2024 W. Curtis Worthington, Jr. Essay Contest Winners

We are absolutely thrilled to share some exciting news with you – the winners of our 2024 W. Curtis Worthington, Jr. Essay Contest have been officially announced! This prestigious contest sponsored by the Waring Library Society encourages students to research the history of health sciences and recognizes outstanding contributions to the field of historical scholarship. A careful evaluation by our esteemed panel of judges on the Worthington Essay Contest Committee, we have selected the winners for this year's competition.

Izumi Vázquez

Winner of the Undergraduate Award: Izumi Vazquez for her exceptional essay titled "Meet Them Where They Are: The California Prostitutes’ Education Project and a New Story of HIV/AIDS."

Izumi Vázquez (she/her/hers) is a rising senior at Harvard College born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. She is concentrating in History and Science (Medicine and Society honors), with a secondary in Global Health and Health Policy, citation in Spanish, and certificate for Civic Engagement. Izumi’s heart lies in community-based care and the intersection of art and healthcare, with a strong focus on equitable care for Hispanic medically underserved communities.

Believing strongly that housing is healthcare, she was honored to be one of 15 fellows selected for the Getting to Zero MA Coalition Activist Academy, through which she educated communities on HIV prevention and access to care for unhoused individuals living with HIV/AIDS. Izumi has also dedicated herself as a direct service volunteer for Spanish-speaking clients at The Family Van, a mobile health clinic based out of Harvard Medical School. Her volunteer work extends to Massachusetts General Hospital, where she supports patients through the Patient Support Corps, and Boston Children’s Hospital’s Advocating Success for Kids Clinic. Izumi’s dedication to community service is also evident in her creative endeavors, such creating an origami installation for a hospital in San Antonio and supporting Arizona State University’s Center for Public Humanities in launching its first Health Humanities offerings.

Izumi's case study on the sex-worker-run California Prostitutes Education Project (CAL-PEP) sought to challenge the constituents of health expertise in the dominant HIV/AIDS epidemic narrative. This narrative often focuses on the efforts of white gay activists and medical professionals, and tends to foreground sex workers’ sexual activities as the defining aspect of their involvement in the epidemic. A significant element of their outreach was the use of "Honey," a 32-foot recreational vehicle customized as a mobile clinic that allowed CAL-PEP to bring their services directly to the streets and crack houses, providing hot food, drinks, a safe place to rest, and practical tools for safer sex and drug use, all while building trust with their clients. By highlighting sex workers' unreplicable understanding of when, where, and how to approach crack-using women subjugated in sex-for-crack exchanges, Izumi recasts sex workers as key protagonists in the story of HIV/AIDS.

Alex Worrall

Winner of the Graduate Award: Alex Worrall for his outstanding essay titled "Blackness in the “White Plague”: Tuberculosis and Segregation in “Progressive-Era.”

Alex Worrall is a second-year master’s student at the College of Charleston in the history department. They study the intersection of law and the human body from Reconstruction to World War II through lenses of race, gender, and sexuality. Worrall is currently working on their master’s thesis which explores sexual biopolitics in Charleston in the first decades of the twentieth century and uses tuberculosis and sex work as methodological frameworks for analyzing how the city government sought to regulate how and where people lived and gathered. Prior to coming to the College of Charleston, Worrall studied at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in May 2023 with a double major in American History and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, with minors in English and Africana Studies. Upon graduating with their master’s in May 2025, Worrall hopes to pursue a JD and PhD to research and teach the intersections of law, the body, and bioethics throughout U.S. history.

Ansonborough is the quintessential Charleston neighborhood. It is a blend of the antique and modern, with new apartment buildings seamlessly fitting in with antebellum mansions. Palmetto trees flank brick walls, and the “hospitality doors” of Charleston singles open to the sidewalk. A walk through Ansonborough is a walk through Charleston’s history. However, perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of its history is what is not shown—what is hidden.

In 2022, the Post & Courier—Charleston’s largest newspaper—published the article “Last Black Homeowners Leave Charleston’s Ansonborough Neighborhood.” The Jenkins family had been the last holdouts keeping the historically Black neighborhood from becoming all white. What had been one of the slums of Charleston is now one of the wealthiest neighborhoods. This did not happen by chance. This was not accidental. The racial demographics of Ansonborough—and Charleston more broadly—was purposefully, and artificially, created.

Worrall’s paper uses tuberculosis as a lens to view the development of Charleston’s housing segregation. Worrall argues that by using tuberculosis prevention and the promotion of public health as a justification, the Charleston city government produced a “sanitized” version of the city, one which appeared—and continues to appear—“cleansed” of its Black population. Twentieth-century Charleston city officials understood tuberculosis as an inherent “Black” disease, and its regulation thus necessitated a racially based system of surveillance through Sanitary Inspectors and public health nurses. Importantly, protecting the white citizenry from tuberculosis meant segregating the Black “civic ulcers” who were vectors of the disease. Using annually-reported city yearbook statistics, letters to the mayor, and the 1931 Knowles Report which created the historic district, he argues that tuberculosis and segregation were intimately connected ideas in the first decades of the twentieth century, and its prevention served as a justificatory framework for enacting segregationist policies.

We would like to extend our heartfelt congratulations to the winner and the honorary mention for their remarkable achievements in exploring history of health sciences in the modern era - from the late 1600s to the present. The essays shed light on fascinating aspects of the history of medicine, and we are immensely grateful for their contributions to scholarship. Each submission was evaluated based on its originality, depth of research, and the ability to engage readers with compelling insights into the history of health sciences. The selection process was challenging, and we want to acknowledge and commend all participants for their dedication and hard work.

We also extend our gratitude to the Waring Library Society for their generous support in making this contest possible. Their commitment to promoting historical scholarship has been instrumental in fostering a spirit of inquiry and curiosity among students.

For those who did not win this time, we encourage you to keep exploring and engaging with history. The W. Curtis Worthington, Jr. Essay Contest will return in the future, providing another chance for students to showcase their research and contribute to the rich tapestry of historical knowledge.

Once again, congratulations to the winners and honorary mention of the 2024 W. Curtis Worthington, Jr. Essay Contest. Your contributions will undoubtedly leave a lasting impact on the field of historical scholarship.

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