Rima Apple
Professor Emerita
Email: rdapple@wisc.edu
Office: 3rd Floor, Middleton Building
Department of Consumer Science
School of Human Ecology
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Middleton Buiding
1305 Linden Drive
Madison, WI, 53706
Professor Apple is faculty in Women’s Studies and Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Ecology; affiliate in the Department of the History of Medicine and Science and Technology Studies Program.
Professor Rima Apple held joint appointments in the School of Human Ecology Departments of Consumer Science and Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Ecology, Women's Studies Program, Science and Technology Studies Program, and holds the position of Affiliate in the Department of the Medical History and Bioethics. She received her B.A. from New York University; her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Positions at other institutions include Researcher, Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, UCL, London, 2004-2008; Visiting Professor, University of Melbourne, spring 2001; Visiting Researcher, University of Auckland, New Zealand, summer 1999; Visiting Researcher, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, summer 1998; and Co-editor, Advancing the Consumer Interest, 1994-1998.
She was awarded a Vilas Life Cycle Professorship, 2005-2006. and among her other recent awards are a University of Wisconsin Vilas Associateship, 1996-98; and a Burroughs Wellcome Grant, 1996; she was named the ACOG-Ortho Fellow in the History of American Obstetrics and Gynecology, by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 1996 and received the University of Wisconsin School of Human Ecology Alumni Faculty Professional Excellence Award, 1999.
Her most recent book, Perfect Motherhood: Science and childrearing in America (Rutgers University Press, 2006) is an analysis of the development and influence of "scientific motherhood," the late nineteenth- and twentieth century ideology promoting the belief that mothers require scientific and medical experts in order to successfully raise their children. Her current research focuses on the role of public health nurses in the evolution of maternal and child care. She also studies the history of consumerism, especially the role of vitamins in American culture, and the history of home economics as a profession for women. She prepared a history of the School of Human Ecology in celebration of its centennial in 2003 entitled "From home economics to human ecology: A one hundred year history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison," web site mounted September 2002, http:www.sohe.wisc.edu/depts/history/. She has frequently lectured on these topics both here and abroad.
