Slouch: Posture Panic in Modern America

In her recent book, Slouch: Posture Panic in Modern America, Beth Linker tells the incredible story of twentieth-century America’s largely forgotten posture panic—a decades-long episode in which it was widely accepted as scientific fact that Americans were suffering from an epidemic of bad posture, with potentially catastrophic health consequences. Tracing the rise and fall of this socially manufactured epidemic, Slouch also tells how this period continues to feed today’s widespread anxieties about posture.

Beth Linker, a former physical therapist, is the Samuel H. Preston Endowed Term Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the Department of the History and Sociology of Science. Her teaching interests include the history of science, disability, and medicine, and her writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, Time, Psyche, The New England Journal of Medicine, and USA Today.

Our Science and Society speaker series explores the history of science embedded in our everyday lives. We invite scientists, historians, policymakers, and educators for engaging, in-depth conversations that expand our perspectives. Program formats include lectures, interviews, roundtables, and book launches. Science and Society events are curated for an adult audience, fostering curiosity, conversation, and interactivity. Each evening concludes with a free reception with the speakers.

Host or Publisher Science History Institute