diverse audiences. She currently co-leads the AHRC funded network, Vulnerability and One Parent Families, a collaboration between historians and NGOs working with one parent families. She is also working with the Movement for Adoption Apology, using history to support the campaign to establish a Scottish Truth and Recovery process for those affected by forced family separation during the 1950s-1980s.