The Maternal Imprint

Drawing on her new book, "The Maternal Imprint," (University of Chicago Press, 2021), leading gender and science scholar Sarah Richardson will examine how ideas about heredity and maternal-fetal effects have evolved over the last fifty years in this virtual lecture on Thursday, March 3. At the turn of the twentieth century, any notion that a pregnant woman could alter her offspring’s physical and behavioral traits was dismissed as it was believed that a child’s fate was set by its genes and upbringing. Today, a wide body of interdisciplinary research argues that a woman’s experiences, behaviors and physiology can have life-altering effects on offspring development.

Richardson is a professor of the history of science and of studies of women, gender and sexuality at Harvard University. A conversation with economist Emily Oster, best-selling author and professor of economics at Brown University, will follow.

This free event is presented by Harvard Museum of Natural History, Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments and Harvard Museums of Science & Culture.