“Fit to Be a Midwife”: Protestantism, Moral Character, and the State Supervision of Black Lay Midwives, 1931–1946

Abstract

ABSTRACT Scholars of religion and medicine have discussed the rise of scientific birthing while also capturing the significance of religion among Black midwives in the American South. Yet they have seldom discussed the place of Protestantism and African American Protestantism in state-sponsored midwifery programs for Black women in the twentieth century. This essay focuses on the 1945–1946 Leon County “Plan for Improving the Midwife Service Program” in North Florida to argue how state health workers promoted Black religion to determine the moral fitness of Black women to practice midwifery in their communities. Black religion was incorporated into the regulatory scheme of the health state. Using primary documents from state archives, this paper adds to the history of African American religion and medicine by demonstrating that African American Protestantism was integral to the state health apparatus and consequently used to legitimate the authority of modern obstetrics for Black communities in the Depression and World War II periods.