What can everyday items like perfumes, soaps, and aerosol sprays tell us about modern identity, pleasure, and power? For Dr. Che Yeun, Assistant Professor of Science, Technology, and Medicine in the Department of History at Texas A&M University, these products are central to a compelling historical investigation—now supported by the 2025–2026 Barbara Thom Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the Huntington Library. Recognized as one of the nation's premier institutions for humanities research, the Huntington awards this highly competitive fellowship to faculty who are revising their dissertation for publication as their first monograph.
Yeun’s first book project, Finishing Touch: Technologies for the Modern American Body, traces how personal care products evolved from simple hygiene tools into complex cultural artifacts. At the turn of the 20th century, manufacturers began engineering smell, color, and texture to sell not just cleanliness, but desire. Yeun argues that these products were designed to commodify the feeling of being clean—blurring the lines between necessity and indulgence.
Her research reveals how these products reflect deeper histories of industrial chemistry, consumer capitalism, and everyday perceptions of ourselves. By examining the tensions between medicine and lifestyle, pleasure and pollution, and control and vulnerability, Yeun shows how personal care technologies continue to shape our understanding of the modern American body.
As she completes her book at the Huntington Library, Yeun brings fresh insight to the history of science, technology, and medicine, demonstrating how even the most ordinary artifacts of daily life can illuminate the complexities of modern experience.