To be sure, Logan and those like her certainly weren’t in it for the money. It’s also always been, for many, a “calling” - the kind of work that offers emotional or spiritual nourishment that is tough to quantify. The long tradition of midwifery has always sat at the intersection of science, health, and social work, even before those domains had names.

And for many poor and rural women, particularly in the South, granny midwives were lifesavers. Referred to as “granny midwives” (although there is some reason to believe they weren’t fans of the moniker), these lay health practitioners assisted pregnant women during labor and delivery. Me peekin through the crack.”īorn in Sweet Water, Alabama sometime around 1910, Logan was one of the many black women who learned the practice of midwifery from their mothers. “I didn’t actually see the baby born,” she told Katherine Clark, who recorded Logan’s life story for the 1984 volume Motherwit: An Alabama Midwife’s Story, “but when the baby cried I saw Mother pick it up and cut the cord. She said that her mother would have killed her if she’d known Onnie was watching, but Onnie couldn’t tear her gaze from the scene. The first time Onnie Lee Logan witnessed a birth she was but nine years old, peering through a crack in the wall as her mother delivered her nephew. Eugene Smith/The Life Picture Collection/Getty Images) This quick history brings us up-to-date, exploring today's changing attitudes toward childbirth, alternative medicine, and modern-day witches.(W. They build on their classic expos on the demonization of women healers and the political and economic monopolization of medicine. In this new and updated edition, Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English delve into the current fascination with and controversies about witches, exposing our fears and fantasies.

Witches, Midwives, and Nurses examines how women-led healing was delegitimized to make way for patriarchy, capitalism, and the emerging medical industry.Īs we watch another agonizing attempt to shift the future of healthcare in the United States, we are reminded of the longevity of this crisis, and how firmly entrenched we are in a system that doesn't work.įirst published by the Feminist Press in 1973, Witches, Midwives, and Nurses is an essential book about the corruption of the medical establishment and its historic roots in witch hunters.

Witches midwives and nurses book