Elizabeth Wrigley-Field

@wrigleyfield

Sociologist/demographer specializing in mortality, racial inequity, Covid-19. Avid theater-goer, inconsistent powerlifter, and erstwhile operator of an all-volunteer bookstore. Preschool parent. Living not-quite-car-free in Minneapolis. she/her

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Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· 26d

God, it's all so depressing. From the article:

In 1925, Yandell Henderson warned that adding tetraethyl lead to gasoline would produce “slow lead poisoning and hardening of the arteries.”2 Robert Kehoe, medical adviser to the Ethyl Corporation, countered that industry should not be prohibited from adding lead to gasoline without clear population-level proof of harm.2

That presumption—that a chemical should remain in commerce absent definitive evidence of widespread injury—came to shape regulatory practice for much of the 20th century. It also shaped scientific inquiry. When lead was presumed safe, it was less likely to be studied or incorporated into models of chronic disease. The new GBD estimates indicate that this omission carries consequences.

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· 29d

Last summer, Minneapolis was a daily trade off between extreme heat (wind from the south) and extreme smoke (wind from the north). But this lucky summer, we get both!

The EPA’s AirNow air pollution app shows a “red” (unhealthy) forecast for Wednesday and Thursday in Minneapolis

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· Jul 10

40 minutes in. I’d started reading a real book so these browned as much as caramelized, but nobody in my family’s gonna complain. (I swear I do know how to caramelize when it counts!) I skipped the baking soda trick, which I think might save 15 minutes

Onions, substantially browner than before

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· Jul 10

Tbh I’m worried both of those (half hour w this method, hour w/o) were underestimates. I’m kind of time blind! But text message time stamps suggest that this is about 25 min in—obviously quite a ways to go, but I’m scraping caramelized bits up every ~2 min now. (Only one onion; chopped too roughly)

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· Jun 30

Candid shot by a judgmental friend a few hours before we skedaddled from our New York adventure

A person (me) holding a stack of four boxes leaning haphazardly against her body and face, with a fifth box clutched precariously in one hand

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· Jun 29

Our paletas cookbook has been helpfully annotated

Title page with PALETAS in large, childish scrawl in orange crayon

Acknowledgements page with that word in similar scrawl in orange crayon, which takes up most of the page, covering up much of the page's text

Similar to the first page of the acknowledgements, the first page of the introduction has that word in large orange crayon letters covering much of the text. A mistake is heavily crossed out in the middle of the page.

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· Jun 25

Time to take the art off the office walls

An empty bookcase with three colorful preschool scribble-drawings taped up. Two are on paper whose edges are cut in odd shapes

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· Jun 23

I love this article but it does provoke the question—is “nonplussed” one of those words whose meaning has reversed??

It turned out that real-life young women seemed nonplussed by the lyrics. As the Village Voice’s Lisa Jones discovered when she went to Florida to cover the trial, teenage girls had a fairly blasé attitude toward the whole thing. “If someone wants to listen to his music that’s their business,” 18- year-old Antoinette Jones argued. “What do they think music is? They’re acting like music is a gun.”

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· Jun 13

Racket gets the goods w a hilarious description of the latest UMN marketing failures-in-progress, but I really am so taken w this image I think the person on the bottom is drowning and has given up and letting what might’ve been their lifeline slip through their fingers. What’s your interpretation?

A marketing poster says “we offer classes that lead to offers.” Instead of a handshake (?), it shows a hand reaching from the top of the frame to lightly rest on a limp, open hand arising from the frame’s bottom

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· Jun 13

Twelve more days of one of the two best views of my life (The other being the complete shithole I lived in on Madison’s Lake Monona. My ceiling tiles fell down in heavy rain and my backyard included a dock. I loved it more than anyplace else I’ve ever lived.)

Sunset view from a Manhattan high-rise, looking west from East Midtown

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· Jun 11

…Actually TWO good job openings at this University of Minnesota institute! I love working here; ask me if you have questions about what it’s like

• NIA DECC Communications Manager, JO 374099 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ccrmaeDxiYIvOHGnUJme1uw1cVXMIZ3W/view?usp=sharing) - DECC is seeking a Communications Manager! As Communications Manager you’ll lead the charge to build a comprehensive outreach strategy from the ground up. You will develop, implement, and evaluate the Center’s communications program with the guidance and support of the DECC Communications Leadership Team. Priority application review begins June 21, 2026 Learn more and apply here! (https://hr.myu.umn.edu/jobs/ext/374099)
• Statistical Programmer, JO 374190 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WbjZMCtlTQYnmvXB24HBQcKKcqdzOaTo/view?usp=sharing) - The MPC is seeking a Statistical Programmer to oversee the implementation of sophisticated regression analyses for all aims of two federal grants. The Statistical Programmer will collaborate on a recently funded National Institutes of Health (NIH) study focused on the influence of housing policy and neighborhood environment on health, including fertility, infant, maternal health and mortality, among families across generations. This position will work closely with the project’s Principal Investigator, scientific team, and staff. This position will also collaborate with student research assistants and postdoctoral associates. Application Deadline: June 29, 2026 Learn more and apply here! (https://hr.myu.umn.edu/jobs/ext/374190)

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· Jun 9

This, of course (for those who know it), made me think of Engels's "The Origin of the Family," which in turn made me remember this nightmare. Screenshot is of a Facebook post that, coincidentally, was 9 years ago today. (Referencing "The Part Played by Labor in the Transition from Ape to Man")

I've never had the clichéd student nightmares, like taking a test I'm unprepared for. But last night I dreamed that, shortly before the semester was to begin, I learned that I had been mistaken about my course schedule and was, in fact, scheduled to teach something called "Introduction to Careers: The Sociology of Professions."

Knowing nothing about this topic, in the dream as in reality, but needing to quickly assemble a syllabus for the first day of class, I determined that I should start with anthropological research on societies without much division of labor, for analytical context. But would the students taking "Introduction to Careers" have vocational expectations? Confronted with my circuitous approach to the material, would they revolt??

Just as my alarm went off, I was plaintively asking the department staff person who had informed me of this dubious course, "Can I assign them Engels?"

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· Jun 8

It's greater in more highly educated families. Here's a short summary with sources, from this review (ungated) www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

"A major focus of recent attention has been the widespread increase in fathers’ childcare time.
Time-use data show that in the United States, parents (both men and women) have substantially
increased their time investment in childcare of all kinds over the past few decades (Bianchi et al.
2006, Sandberg & Hofferth 2005, Sayer et al. 2004a). These increases are also present crossnationally across a range of developed countries (Altintas & Sullivan 2017, Kan et al. 2011). Increases have been most notable among more highly educated mothers and fathers, and in childcare activities that promote children’s opportunities for learning (Altintas & Sullivan 2016, Craig
et al. 2014, Dotti Sani & Treas 2016, Sayer et al. 2004b, Sullivan 2010, Sullivan et al. 2014). "

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· Jun 2

Makes me think of this Walter Johnson quote (I discuss this quote a bit in the conclusion of this article on what it would look like if we conceptualized reparations in terms of lost lifespan instead of lost wealth) www.rsfjournal.org/content/10/2...

The] language of “dehumanization” is misleading because slavery depended upon the human capacities of enslaved people. It depended upon their reproduction. It depended upon their labor. And it depended upon their sentience. Enslaved people could be taught: their intelligence made them valuable. They could be manipulated: their desires could make them pliable. They could be terrorized: their fears could make them controllable. And they could be tortured: beaten, starved, raped, humiliated, degraded. It is these last that are conventionally understood to be the most “inhuman” of slaveholders’ actions and those that most “dehumanized” enslaved people. And yet these actions epitomize the failure of this set of terms to capture what was at stake in slaveholding violence: the extent to which slaveholders depended upon violated slaves to bear witness, to provide satisfaction, to provide a living, human register of slaveholders’ power.

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· Jun 2

My dog ate my student’s homework

The first page of a commented-on dissertation chapter is ripped, torn, and chewed, with comments illegible due to holes in the paper

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· May 19

Here's a selection (the article then goes on to give counterperspectives and so forth). I really do find it breathtaking how directly it was Epstein's circles that shaped what seemed cool when I was young.

It’s been impossible to avoid coverage of the absolutely revolting contents of the Epstein files for several weeks. For instance, many reports have been made about Epstein’s connections to Les Wexner, who was the founder of L Brands, which over time included companies like Victoria’s Secret, Bath & Body Works, The Limited, Victoria’s Secret PINK, The Limited Too, and Abercrombie & Fitch. A lot of those brands greatly influenced the fashion and aesthetics of young girls and women during the 90s and 2000s, a time period known for its extremely skimpy fashions, hypersexualization and raunch culture spearheaded by the likes of Howard Stern, pressures on adult women to look as pubescent as possible, and pressures on girls to look far more adult than they were.

We cannot forget, for example, the 2002 Abercrombie thongs with sexually suggestive language stamped on them, being sold and marketed to “tweens,” or prepubescent girls. I would have been 13 or 14 when that story broke, living in the suburbs of Delaware, and I can say that the thongs sold to adult women in the lingerie departments of anchor stores such as Macy’s in those same shopping malls were less overtly sexual. Of course, the thongs, and the low-rise jeans, and the high-cut swimsuits popular at that time all meant that one could either eradicate one’s incoming pubic hair or suffer one of a couple of types of shame—that of being hairy or that of looking extremely religious/homeschooled/frumpy and in need of a forced makeover by refusing to follow the sartorial norms. Waxing and hair removal became really popular. Many of the women who grew up in that era and became writers already had a lot of criticism of the aesthetics of that time and what passed for sex positivity and feminism. It can be difficult to even know where to begin trying to process the scale and interrelatedness of the particularly vile permutations of “females as objects” narrative that permeated that time period.

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· May 17

Amazing that one very passive aggressive staffer at one manuscript handling company has ensured that academics across the land forevermore receive this odious paragraph a few times a month

“ It is unfortunate that you are unavailable to review this manuscript at this time. We do understand that it is sometimes difficult to fit reviewing of papers into an already busy schedule, but hope that we may keep you in mind when future manuscripts come in that fall under your area of expertise.”

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· May 15

My university is doing some kind of summit on how to use research on learning to teach better, and I was super excited about it (that’s a huge interest of mine that I read about a lot but often don’t know how to apply in my classes), until i saw them describe the event as… this

Deep Listening: Hear directly from learners and employer
partners.
• Scholar-Program Leader
Showcase: Share your work in a creative expo of University of Minnesota learning research (e.g., SoTL, DBER) and evidence-based programs driving student success.
• Design Lab: Co-design the functional blueprint of our new learning innovation and research collaborative.
• Data Strategy Consult: Shape a unified platform for learning data.

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· May 14

From a book (Operation Mincemeat by Ben MacIntyre)’s acknowledgements: “My friends and colleagues on the Times have been, as ever, unstinting in their help and advice, some of it solicited”

“My friends and colleagues on the Times have been, as ever, unstinting in their help and advice, some of it solicited”

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· May 13

This is fantastic. CUHCC was the first clinic to take a chance on the Seward Vaccine Equity Project, working w us to vaccinate >150 people at Seward's Somali mosque before 2021 Ramadan At a time when their mandate was "don't waste doses," & our methods were chaotic, this took COURAGE on their part

"The Center offers a full range of medical, dental and mental health services, including pediatric care, midwifery and psychiatry. It also provides access to critical social services, including financial navigation programs, food support, interpreters and pro bono legal services offered in partnership with Stinson, LLP. In addition to medical and social services, the clinic conducts and shares research that brings together community members, researchers and healthcare providers to advocate for and transform community health.

The new clinic will add patient exam rooms and dental stations, on-site pharmacy services so patients can fill prescriptions on-site and new offerings such as physical therapy and imaging. With the expansion, the clinic will be able to accommodate an additional 36,500 patient visits over the next decade."

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· May 11

Very briefly and without a lot of content

Slide mentions:
"Business literature on 'meaningful work' (e.g. Andrea Veltman)"

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· May 7

“Apartments are unsung climate heroes”

“ Thanks to these advantages, on average, people who live in urban high-rise apartments cause one-third as much climate pollution per person as do residents of suburban houses. Residents of low-rise apartments, meanwhile, cause half as much as do house dwellers. Climate-wise, apartments are to houses as EVs are to SUVs.”

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· May 6

When your lunch feels like a ‘90s safe sex campaign

Sandwich box sticker says “Prepared with gloves and love”

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· May 3

www.cornellsun.com/article/2026...

From the Cornell Sun:

President Michael Kotlikoff drove his car into a Cornell student and ran over the foot of a recent graduate following a Cornell Political Union debate on the Israel-Palestine conflict Thursday evening, according to video footage obtained by The Sun.

In a Friday email to the Cornell community, Kotlikoff described being followed to his car after the debate and “accosted” by a group of students and non-students who he wrote were “shouting,” “blocking the car” and “banging on the windows” before he left the parking lot. Kotlikoff described the encounter as a “harassment and intimidation incident” and wrote that he “waited until [he] saw space behind the car.” Kotlikoff did not mention any collision between the vehicle and the individuals.

Video footage obtained by The Sun shows Students for a Democratic Cornell members Aiden Vallecillo ’26 and Hudson Athas ’27 being struck by the car. In the video, no person can be seen touching the vehicle before it drove into Vallecillo and Athas.

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· Apr 26

“But when we’re being attacked as shills for an airline” – no one had called them that – “it’s not true, and it doesn’t really create this unity that we like to see,” he said.

“Facts matter,” he told the volunteers who have counted 3,504 of their shackled neighbors be loaded onto 131 flights since Oct. 1, “but on this stuff, it’s just gone a little too far.”

And with that, the commissioners unanimously approved the study. Another day in America. Balance of power maintained. Business as usual. The commissioners moved on to an update on construction at Concourse G. Delta continued to dodge questions. ICE continued to capture people, because despite major news outlets leaving, their occupation of the region continues.

And Benson went back to the roof of the airport parking garage. He counted 17 shackled neighbors being taken away.

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· Apr 18

“I think I’m done,” my kid announced of her cooking task (prepping garlic), and wandered out of the room. I continued to chop onions without glancing over. A few minutes later, she was back. “Did you see my work?” she asked eagerly. Yes, that is a cinnamon topping.

A cutting board with utensils, a toddler knife, bits of garlic scattered about, and a small bowl containing a mound of garlic and cinnamon. LOTS of cinnamon.

Close-up on the bowl of garlic and SO MUCH CINNAMON.

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· Apr 16

Here's the original paper, complete with awesome graphics dramatizing the network changes. The last paragraph (screenshotted) gives the stakes. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

This study encourages a reevaluation of current models of human collective violence. If chimpanzee groups can polarize, split, and engage in lethal aggression without human-type cultural markers, then relational dynamics may play a larger causal role in human conflict than often assumed. Cultural traits remain essential for large-scale cooperation (54), but many conflicts may originate in the breakdown of interpersonal relationships rather than in entrenched ethnic or ideological divisions (6). It is tempting to attribute polarization and war that occur in humans today to ethnic, religious, or political divisions. Focusing entirely on these cultural factors, however, overlooks social processes that shape human behavior—processes also present in one of our closest animal relatives. In some cases, it may be in the small, daily acts of reconciliation and reunion between individuals that we find opportunities for peace.

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· Apr 13

I fundamentally really agree w this article's thesis, but this bit about allergens (also the NYT newsletter's pull-quote) is so obnoxious Does the author not realize that life-threatening allergies probably didn't exist at her school & probably do at her kids'? Being chill ≠ being a complete dick

"I can recall my own mother setting foot in my elementary school approximately twice — once to bring in allergen-filled cupcakes for my birthday, and then again to bring in the family dog (also allergen-filled) for show and tell."

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· Mar 28

From my kid’s markers to god’s eyes

Protest sign says ONLY DRAG KINGS in black marker with colorful child-drawn tracing and augmentation

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield· Mar 25

Why does Hudson River Park (which includes NYC’s piers) have a parking contract with ICE? Let’s tell them to cancel it now! Thursday, 3/26 (tomorrow!), starts 4:30pm Pier 57 (11th Ave & 15th St) (Bonus prize is getting to hear my favorite almost-4-year-old trot out the chants she’s practiced)