Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2020/Summer II/Section 07/Lulu Rousseau

Overview
In 1938, Lula Russeau was interviewed by Gertha Couric as part of the Federal Writers’ Project. She was born and raised in Eufala, Alabama during the Civil War and Reconstruction Era, where she would learn traditional herbal and superstitious based medicine from her mother. Never leaving Eufala, Lula Russeau would dedicate her life delivering babies as a midwife. [1]

Early Life
Lula Russeau was born in Eufala, Alabama on August 15, 1861, during the Civil War. Her mother was a Chicksaw Indian and a granny midwife and wash woman, who would raise and teach Lula herbal medicine and house work trades, while her father was a “red man” (term for Native American by appearance), who died when Lula was only a few months old. While Lula was by ethnicity a Native American, she was regarded as a “negro” and spent her first five years as a slave until the Civil War ended. While enslaved people were fully emancipated through the Reconstruction, Lula and her mother would continue to live in their former enslavers’ backyard, and her mother would teach her the practice of using herbal medicine and charms to both heal people and drive bad spirits away. By the time Lula Russeau was a “missy gal” (a term for a young African American women), she would know how to cook, iron, sew, spin, and clean.

Later Life
As a “missy gal”, Lula Russeau knew about herbs and charms and believed in certain superstitions which led many to believe she was a “conjure woman.” (sorceress) She used her own elixirs and medicines which were successful in the community and was extremely knowledgeable about prenatal care. Rousseau describes her time as a midwife to have both “good times and bad times.” Rousseau notes one particular time in her interview where she was ignored by a community doctor. The doctor had misinformed his African American patient on the proper medication and his ignorance had caused her to go into a “convulsive spell.” Instances such as this would elude to a growing health disparity between African American patients and doctors. In 1878, Russeau married Dave Russeau; they would end up having 11 children. Rousseau continued her profession as a midwife for over 50 years, helping deliver over 500 babies, changing the narrative for the success of women of color at this time. She died October 15, 1946 in Eufaula, Alabama. [2] Rousseau describes her time as a midwife to have both “good times and bad times.”

Social Issues
Granny Midwives

When West Africans were captured and forced into slavery in the 1600’s, they brought with them their herbal medicinal knowledge as well as traditional superstitions and conjuring practices. The enslaved would use their medicinal practices to not only heal each other but to alleviate the physical pains of their enslavers. While the slave population grew, their health and cultural practices would morph into a unique American mixture: Native American spiritual practices and Christian values blended into West African medicinal knowledge and tradition [4].

The majority of midwives would grow up as slaves and as a result would learn herbal and conjuring rituals alongside housework skills. Many would even end up as caretakers and were forced to be wet nurses of owners' children. There were many factors that played a role in cultivating future midwives; learning the skill of herbal medicine and acquiring conjuring practices were the two specific requirements. There was an expansive list of herbal remedies midwives had to know about to cure different ailments. Lula Russeau, a granny midwife born during the Civil War lists, “Use pine tops for bad colds, mullein leaves too; bitter weed for chills and fever; sage and catnip leaves biled down, step hit and give it for babies to cure hives.” [1] Often, like in Lula Russeau’s case, this knowledge would be passed down from mother to daughter. In the midwife community, conjuring knowledge was habitually carried out in superstitious practices. Superstition was used even to “determine” whether a woman would become a midwife. If a girl was born with a “veil” or “caul” (a piece of amniotic sac on her face or head), it was a promising sign that she would deliver babies professionally. Other practices of midwives included putting a knife under the mattress to alleviate labor pains or forcing the mother-to-be to violently push by “quilling” [5] her so the baby would be pushed out [1].

Beginning in the 1920’s, these African American women who had medicinal knowledge and skills were consolidated in their roles as "granny midwives" within the sphere of public health. Writer Nina Renata Aron notes, “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. And for many poor and rural women, particularly in the South, granny midwives were lifesavers.” [6]. Post-Civil War, the vast majority of white American communities maintained racial biases against African Americans- granny midwives were no exception. Dr. Edgar J. Clifton, a 20th century white obstetrician described granny midwives as, “ ‘....midwives who, except in some rare instances, are dark, dirty, ignorant, untrained, incompetent women....she is evil, though a necessary evil, and must be controlled. We must save our women.” (p. 881)’ “[7]. Such sentiments were quite rampant, and while white America would shift towards hiring white obstetricians, granny midwives were present at 50% of births across America, 75% of which were in the Southeast [7]. Despite blatant social disregard, granny midwives would substantially limit the infant mortality rate across different socioeconomic classes and have a historical impact on process of labor and birthing.

Treatment of Midwives 

Several changes were made in the early 1900s concerning new expectations and fair treatment of Midwives. For example, there were far more requirements. Midwives were expected to have a substantial amount of knowledge about Prenatal and Maternity care. Midwives were evaluated on their skills and ranked based on their performance according to Public Health Records from 1936. Midwives in the South however, continued practicing home remedies and solutions which did not fit the efforts of Public Health that was set. “Those midwives who pay no attention to accepted methods of cleanliness and prescribe for their patients all sorts of home remedies, many of them based on superstitions, must register low on the index as compared with those midwives whose routine procedures conform to the pattern set forth in the midwife manual."[2]

Midwives also suffered from low wages due to self employment and there weren't nearly as many home births to keep up with the household income which proved extremely difficult during the Great Depression. Fortunately in 1936, more efforts to the improvement of wages for Midwives were made due to the increasing amount of attention from the government and official health organizations. Midwives were now paid based on their quality of service.

Not every Midwife received the benefits from improvements that had been made in the Midwife community. Unfortunately, African- American Midwives were overlooked due to racism and favor. They were viewed as unfit for the job and were rarely hired. [2]

Post Civil War

After the Civil War ended in 1865, many freed slaves felt a “lost feeling” once escaping from those who controlled them through manipulation and power. Many slaves struggled with the choice of leaving their plantation due to the lack of resources and money to build their communities and support themselves. This later sparked The Great Migration up North. “With the joy of emancipation came a dizzying array of concerns and questions. What did freedom mean for the nearly 4 million African Americans who were enslaved when the war began? How would the freedmen and freedwomen find economic stability? Should they stay on the land they knew or seek the possibilities of new places? How would white Southerners react to their freedom? And would the nation embrace or ignore them now that the war was over?” [3] Many of the freed slaves feared that once freed,they would confront the retaliation from those who did not approve of their freedom. They were unsure about the next move to their safety for their community and families.

The Great Migration truly sparked a culture surge throughout the African American community. Once African Americans began to migrate up north, they built their own communities and created a niche for the arrival and birth of black culture and art which eventually became a part of performance and growth in artistic endeavors during the 1920s and 1930s. According to many collected slave narratives, for many other African Americans in their antebellum narratives describing the life of a freed slave post civil war into the Great Depression extremely difficult. Many discussed the affect of rising unemployment, as they were just released from slavery with hardly any resources. More specifically, the lack of assistance provided in the Great Depression and the lack of attention from the then president, FDR and his New Deal.``During the Great Depression, African Americans were disproportionately affected by unemployment: they were the first fired and the last hired. After Roosevelt was elected, he began to institute his “New Deal,” a series of economic programs intended to offer relief to the unemployed and recovery of the national economy. Though African Americans were not the intended audience for these programs, they benefited as many citizens did.``

Impact of Early Birth Work Today

Due to the emergence of obstetricians, improving hospitals, and better scientific technology, the attendance of midwives at births would decrease from 40% in 1910 to 10.7% in 1935. [8]. Anti-midwife rhetoric was widely encouraged by emerging American obstetricians, as they labeled the African-American granny midwives as “dirty” and “evil”; during this time Jim Crow and segregation laws were legal forms of racism against African Americans. A professional, white-dominated medical system would highly disregard women of color, particularly African American mothers, and a historical medical discrepancy would surface, bleeding into the present. After midwifery percentages dropped to lower digits, between 1915 and 1929, there was a 41% increase in infant mortality as a result of birth injuries “due to obstetrical interference in birth”. [9] Granny midwives played a vital role in their respective communities and were a beacon of support for expectant and laboring mothers. Their skill set and medicinal knowledge within the Antebellum South, Civil War era, and post-Civil War kept infants and their mothers alive, regardless of socioeconomic statuses.

Although expecting mothers stopped using traditional granny midwives en masse, nurse-midwifery- a new form of midwifery created by Mary Breckinridge - would arise in the 1920’s, modernizing the skill set of midwives to work around new medical technology and providing healthcare within communities. Breckinridge would found the Frontier Nursing Service, which educated midwives and would greatly contribute to the professionalization of midwifery today [9]. This type of nurse-midwives mainly employed white women, further diluting the role of traditional African American granny midwives within neonatal health care. It was not until the 1970’s and 80’s, during the Second Wave of Feminism, that feminists recognized how the medical community demonized and mistreated granny midwives- despite their contributions to obstetrics. [6]

Presently, midwife utilization is rising, as certified nurse-midwives and midwives attended 8.3% of U.S. births, or 12.1% of vaginal births recently in 2014 [10]. In fact, births attended by midwives have significantly low rates of cesarean births and labor induction and midwife post-natal care greatly reduces the risk of infant mortality [11]. Unfortunately, there is a great evidence of a racial health disparity between white and colored mothers, specifically of African American mothers. Jamila Taylor and Cristina Novoa for the Center for American Progress factually state, “African American women across the income spectrum and from all walks of life are dying from preventable pregnancy-related complications at three to four times the rate of non-Hispanic white women,2 while the death rate for black infants is twice that of infants born to non-Hispanic white mothers.” [12] Because of this, many people of color studying to be midwives are insistent on expanding the practice of midwifery, while catering to the needs of pregnant women of color. Women of lower socioeconomic status and even just of African American ethnicity are historically at risk of medical malpractice within American medical establishments. In attempts to equalize neonatal care, midwife organizations such as The International Center For Traditional Childbearing (founded by Shafia M. Monroe, aka the Queen Mother of Midwifery Movement) advocate for increasing numbers of midwives of color in undeserved communities across the United States and the world. [14] The impact of traditional midwives can still be observed through the positive statistics of healthy mothers and infants at the care of certified nurse midwives. A rising number of colored midwives continue the legacy of traditional midwifery: needless to say, the historical importance of early birth work, specifically of granny-midwives- plays a significant role in the birth of healthy children today.