Voices of Change: A Conversation on Postpartum Mental Health
Join us for a conversation between long-time local activist and author Jane Honikman and historian Rachel Louise Moran (University of North Texas) on postpartum depression and parental mental health. This event celebrates the establishment of the Jane Honikman Papers at UCSB Library’s Special Research Collections and the publication of Moran’s new book, Blue: A History of Postpartum Depression in America, which draws on the collection.
Together with moderator Laury Oaks (UCSB, Feminist Studies), Honikman and Moran will explore the lasting impact of Honikman’s leadership of national and international non-profit organizations such as Postpartum Education for Parents (PEP) in Santa Barbara, the remarkable historical shifts in approaches to postpartum depression, and the crucial importance of parental mental health for families and communities.
The event is cosponsored by the UCSB Center for Feminist Futures and the Health Justice and Community Initiative, and held in conjunction with UCSB Reads 2025.
This event may be photographed or recorded.
Jane Honikman, M.S. is an activist and advocate for parental mental health who was born and raised in Palo Alto, California. After graduating from Whittier College with a BA in sociology in 1967, she and her husband Terry moved to Goleta Valley in 1970. Her career began in 1977 as a young parent and co-founder of Postpartum Education for Parents (PEP) in Santa Barbara. In 1980 she received an individual research grant from the American Association of University Women to study The Growth and Dynamics of Postpartum Support Groups in the United States. Based on her research, Honikman founded Postpartum Support International (PSI) in 1987 and directed the organization for 18 years. She received her MS in psychology in 1995. Honikman co-founded The Parental Action Institute (PAI) in 2016 and has published six books, most recently Postpartum is Forever: Social Support from Conception through Grandparenthood. The book is both a memoir and the history of the parental mental health movement. Honikman and her husband have three married adult children, eight grandchildren and a cat.
Rachel Louise Moran is an Associate Professor of History and Department Chair at the University of North Texas. She is the author of Blue: A History of Postpartum Depression in America (Chicago, 2024) and Governing Bodies: American Politics and the Shaping of the Modern Physique (Penn, 2018). She has articles in Gender & History, The Journal of the History of Sexuality, The Journal of American History, and Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, as well as several book chapters. Moran has won grants and fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. She considers herself a historian of U.S. women's and gender history and the history of health and medicine.
Laury Oaks is a Professor of Feminist Studies at UCSB. She specializes in sexual and reproductive politics, health advocacy movements, feminist analysis of public health, medicine and science, and qualitative research methods.
