Birthing a slave: motherhood and medicine in the antebellum South

Birthing a slave: motherhood and medicine in the antebellum South

Series Title(s):
History of Medicine seminar
Contributor(s):
Schwartz, Marie Jenkins, 1946-
National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
Publication:
[Bethesda, Md. : National Library of Medicine, 2007]
Language(s):
English
Format:
Moving image
Subject(s):
Obstetrics -- history
Maternal Health Services -- history
Women's Health -- history
Black or African American -- history
Reproductive Behavior -- history
Cultural Characteristics
History, 19th Century
Southeastern United States
Abstract:
After the United States government banned the importing of enslaved people in 1808, an economic system dependent on slavery could be maintained only through babies born in bondage. Black women, however, proved an unruly force, distrustful of both slaveholders and their doctors. With their own healing traditions, enslaved women struggled to determine their own health in a system that neither understood nor respected their social circumstances, customs, and values.Competing approaches to reproductive health evolved on plantations, as both black women and white men sought to control the health and fertility of enslaved mothers.
Copyright:
The National Library of Medicine believes this item to be in the public domain. (More information)
Extent:
085 min.
Color:
Color
Sound:
Sound
Credits:
Introduction by Stephen Greenberg ; speaker, Marie Jenkins Schwartz.
Provenance:
Received: July 26, 2007; transfer; from Stephen Greenberg, Ph.D., Reference Librarian, History of Medicine Division.
Technique:
Live action
NLM Unique ID:
101312855 (See catalog record)
OCLC no.:
166278585
Permanent Link:
http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101312855