Source

State Archives of Florida, Series S904

Description

Information gathered by Jule O. Graves with treatments and remedies used by midwives in Florida and Georgia to care for mothers and children.

Date

1942 (circa)

Creator

Graves, Julia (Jule Oleander), 1881-1961

Format

Research (documents)

Coverage

Florida during World War II (1939-1945)

Topic

Health And Safety

Subjects

Community health nursing
Midwifery
Public health
Public health nursing

Geographic Term

Florida

General Note

During the late 19th and early-to-mid 20th centuries, midwives commonly attended to women during childbirth, particularly in the ethnic communities in the North and in black communities in the American South. By the 1920s and 1930s, immigration restrictions limiting the influx of new midwives, resistance by physicians in the use of midwives, and a decreasing birthrate all led to a rapid decline in their numbers in the North. In the South, however, black midwives continued their practices, at least until state health officials moved to regulate and largely eliminate a profession that they believed was obsolete. In 1931, the Florida Legislature passed a law for "the control and licensing of midwifery for the protection of mothers at childbirth and authorizing the State Board of Health to make regulations therefor." The law required that midwives in Florida be licensed; at least 21 years old; able to read the Manual for Midwives and fill out birth certificates; "[b]e clean and constantly show evidence in behavior and in home of habits of cleanliness"; possess a diploma from a school for midwives; and have attended, under supervision of a physician, at least 15 cases of labor.