The archaeology of mothering : an African-American midwife's tale

Literaturverz. S. 221 - 234

Using archaeological materials recovered from a housesite in Mobile, Alabama, Laurie Wilkie explores how one extended African-American family engaged with competing and conflicting mothering ideologies in the post-emancipation South. The female head of this household, Lucrecia Perryman, turned to midwifery to support her family and as a midwife, became a vehicle for transmitting cultural, social, and political knowledge regarding mothering performance and practice to the broader African-American community. Contents: Why an archaeology of mothering? - The Perryman family of Mobile - African-American mothering and enslavement - Mothering and domesticity in freedom: ideology and practice - Midwifery as mother's work - To mother or not to mother - Midwifery and scientific mothering - Conclusions: the many ideologies of African-American motherhood