Books
1. The Signs Reader: Women, Gender and Scholarship (University of Chicago Press, 1983; third edition, 1993) with Elizabeth Abel
2. Terminal Degrees: The Job Crisis in Higher Education (Praeger, 1984)
3. Love Is Not Enough: Family Care for the Frail Elderly (American Public Health Association, 1987)
4. Editor, Across Borders: The Spectrum of Women’s Lives (New York: Gordon and Breach, 1989), with Marjorie Pearson.
5. Editor, Circles of Care: Work and Identity in Women’s Lives (State University of New York Press, 1990), with Margaret K. Nelson
6. Who Cares for the Elderly? Public Policy and the Experiences of Adult Daughters (Temple University Press, 1991)
7. Hearts of Wisdom: American Women Caring for Kin, 1850-1940 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000) (Selected as Choice Outstanding Academic Book for 2000)
8. Suffering in the Land of Sunshine: A Los Angeles Illness Narrative (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2006).
9. Tuberculosis and the Politics of Exclusion: A History of Public Health and Migration to Los Angeles (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2007) 2008 Viseltear Award for outstanding book in the history of public health from the Medical Care Section, American Public Health Association.
10. After the Cure: The Untold Stories of Breast Cancer Survivors (New York: NYU Press, 2008) (with Saskia Subramanian) (selected as Choice Outstanding Academic Award for 2009)
11. The Inevitable Hour: A History of Caring for Dying Patients in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013; paperback, 2017).
12. Living in Death’s Shadow: Patient and Family Experiences of Terminal Care and Irrepleaceable Loss (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, February 2017).
13. Prelude to Hospice: Listening to Dying Patients and Their Families (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2018; paperback 2019).
14. Sick and Tired: An Intimate History of Fatigue (University of North Carolina Press, 2021).
15. Limited Choices: Mable Jones, a Black Children’s Nurse in a Northern White Household (University of Virginia Press, 2021) (with Margaret K. Nelson)
16. Elder Care in Crisis: How the Social Safety Net Fails Families (New York University Press, 2022)
17. The Farm and Wilderness Summer Camps (Rutgers University Press, 2023) (with Margaret K. Nelson)
18. Gluten Free for Life: Celiac Disease, Medical Recognition, and the Food Industry (New York University Press, 2025)
Articles and Book Chapters
1. Abel, E., “Middle Class Culture for the Urban Poor: The Social Thought of Samuel Augustus Barnett,” Social Service Review, vol. 52, no. 4 (December 1978).
2. Abel, E., “Toynbee Hall, 1984‑1914,” Social Service Review, Vol. 53, No. 4 (December 1979)
3″Collective Protest and the Meritocracy: Faculty Women and Sex Discrimination Lawsuits,” Feminist Studies, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Fall 1981)
Reprinted in Women and Symbolic Interaction, Mary Jo Deegan and Michael Hill, eds., (Winchester, MA: Allen & Unwin, 1986)
4. Abel, E., “The Employment Crisis in Higher Education: Implications for Academic Freedom,” in Craig Kaplan and Ellen Schrecker, eds., Regulating the Intellectuals (Praeger, 1983)
5. Abel, E., “The Nomadic Tribe: Marginal Academics View Their Jobs,” Thought and Action (Winter 1986)
6. Abel, E., “The Hospice Movement: Institutionalizing Innovation,” The International Journal of Health Services, Vol. 16, No. 1 (1986)
Reprinted in Death and Dying, ed. Janelle Rohr, (St. Paul, MN.: Greenhaven Press, 1987)
7. Abel, E., “Adult Daughters and Care to the Elderly,” Feminist Studies, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Fall 1986)
Translated into Japanese and reprinted in New Feminism Review (Tokyo), Vol. 4, 1992
Reprinted in The Other Within US: Feminist Explorations of Women and Aging, ed. Marilyn Pearsall (Boulder: Westview, 1997)
8. Abel, E., “The Ambiguities of Social Support: Adult Daughters Caring for Frail Elderly Parents.” Journal of Aging Studies Vol. 3, No. 3 (Fall 1989)
Reprinted in Aging, Self, and Community, Jaber F. Gubrium and Kathy Charmaz, eds. (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, Inc., 1992)
Reprinted in Families, Kinship, and Domestic Politics in the U.S., ed. Anita Garey and Karen Hansen (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997)
9. Abel, E., “Daughters Caring for Frail Elderly Mothers,” in Jaber Gubrium and Andrea Sankar, eds., The Home Care Experience (Sage, 1990)
10. Abel, E., “Informal Care for the Disabled Elderly: A Critique of the Literature,” Research on Aging, Vol. 12, No. 2 (June 1990)
11. Abel, E. and S. Sofaer, “Older Women’s Health and Financial Vulnerability: Implications of 5the Medicare Benefit Structure,” Women and Health (June 1990).
12. Abel, E., “Parental Dependence and Filial Responsibility in the Nineteenth Century: Hial Hawley and Emily Hawley Gillespie, 1884-1885,” The Gerontologist, Vol. 32, No.4 (1992):519-526
Reprinted in Aging and Everyday Life, ed. Jaber F. Gubrium and James A. Holstein (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), pp. 217-230.
13. Abel, E., “Negotiating Dignity: Family Caregiving and Formal Health Providers,” Research in the Sociology of Health Care, Vol. 10 (1993): 177-192
14. Abel, E., “Correspondence between Julia C. Lathrop, Chief of the Children’s Bureau, and a Working-Class Woman, 1914-1915,” Journal of Women’s History, Vol. 5, No. 1, (Spring 1993):79-88
15. Abel, E., “Historical Perspectives on Caregiving: Documenting Women’s Experiences,” in Qualitative Methods in Aging Research, Jaber F. Gubrium and Andrea Sankar, eds. Sage, 1994:227-240
Reprinted in Families in Later Life: Connections and Transitions, ed. Alexis Walker et al. (Pine Forge Press, 2000).
16. Abel, E., “The Limits of Social Insurance Protection for the Elderly in the United States: The Two-Class System of Long Term Care,” in Social Security and Social Change: New Challenges to the Beveridge Model, Sally Baldwin and Jane Falkingham, eds. (London: Harvester-Wheatsheaf, 1994):166-179
17. Abel, E., “Benevolence and Social Control: Advice from the Children’s Bureau in the Early Twentieth Century,” Social Service Review, Vol. 68, No. 1, (March 1994): 1-19
18. Abel, E., “Family Caregiving in the Nineteenth Century: Emily Hawley Gillespie and Sarah Gillespie, 1858-1888,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Vol. 68, No. 4 (Winter 1994): 573-599.
19. Abel, E., “Representations of Caregiving by Margaret Forster, Mary Gordon, and Doris Lessing,” Research on Aging, Vol. 17, No. 1 (March 1995): 42-64.
20. Abel, E., “‘Man, Woman, and Chore Boy’: Transformations in the Antagonistic Demands of Work and Care on Women in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” The Milbank Quarterly, Vol. 73, No. 2 (1995): 187-212.
21. Abel, E., “We Are Left Alone So Much to Work Out Our Own Problems: Nurses on American Indian Reservations during the 1930s,” Nursing History Review, 4(1996):43-64.
22. Abel, E., “A ‘Terrible and Exhausting’ Struggle: Family Caregiving during the Transformation of Medicine,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Vol. 50 (1995): 474-502.
Reprinted in Women and Health in America, ed. Judith Walzer Leavitt (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999).
23. S. Wallace, E. Abel, and P. Stefanowicz, “Long Term Care and the Elderly Population,” in R.M. Andersen, T.H. Rice, and G.F. Kominski, eds. Changing the U.S. Health Care System: Key Issues in Health Policy and Management (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1996).
24. Abel, E., and N. Reifel, “Interactions between Public Health Nurses and Clients on American Indian Reservations during the 1930s,” Social History of Medicine, Vol. 9, No.1 (1996): 89-108
Reprinted in Women and Health in America, ed. Judith Walzer Leavitt (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999).
25. Abel, E., “Appealing for Children’s Health Care: Conflicts between Mothers and Officials in the 1930’s,” Social Service Review, Vol. 70, No.2 (June 1996): 282-304.
26. Abel, E., and C. Browner, “Selective Compliance with Biomedical Knowledge and the Uses of Experiential Knowledge,” in Pragmatism in Action: Women’s Responses to Body Technologies, eds. Margaret Lock and Patricia Kaufert, (London: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
27. Abel, E., “Care and Career in an Aging Society,” in Toward a Caring Academy, eds. Constance Coiner and Diana Hume George, (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998).
28. Abel, E., “Taking the Care to the Poor: Patients’ Responses to New York City’s Tuberculosis Program, 1894-1918,” American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 87, No. 11 (Nov. 1997): 1808-15.
Reprinted in Public Health Then and Now: Landmark Papers from the American Journal of Public Health between 1971-2021, ed. Theodore Brown and Alfredo Morabia (American Public Health Association Press, 2022)
29. Abel, E., “Medicine and Morality: The Health Care Program of the New York Charity Organization Society,” Social Service Review (Dec. 1997): 634-651.
30. Abel, E., “Hospitalizing Maria Germani,” in Bad Mothers, ed. Molly Ladd-Taylor and Lauri Umansky (New York: New York University Press, 1997).
31. Abel, E. “Valuing Care: Turn-of-the-Century Conflicts between New York Charity Workers and Women Clients, “Journal of Women’s History, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Autumn 1998): 32-52.
32. Abel, E. “A Historical Perspective on Care,” in Care Work and Citizenship, ed. Madonna Harrington Meyer (New York: Routledge, 2000), pp. 8-14.
33. Abel, E. and M. Nelson, “Intimate Care for Hire,” American Prospect (May 21, 2001).
34. Abel, E., “Inequality and Care: American Women Tending Sick and Disabled Children, 1850-1940,” in Unequal Power, Unequal Care: Carework for Children and Youth in Diverse Settings, ed. Francesca Cancian, Demi Kurz, and Rebecca Reviere (New York: Routledge, 2002), pp. 11-22.
35. Abel, E., “From Exclusion to Expulsion: Mexicans and Tuberculosis Control in Los Angeles, 1914-1940,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, v. 77, n. 4 (Winter 2003):823-849.
36. Abel, E., “‘Only the Best Class of Immigration’: Public Health Policy toward Mexicans and Filipinos in Los Angeles, 1910-1940, American Journal of Public Health, v. 94, no. 6 (June 2004): 932-939.
Reprinted in Public Health Then and Now: Landmark Papers from the American Journal of Public Health between 1971-2021, ed. Theodore Brown and Alfredo Morabia (American Public Health Association Press, 2022).
37. Yancey, A., J. Leslie, and E. Abel, “Obesity at the Crossroads; Feminist and Public Health Perspectives,” Signs: Journal of Women and Society, v. 31, no. 2 (Winter 2006): 425-444.
38. Abel, E., “The Rise and Fall of Celiac Disease in the United States,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, vol. 65, no. 1 (2009): 81-105.
39. Abel, E., “Patient Dumping in New York City, 1877-1917,” American Journal of Public Health, vol. 101, no. 5 (May 2011): 789-195.
40. Abel, E. “’In the Last Stages of Irremediable Disease’: American Hospitals and Dying Patients before World War II,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 85, no. 1 (Spring 2011): 29-56.
41. Golden, J. and E. Abel, “’Modern Medical Science and the Divine Providence of God’: Rethinking the Place of Religion in Postwar U. S. Medical History,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences” (August 2013): 580-603.
42. B. Linker and E. Abel, “The Captain of All These Disabled: Viewing Tuberculosis in the Context of Disability History,” in Civil Disabilities, Citizenship, Membership, and Belonging. Nancy J. Hirschmann and Beth Linker (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014).
43. Abel, E., “History on a Slow Track,” in Open to Disruption: Time and Craft in the Practice of Slow Sociology, ed. Anita Ilta Garey, Rosanna Hertz, Margaret K. Nelson (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2014), pp. 197-204.
44. “Advice for Carers of People with Dementia: A Critique of the Literature,” Journal of Aging Studies, September 11, 2024.