"A SPECIAL VOCATION": PHILADELPHIA MIDWIVES, 1910-1940 (PENNSYLVANIA).
Contributors: University of Pennsylvania.
Published: 1992
Number of pages: 249
Subjects: Women's Studies.; Health Sciences, Nursing.; Health Sciences, Obstetrics and Gynecology.; History, United States.
Description: In the past decade, there has been an increased interest in the history of the cultural and societal beliefs and behaviors surrounding childbearing. This interest has generated scholarly inquiry into previous interpretations of care of women during pregnancy and birth and raised new questions regarding the role of the birth attendant in the cultural and societal milieu of childbearing. Conventional histories have approached the subject as the study of the move from "untrained" female birth attendants to scientific medical specialists. The use of public records and medical histories has led to analysis based on incomplete and often biased data. This research uses a feminist perspective to examine midwifery through the voices and actions of the women who practiced the craft and the women who hired midwives.

This analysis of midwifery practice in the early twentieth century was guided by the following goals: (a) identification of the dominant philosophy of care for childbearing represented by a sample of urban midwives; (b) identification of childbearing practices of those midwives; (c) identification of preparation for practice; (d) identification of the midwives' perceptions of regulatory practices; and (e) identification of the midwives' reaction to and interpretation of the decline of midwifery activity in the early twentieth century. Through interview data and review of midwife birth records, the practice of midwives is explored in the context of their lives as women in family and community relationships.

Data suggests that the midwives in practice in Philadelphia from 1910-1940 demonstrated the skills necessary to provide care similar to that offered by physicians and nurses at that time. Their knowledge and skills were respected by the women for whom they provided care and the community physicians with whom they worked. Furthermore, this study supports the argument that midwifery faced its own crisis of professionalization in the early twentieth century. By continuing as a community and home based practice among women who increasingly accepted the belief in the scientific approach to health and illness, midwifery was unable to retain a central role in the evolving medical care system in the United States.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-07, Section: A, page: 2574.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, 1992.

School code: 0175.