title: The mistress, the midwife, and the medical doctor: pregnancy and childbirth on the plantations of the antebellum American South, 1800-1860.
abstract: This article represents a step towards examining the relationship between three key figures in the antebellum American South: the plantation mistress, the slave-midwife, and the professional male physician. It elucidates how the experiences of pregnancy and childbirth, which brought women close to death, formed the basis of a deeper, positive relationship between the black and white women of the antebellum South, and assesses the ways in which the professionalization of medicine affected this reproductive bond. Evaluating such a complicated network of relationships necessitates dissecting numerous layers of social interaction, including black and white women's shared cultural experiences and solidarity as reproductive beings; the role, power, and significance of slave-midwives and other enslaved caretakers in white plantation births; the cooperation between pregnant bondswomen and plantation mistresses; and the impact that the burgeoning profession of medicine had on the procreative union between antebellum black and white women.
authors.affiliation: Hacettepe University (Ankara, Turkey).
authors.forename: Tanfer Emin
authors.initials: TE
authors.lastname: Tunc
mesh_terms: D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D005114:Extramarital Relations / Q000208:ethnology / Q000266:history / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D049672:History, 19th Century; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008880:Midwifery / Q000191:economics / Q000193:education / Q000266:history / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D036801:Parturition / Q000208:ethnology / Q000502:physiology / Q000523:psychology; D010820:Physicians / Q000191:economics / Q000266:history / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000523:psychology; D011247:Pregnancy; D011822:Race Relations / Q000266:history / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000523:psychology; D012423:Rural Health / Q000266:history; D012424:Rural Population / Q000266:history; D012924:Social Conditions / Q000191:economics / Q000266:history / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D015144:Southeastern United States / Q000208:ethnology; D016387:Women's Health / Q000191:economics / Q000208:ethnology / Q000266:history / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D014933:Women's Rights / Q000191:economics / Q000193:education / Q000266:history / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence