Article ID: CBB729992204

"Something Wasn't Clean": Black Midwifery, Birth, and Postwar Medical Education in All My Babies (2019)

unapi

Set in rural Georgia, the 1953 health film All My Babies: A Midwife’s Own Story was a government-sponsored project intended as a training tool for midwives. The film was unique to feature a black midwife and a live birth at a time when southern health officials blamed midwives for the region’s infant mortality rates. Produced by the young filmmaker George Stoney, All My Babies was praised for its educational value and, as this article demonstrates, was a popular feature in postwar medical education. Yet as it drew acclaim, the film also sparked debates within and beyond medical settings concerning its portrayal of midwifery, birth, and health care for African Americans. In tracing the controversies over the film’s messages and representations, this article argues that All My Babies exemplified the power and limits of health films to address the complexities of race and health during an era of Jim Crow segregation.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB729992204/

Similar Citations

Book Jenny M. Luke; (2018)
Delivered by Midwives: African American Midwifery in the Twentieth-Century South (/isis/citation/CBB243389922/)

Article Yulonda Eadie Sano; (2019)
“Protect the Mother and Baby”: Mississippi Lay Midwives and Public Health (/isis/citation/CBB301228659/)

Book Wailoo, Keith; (2011)
How Cancer Crossed the Color Line (/isis/citation/CBB001231902/)

Book Johnson, Lenworth N.; Daniels, O. C. Bobby; (2002)
Breaking the Color Line in Medicine: African Americans in Ophthalmology (/isis/citation/CBB000301576/)

Book Anthony Ryan Hatch; (2016)
Blood Sugar: Racial Pharmacology and Food Justice in Black America (/isis/citation/CBB245142743/)

Book Ellen C. Scott; (2014)
Cinema Civil Rights: Regulation, Repression, and Race in the Classical Hollywood Era (/isis/citation/CBB195877199/)

Book Dennis A. Doyle; (2016)
Psychiatry and Racial Liberalism in Harlem, 1936-1968 (/isis/citation/CBB833751424/)

Book Farber, Paul Lawrence; (2011)
Mixing Races: From Scientific Racism to Modern Evolutionary Ideas (/isis/citation/CBB001033410/)

Book McBride, David; (2002)
Missions for Science: U. S. Technology and Medicine in America's African World (/isis/citation/CBB000301936/)

Book Ridlon, Florence; (2005)
A Black Physician's Struggle for Civil Rights: Edward C. Mazique, M.D. (/isis/citation/CBB000550078/)

Book Holloway, Karla F. C.; (2011)
Private Bodies, Public Texts: Race, Gender, and a Cultural Bioethics (/isis/citation/CBB001200198/)

Thesis Eileen J. B. Thrower; (2016)
Blazing Trails for Midwifery Care: Oral Histories of Georgia's Pioneer Nurse-Midwives (/isis/citation/CBB168809967/)

Book Long, Margaret Geneva; (2012)
Doctoring Freedom: The Politics of African American Medical Care in Slavery and Emancipation (/isis/citation/CBB001252883/)

Article Pamela Sankar; Jonathan Kahn; (2005)
BiDil: Race Medicine Or Race Marketing? (/isis/citation/CBB017701425/)

Authors & Contributors
Segrest, Mab
Patrick Ellis
Thrower, Eileen J. B.
Hatch, Anthony Ryan
Sano, Yulonda Eadie
Claudia Jeanne Ford
Concepts
African Americans and science
African Americans
Medicine and race
Public health
Midwifery
Psychiatry
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
21st century
20th century, late
20th century, early
Places
United States
Georgia (U.S.)
Africa
Southern states (U.S.)
Atlantic Ocean
Mississippi (U.S.)
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment