WITCHES AND WORKING WOMEN HOW THE MYTH OF THE MIDWIFE -WITCH GAVE - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

WITCHES AND WORKING WOMEN HOW THE “MYTH” OF THE MIDWIFE -WITCH GAVE BIRTH TO MAN-MIDWIFERY a presentation by Jennifer Sveda

INTRODUCTION  European Witch-Hunt, 1450-1750 C.E.  Decline of Female Midwives  Man-Midwifery  Impact of stereotypes, internalized beliefs, and cultural myths Image from http://images.natureworldnews.com/data/thumbs/full/35338/720/0/0/0/ancient-depiction-of-witches-and-evil-spirits-circa-1400.jpg

THE IGNORANT MIDWIFE: HISTORICAL STEREOTYPES  Sarah/Sairey Gamp  Character in Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens  Drunk and incompetent  “ Lowly she may have been, and inept she often was…Her not very clean hands guided countless millions of babies into the world; her eventual emancipation from ignorance, incompetence, and poverty …is a chapter of medical history that has been much neglected.” - Thomas Forbes, The Midwife and the Witch, 1966 Image from http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02121/sarahgamp2_2121921b.jpg

THE MIDWIVES OF EARLY MODERN ENGLAND • midwife manuals Literacy* • witnesses and expert testimony • licensing Experience • apprenticeship • knowledge of the body Skills • played role before, during, and after birth • good temper Character* • clean, healthy, and strong

MIDWIFERY AND WITCHCRAFT: THE EUROPEAN WITCH-HUNT  Stereotype of witches  Anti-witch literature  Cultural practices  Maleficia vs. diabolism  Trial records  Ursula Kemp, 1582 Image from http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PjKeuwJ6txo/VQaPFy0NpEI/AAAAAAAAAqk/vYUtCQMTb_4/s1600/Witches%27Familiars1579.jpg

THE RISE OF THE MAN-MIDWIFE  Mid-to-late-eighteenth century  Lacked association with witchcraft  More desirable alternative for mothers Image from http://www.britishmuseum.org/collectionimages/AN00160/AN00160512_001_l.jpg?width=304

THE MAN-MIDWIVES OF EARLY MODERN ENGLAND • difficult births Experience • midwife manuals • new tools Improvements • better survival in difficult births • piety, honesty, trustworthiness Character • lacked diabolical elements Criticism • crimes not associated with witchcraft

CONCLUSION Emphasis on social expectations and shifting perceptions of female midwives

BIBLIOGRAPHY – PRIMARY SOURCES Anonymous. 1682. The English midwife enlarged . London: Three Flower-de-luces. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88- 2003&res_id=xri:eebo&res_dat=xri:pqil:res_ver=0.2&rft_id=xri:eebo:citation:99830324 Chamberlen, Hugh. 1673. The accomplisht midwife, treating of the diseases of women with child, and in child-bed . London. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88- 2003&res_id=xri:eebo&res_dat=xri:pqil:res_ver=0.2&rft_id=xri:eebo:citation:99829392 Culpeper, Nicholas. 1676. Culpeper's Directory for midwives: or, A guide for women . London. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88- 2003&res_id=xri:eebo&res_dat=xri:pqil:res_ver=0.2&rft_id=xri:eebo:citation:99899350 Draper, Stephen. 1686. Most dear and highly esteemed women . London. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88- 2003&res_id=xri:eebo&res_dat=xri:pqil:res_ver=0.2&rft_id=xri:eebo:citation:99888723 King James I. 1597. Daemonologie . http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25929/25929-h/25929-h.html

BIBLIOGRAPHY – PRIMARY SOURCES, CONT. Kramer, Heinrich, and Jacob Sprenger. 1486. The Hammer of Witches . Trans. Christopher S. Mackay. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Ward, Edward. 1699. A hue and a cry after a man-midwife . London. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88- 2003&res_id=xri:eebo&res_dat=xri:pqil:res_ver=0.2&rft_id=xri:eebo:citation:13522990 W.W. 1582. “A true and just Recorde of the Information, Examination, and Confession of all the Witches, taken at St. Osyth in the County of Essex; whereof some were executed, and some others entreated according to the determination of law.” In The Witchcraft Papers , ed. Peter Haining. New Jersey: University Books, Inc. 1974. 43-57.

BIBLIOGRAPHY – SECONDARY SOURCES Evenden, Doreen. 2000. The Midwives of Seventeenth-Century London . New York: Cambridge University Press. Fissell, Mary E. 2006. Vernacular Bodies: The Politics of Reproduction in Early Modern England . New York: Oxford University Press. Forbes, Thomas Rogers. 1966. The midwife and the witch . New York: AMS Press. Harley, David. 2014. "Chapter 46: Historians as Demonologists: The Myth of the Midwife-Witch." In Magic & Witchcraft , edited by Michael D. Bailey, 142-167. New York: Routledge. Hellwarth, Jennifer Wynne. 2002. The Reproductive Unconscious in Medieval and Early Modern England . New York: Routledge. Marland, Hilary, ed. 1993. The Art of Midwifery . New York: Routledge. Levak, Brian P. 2006. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern England . Essex: Pearson Education Limited. Wilson, Adrian. 1995. The Making of Man-Midwifery: Childbirth in England, 1660 – 1770 . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.