Something Wasn’t Clean”
Black Midwifery, Birth, and Postwar Medical Education in All My Babies
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15023801 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Wangui Muigai (0009-0002-3305-1317, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 93 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 82-113 |
| Publication date | 2019-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Bulletin of the history of medicine (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-5140 • E-ISSN: 1086-3176 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/bhm.2019.0003 |
| PMID | 30956237 |
| OpenAlex | W2925710198 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
| References cited | 19 |
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
Art history · Film director · Government (linguistics) · Health care · Movie theater · Obstetrics · Political science · Power (physics) · Sociology · American History and Culture · Gender Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · Law · Medicine · Race, History, and American Society
Brought to Bed
Writing Women's History
Thomas Edison's Tuberculosis Films
The Black Female Body
Uncertain Enthusiasm
Repellent Subjects
Choosing to Live
I can do the child no good’
Working Cures
Conceiving the New World Order
Outstanding Services to Negro Health”
African American Midwifery in the South
A History of Neglect
Returning the Gaze
Black Women in White
No Uncommon Disease”
Purity and Danger
Lying-in
American Midwives
| Unique citing works | 8 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1.33 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2026 (7) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 8 |