THE HISTORY OF WOMEN AND SCIENCE, HEALTH, AND TECHNOLOGY:
A BIBLIOGRAPHIC GUIDE TO THE PROFESSIONS AND THE DISCIPLINES

Midwifery (1459-1548)


ID: GLSHW-4.3.4
 
Midwifery (1459-1548)
 
GENERAL
 
 1459     Asgood, K., Hochstrasser, D.L., and Deuschle, K.W. "Lay Midwifery in
Southern Appalachia." ARCHIVES OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH 12 (1966): 759-770.
 
 1460     Benedek, Thomas G. "The Changing Relationship between Midwives and
Physicians during the Renaissance." BULLETIN OF THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE 51,
no.4 (Winter 1977): 550-564.
 
 1461     Biggs, C. Lesley. "The Case of the Missing Midwives: A History of
Midwifery in Ontario from 1795-1900." ONTARIO HISTORY 75 (March 1983): 21-35.
Reprinted in DELIVERING MOTHERHOOD: MATERNAL IDEOLOGIES AND PRACTICES IN THE
19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES, ed. by Katherine Arnup, Andree Levesque, and Ruth
Roach Pierson (New York: Routledge, 1990): pp.20-35.
 
 1462     Boehme, Gernot. "Midwifery as Science: An Essay on the Relation
Between Scientific and Everyday Knowledge." In SOCIETY AND KNOWLEDGE:
CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE, ed. by Nico Stehr and
Volker Meja, pp.365-385. New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1984.
 
 1463     Borst, Charlotte G. "The Training and Practice of Midwives: A
Wisconsin Study." BULLETIN OF THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE 62, no.4 (1988): 606-627.
 
 1464     Borst, Charlotte G. "Wisconsin's Midwives as Working Women: Immigrant
Midwives and the Limits of a Traditional Occupation, 1870-1920." JOURNAL OF
AMERICAN ETHNIC HISTORY 8 (Spring 1989): 24-59.
 
 1465     Brack, Datha Clapper. "Displaced: The Midwife by the Male Physician."
WOMEN AND HEALTH 1, no.6 (November/December 1976): 18-24. Repr. in BIOLOGICAL
WOMAN - THE CONVENIENT MYTH, pp.207-226. Ed. by Ruth Hubbard, Mary Sue Henifin,
and Barbara Fried. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman, 1982.
 
 1466     Breckinridge, Mary. "An Adventure in Midwifery: The Nurse-on-
Horseback Gets a `Soon Start' ... First Days of the Frontier Nursing Service
... 1926." FRONTIER NURSING SERVICE QUARTERLY BULLETIN 60, no.3 (Winter 1985):
18-25.
 
 1467     Breckinridge, Mary, and Ireland, B. "The Birth of the Frontier
Nursing Service -- The First Words, The First Steps." FRONTIER NURSING SERVICE
QUARTERLY BULLETIN 62, no.1 (Summer 1986): 3-11.
 
 1468     Breckinridge, Mary. WIDE NEIGHBORHOODS: A STORY OF FRONTIER NURSING
SERVICE. New York: Harper, 1952. Repr. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky,
1981.
 
 1469     Brickman, Jane Pacht. "Public Health, Midwives, and Nurses,
1880-1930." In NURSING HISTORY: NEW PERSPECTIVES, NEW POSSIBILITIES, ed. Ellen
Condliffe Lagemann. New York: Teachers College Press, 1983.
 
 1470     Campbell, Marie. FOLKS DO GET BORN. New York: Rinehart, 1946; repr.
New York: Garland, 1985. Examines practices of black midwives in Georgia.
 
 1471     Cass, Victoria B. "Female Healers in the Ming and the Lodge of Ritual
and Ceremony." JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ORIENTAL SOCIETY 106 (January/March
1986): 233-240. Midwives, wet nurses and healers during the Ming dynasty
(1368-1644) in China.
 
 1472     Chamberlain, Mary. OLD WIVES' TALES: THEIR HISTORY, REMEDIES, AND
SPELLS. London: Virago, 1981.
 
 1473     Cutter, Irving S., and Viets, Henry R. A SHORT HISTORY OF MIDWIFERY.
Philadelphia: Saunders, 1964.
 
 1474     DeClercq, Eugene R., and Lacroix, Richard. "The Immigrant Midwives of
Lawrence: The Conflict Between Law and Culture in Early Twentieth-Century
Massachusetts." BULLETIN OF THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE 59, no.2 (Summer 1985):
232-246.
 
 1475     DeClercq, Eugene R., and Lacroix, Richard. "The Nature and Style of
Practice of Immigrant Midwives in Early Twentieth Century Massachusetts."
JOURNAL OF SOCIAL HISTORY 19 (Fall 1985): 113-130.
 
 1476     DeClercq, Eugene R. "The Transformation of American Midwifery:
1975-1988." AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH 92, no.5 (1992): 690-694.
 
 1477     Devitt, Neal. "The Statistical Case for the Elimination of the
Midwife: Fact versus Prejudice, 1890-1935, Part I." WOMEN AND HEALTH 4, no.1
(Spring 1979): 81-96; Part II: 4, no.2 (Summer 1979): 169-186.
 
 1478     DeVries, Raymond G. "Midwifery and the Problem of Licensure."
RESEARCH IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF HEALTH CARE 2 (1982): 77-120.
 
 1479     DeVries, Raymond G. REGULATING BIRTH: MIDWIVES, MEDICINE AND THE LAW.
Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1985.
 
 1480     Donegan, Jane B. "`Safe Delivered,' but by Whom? Midwives and Men-
midwives in Early America." In WOMEN AND HEALTH IN AMERICA: HISTORICAL
READINGS, ed. by Judith Walzer Leavitt, pp.302-317. Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1984.
 
 1481     Donegan, Jane B. WOMEN AND MEN MIDWIVES: MEDICINE, MORALITY, AND
MISOGYNY IN EARLY AMERICA. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1978.
 
 1482     Donnison, Jean. "Medical Women and Lady Midwives: A Case Study in
Medical and Feminist Politics." WOMEN'S STUDIES 3, no.3 (1976): 229-250.
 
 1483     Donnison, Jean. MIDWIVES AND MEDICAL MEN: A HISTORY OF THE STRUGGLE
FOR THE CONTROL OF CHILDBIRTH. New Barnet, Herts [England]: Historical
Publications, 1988. A history of midwifery and obstetrics in England, 1st ed.
issued under the title: MIDWIVES AND MEDICAL MEN: A HISTORY OF
INTERPROFESSIONAL RIVALRIES AND WOMEN'S RIGHTS. New York: Schoken, 1977.
 
 1484     Dougherty, Molly C. "Southern Lay Midwives as Ritual Specialists."
New York: Plenum, 1978. WOMEN IN RITUAL AND SYMBOLIC ROLES, ed. by Judith Hoch-
Smith and Anita Spring, pp.151-164.
 
 1485     Dougherty, Molly C. "Southern Midwifery and Organized Health Care:
Systems in Conflict." MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 6 (1982): 113-126.
 
 1486     Ehrenreich, Barbara, and English, Deirdre. WITCHES, MIDWIVES, AND
NURSES: A HISTORY OF WOMEN HEALERS. New York: Feminist Press, 1973.
 
 1487     Ferguson, James H. "Mississippi Midwives." JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF
MEDICINE 5 (1950): 85-95. Provides accounts of black midwives and includes
transcripts of their songs.
 
 1488     Forbes, Thomas R. THE MIDWIFE AND THE WITCH. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1966.
 
 1489     Forbes, Thomas R. "Midwifery and Witchcraft." JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY
OF MEDICINE 17 (1962): 264-283.
 
 1490     Gardiner, Anne Barbeau. "Elizabeth Cellier in 1688 on Envious Doctors
and Heroic Midwives Ancient and Modern." EIGHTEENTH CENTURY LIFE 14, no.1
(1990): 24-34.
 
 1491     Greilsammer, Myriam. "The Midwife, the Priest, and the Physician: The
Subjugation of Midwives in the Low Countries at the End of the Middle Ages."
JOURNAL OF MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES 22, no.2 (Fall 1991): 285-329.
Includes midwives' oaths and other primary documents.
 
 1492     Harley, David. "Historians as Demonologists: The Myth of the Midwife-
witch." SOCIAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE 3, no.1 (April 1990): 1-26. Shows how
historians have been misled by taking literally the rhetoric of the witch-
hunters who wrote THE HAMMER OF WITCHES (MALLEUS MALEFICARUM).
 
 1493     Holmes, Linda Janet. "African American Midwives in the South." In THE
AMERICAN WAY OF BIRTH, ed. Pamela Eakins, pp.273-291. Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 1986.
 
 1494     Joint Study Group of the International Federation of Gynaecology and
Obstetrics, and International Confederation of Midwives. MATERNITY CARE IN THE
WORLD: INTERNATIONAL SURVEY OF MIDWIFERY PRACTICE AND TRAINING. Oxford,
England: Pergamon Press, 1966.
 
 1495     Jordan, Brigitte. BIRTH IN FOUR CULTURES. Montreal: Eden Press, 1978.
Covers the American hospital, Dutch and Swedish midwifery, Mayan midwifery, and
home births in Mexico.
 
 1496     Kloberdanz, Timothy J. "The Daughters of Shiphrah: Folk Healers and
Midwives of the Great Plains." GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY 9 (Winter 1989): 3-12.
 
 1497     Kobrin, Frances E. "The American Midwife Controversy: A Crisis of
Professionalization." BULLETIN OF THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE 40 (July/Aug 1966):
350-363. Repr. in WOMEN AND HEALTH IN AMERICA: HISTORICAL READINGS, pp.318-326.
Ed. by Judith Walzer Leavitt. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984.
Also repr. in SICKNESS AND HEALTH IN AMERICA: READINGS IN THE HISTORY OF
MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH, pp.197-205. Ed. by Judith Walzer Leavitt and Ronald
L. Numbers. 2nd ed. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985.
 
 1498     Ladd-Taylor, Molly. "Grannies and Spinsters: Midwife Education under
the Sheppard-Towner Act." JOURNAL OF SOCIAL HISTORY 22 (Winter 1988): 255-275.
 
 1499     Laderman, Carol C. WIVES AND MIDWIVES: CHILDBIRTH AND NUTRITION IN
RURAL MALAYSIA. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Ethnographic
and ecological perspectives; blood and dietary analyses; how ecology and
beliefs affect childbirth.
 
 1500     Laforce, Helene. "The Different Stages of the Elimination of Midwives
in Quebec." In DELIVERING MOTHERHOOD: MATERNAL IDEOLOGIES AND PRACTICES IN THE
19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES, ed. by Katherine Arnup, Andree Levesque, and Ruth
Roach Pierson, pp.36-50. New York: Routledge, 1990.
 
 1501     Leap, Nicky, and Hunter, Billie. THE MIDWIFE'S TALE. London: Scarlet
Press, 1993.
 
 1502     Lieburg, M.J. van, and Morland, H. "Midwife Regulation, Education and
Practice in the Netherlands During the Nineteenth Century." MEDICAL HISTORY 33
(1989): 296-317.
 
 1503     Litoff, Judy Barrett. THE AMERICAN MIDWIFE DEBATE: A SOURCEBOOK ON
ITS MODERN ORIGINS. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1986.
 
 1504     Litoff, Judy Barrett. AMERICAN MIDWIVES, 1860 TO THE PRESENT.
Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1978.
 
 1505     Litoff, Judy Barrett. "The Midwife Throughout History." JOURNAL OF
NURSE-MIDWIFERY 27, no.6 (November 1982): 3-11.
 
 1506     Litoff, Judy Barrett. "Midwives and History." In WOMEN, HEALTH, AND
MEDICINE IN AMERICA: A HISTORICAL HANDBOOK, ed. by Rima D. Apple, pp.443-458.
New York: Garland, 1990.
 
 1507     Malin, Maili, and Hemminki, Elina. "Midwives as Providers of Prenatal
Care in Finland -- Past and Present." WOMEN & HEALTH 18, no.4 (1992): 17-34.
 
 1508     Marshall, R.K. "17th Century Midwifery: The Treatment of
Miscarriage." NURSING MIRROR 155, no.24 (December 15, 1982): 31-36.
 
 1509     McCool, W.F., and McCool, S.J. "Feminism and Nurse-Midwifery:
Historical Overview and Current Issues." JOURNAL OF NURSE-MIDWIFERY 34, no.6
(November 1989): 323-334.
 
 1510     Mongeau, Beatrice, Smith, Harvey L., and Maney, Ann C. "The Granny
Midwife: Changing Roles and Functions of a Folk Practitioner." AMERICAN JOURNAL
OF SOCIOLOGY 66 (March 1961): 497-505.
 
 1511     Oakley, Ann, and Houd, Susanne. HELPERS IN CHILDBIRTH: MIDWIFERY
TODAY. New York: Hemisphere, 1990. Historical as well as descriptive.
 
 1512     Perkins, Wendy. "Midwives Versus Doctors: The Case of Louise
Bourgeois." SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 3, no.2 (1988): 135-157.
 
 1513     Perry, D.S. "The Early Midwives of Missouri." JOURNAL OF NURSE-
MIDWIFERY 28, no.6 (November 1983): 15-22.
 
 1514     Peters, Edward. THE MAGICIAN, THE WITCH, AND THE LAW. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978.
 
 1515     Peterson, Karen J. "Technology as a Last Resort: The Work of Lay
Midwives." SOCIAL PROBLEMS 30 (1983): 284-297.
 
 1516     Reed, Louis S. MIDWIVES, CHIROPODISTS, AND OPTOMETRISTS: THEIR PLACE
IN MEDICAL CARE. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1932.
 
 1517     Robinson, Sharon A. "A Historical Development of Midwifery in the
Black Community: 1600-1940." JOURNAL OF NURSE-MIDWIFERY 29 (1984): 247-250.
 
 1518     Rothman, Barbara Katz. "Midwives in Transition: The Structure of a
Clinical Revolution." SOCIAL PROBLEMS 30 (1983): 262-71.
 
 1519     "Royal College of Midwives Library: A Select Reading List. A History
of Midwifery and the RCM." MIDWIVES CHRONICLE 98, 1169 RCM Suppl. (June 1985):
vii-viii.
 
 1520     Sablosky, Ann H. "The Power of the Forceps: A Comparative Analysis of
the Midwife -- Historically and Today." WOMEN AND HEALTH 1, no.1
(January/February 1976): 10-13.
 
 1521     Schaffer, Ruth C. "The Health and Social Functions of Black Midwives
on the Texas Brazos Bottom, 1920-1985." RURAL SOCIOLOGY 56 (Spring 1991):
89-105.
 
 1522     Schnorrenberg, Barbara Brandon. "Is Childbirth Any Place for a Woman?
The Decline of Midwifery in Eighteenth Century England." STUDIES IN EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY CULTURE 10 (1981): 393-408.
 
 1523     Scholten, Catherine M. "`On the Importance of the Obstetric Art':
Changing Customs of Childbirth in America, 1760-1825." WILLIAM AND MARY
QUARTERLY 34 (1977): 426-445. Repr. in WOMEN AND HEALTH IN AMERICA: HISTORICAL
READINGS, pp.142-154. Ed. by Judith Walzer Leavitt. Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1984.
 
 1524     Scholten, Catherine M. CHILDBEARING IN AMERICAN SOCIETY, 1650-1850.
New York: New York University Press, 1985.
 
 1525     Shoemaker, M. Theopane. HISTORY OF NURSE-MIDWIFERY IN THE UNITED
STATES. Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1947. Repr. New York:
Garland, 1984.
 
 1526     Smith, Susan L. "White Nurses, Black Midwives, and Public Health in
Mississippi, 1920-1950." NURSING HISTORY REVIEW 2 (1994): forthcoming.
 
 1527     Sullivan, Deborah A., and Weitz, Rose. LABOR PAINS: MODERN MIDWIVES
AND HOME BIRTH. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988.
 
 1528     Susie, Debra A. IN THE WAY OF OUR GRANDMOTHERS: A CULTURAL VIEW OF
TWENTIETH-CENTURY MIDWIFERY IN FLORIDA. Athens, GA: University of Georgia
Press, 1988. Study of Black lay midwives.
 
 1529     Towler, Jean, and Bramall, Joan. MIDWIVES IN HISTORY AND SOCIETY.
London; Dover, NH: Croom Helm, 1986.
 
 1530     Ulrich, Laurel T. "`The Living Mother of a Living Child': Midwifery
and Mortality in Post-Revolutionary New England." WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY 66
(January 1989): 27-48.
 
 1531     Waller, M.V., and Hong, O.S. "Midwifery Status and Education in
Korea: Historical and Governmental Influences." JOURNAL OF NURSE-MIDWIFERY 29,
no.5 (September 1984): 333-337.
 
 1532     Wiesner, Merry E. "Early Modern Midwifery: A Case Study."
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WOMEN'S STUDIES 6 (January/February 1983): 26-43.
 
 1533     Williams, J. Whitridge. "Medical Education and the Midwife Problem in
the United States." JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION 58, no.1
(January 6, 1912): 1-7.
 
BIOGRAPHIES AND STUDIES OF INDIVIDUALS
 
 1534     Armstrong, Penny, and Feldman, Sheryl. A MIDWIFE'S STORY. New York:
Ivy Books, 1988. Recollections of a midwife in Amish country.
 
 1535     Bell, Pegge L. "`Making Do' with the Midwife: Arkansas's Mamie O.
Hale in the 1940s." NURSING HISTORY REVIEW 1 (1993): 155-170.
 
 1536     Benjamin, Louvenia Taylor, and Holmes, Linda Janet, interviewer.
"Louvenia Taylor Benjamin, Southern Lay Midwife: An Interview." SAGE: A
SCHOLARLY JOURNAL ON BLACK WOMEN 2, no.2 (1985): 51-54.
 
 1537     Brooks, Juanita. "Mariah Huntsman Leavitt: Midwife of the Desert
Frontier." In FORMS UPON THE FRONTIER, ed. Austin Fife, Alta Fife, and Henry H.
Glassie, pp.119-131. Logan: Utah State University Press, 1989.
 
 1538     Buss, Fran Leeper. LA PARTERA: STORY OF A MIDWIFE. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 1980. Biography of Jesusita Aragon, who became a
midwife at fourteen, a community leader, and the only source of medical care in
a remote area of New Mexico.
 
 1539     Dye, Nancy Schrom. "Mary Breckinridge, the Frontier Nursing Service
and the Introduction of Nurse-Midwifery in the United States." BULLETIN OF THE
HISTORY OF MEDICINE 57, no.4 (Winter 1983): 485-507. Repr. in WOMEN AND HEALTH
IN AMERICA: HISTORICAL READINGS, pp.327-343. Ed. by Judith Walzer Leavitt.
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984.
 
 1540     Fuhrer, Charlotte. THE MYSTERIES OF MONTREAL: MEMOIRS OF A MIDWIFE.
Vancouver, B.C.: University of British Columbia Press, 1984. Originally
published in 1881.
 
 1541     Goldman, Emma. LIVING MY LIFE. New York: Knopf, 1931. Best known as
an anarchist, Goldman worked as a midwife among the poor in New York City.
Repr. New York: Da Capo, 1976 and Irving, CA: Reprint Services, 1991. 2 vol.
 
 1542     Hales, David A. "`There Goes Mathilda': Millard County Midwife and
Nurse." UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY 55 (Summer 1987): 278-293.
 
 1543     Kennedy, Joan E. "Jane Soley Hamilton, Midwife." NOVA SCOTIA
HISTORICAL REVIEW 2 (1982): 6-29.
 
 1544     Kursch, Daisy Estes. "Beulah Brinton of Bay View." MILWAUKEE HISTORY
10, no.2 (1987): 38-46. Wisconsin social activist and midwife.
 
 1545     Logan, Onnie Lee as told to Katherine Clark. MOTHER WIT: AN ALABAMA
MIDWIFE'S STORY. New York: Dutton, 1989. Autobiography of a Black "granny"
midwife, who delivered babies from 1925 to 1984.
 
 1546     Paradis, Roger. "Henriette, La Capuche: The Portrait of a Frontier
Midwife." CANADIAN FOLKLORE 3, no.2 (1981): 10-26.
 
 1547     Ulrich, Laurel T. A MIDWIFE'S TALE: THE LIFE OF MARTHA BALLARD, BASED
ON HER OWN RECORD OF HER WORK IN HALLOWELL AND AUGUSTA, MAINE, 1785-1812. New
York: Knopf, distr. Random House, 1990.
 
 1548     Whitehouse, Eula. "Sophia Hamman, an Early Texas Midwife and
Herbalist." FIELD LABORATORY 13 (1945): 70-72.


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Content of Bibliography last updated in 1993.
Format converted September 10, 1999.