| Summary: | Midwifery is a word that, for many in this country, conjures up an image of superstitious old women delivering babies in primitive conditions of filth and ignorance. This strongly rooted and uniquely American idea owes its tenacious existence to the well-orchestrated campaign of the medical profession and state health officials, whose aim it was to eliminate the "midwife menace" within this century. Their goal was to make inroads for the more scientific and relatively new field of obstetrics. Through the mechanisms of the state, midwifery was successfully eradicated in three rational stages: education, regulation, and elimination. In phasing out midwifery, the state made incursions into a cultural tradition and permanently altered an ethnic institution. An important segment of women's (as well as southern and ethnic) history was forcibly ended, and one of the few long-respected, exclusively female roles of leadership was lost to American life. The existing literature on midwifery is predominantly statistical and anti-midwife (propaganda would not be too strong a word), gathered and publicized by the medical establishment in the early part of the century. Because of the underlying economic motives and the middle- and upper-class "professional" bias, the accuracy of this material is questionable. Neither does it address, in any depth, the role and personality of the old midwife from a cultural, historical perspective. This is the emphasis of this document, which includes a look at the process of state licensing and its effect on cultural institutions, original interviews with the few remaining Florida midwives or their daughters and granddaughters, and specific models from the licensing process in Florida, both past history and its present struggle to implement new midwifery legislation. === Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-03, Section: A, page: 0816. === Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1984.
|
|---|
