Starting at the turn of the century, most African American midwives
in the South were gradually excluded from reproductive health care.
Gertrude Fraser shows how physicians, public health personnel, and
state legislators mounted a campaign ostensibly to improve maternal
and infant health, especially in rural areas. They brought
traditional midwives under the control of a supervisory body, and
eventually eliminated them. In the writings and programs produced
by these physicians and public health officials, Fraser finds a
universe of ideas about race, gender, the relationship of medicine
to society, and the status of the South in the national political
and social economies.
Fraser also studies this experience through dialogues of memory.
She interviews members of a rural Virginia African American
community that included not just retired midwives and their
descendants, but anyone who lived through this transformation in
medical care--especially the women who gave birth at home attended
by a midwife. She compares these narrations to those in
contemporary medical journals and public health materials,
discovering contradictions and ambivalence: was the midwife a
figure of shame or pride? How did one distance oneself from what
was now considered "superstitious" or "backward" and at the same
time acknowledge and show pride in the former unquestioned
authority of these beliefs and practices?
In an important contribution to African American studies and
anthropology, "African American Midwifery in the South" brings new
voices to the discourse on the hidden world of midwives and
birthing.
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