Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2021/Fall/Section009/Mandy Johnson

Personal Life
Mandy Johnson was a Black midwife born in 1867 in Mobile County, Alabama. Ever since she was young her father Levi Johnson worked for the Labuzans, a white family. Mr. Levi Johnson, Mandy's Father raised chickens, hogs and even ran a vegetable wagon for the Labuzans. Her father passed, but Mandy continued living and working on the farm and so did her children and their children. Mandy had a total of 12 children with her husband and all twelve of her children were born on this farm. Mandy’s husband worked in a sawmill, until he broke his leg and got blood poisoning. He then went to Louisiana every year to work in a sugar mill. This was when she became a midwife.

Working Life
Mandy Johnson worked as a midwife for about 50 years. Johnson saw so much change in the women health field. From axes under pregnant ladies during labor to cut the pain, to wife’s wearing their husbands’ hats during labor. Johnson spent a lot of time as a midwife. She talks a lot about the care of babies. During her time, they washed the babies’ eyes with their wet diapers, brown a piece of linen and put it over the umbilical cord to make it fall off and when the babies got thrash, she would get sheep saffron and tie it in a rag to make a tea out of it.

Johnson initially turned to midwifery to help get over her husband’s death and singing some of her favorite tunes.

Racism in the Healthcare Field
Racism in the healthcare field at this time was very prevalent. Not only did it show from the patients perspective, it also showed from the staff perspective. In very many cases Black Doctors and Nurses weren't treated with the same respect, weren't given the same opportunities and weren't allowed the same materials and equipment, their white counterparts were allowed. "Like other forms of segregation, health-care segregation was originally a function of explicitly racist black codes and Jim Crow laws. Many hospitals, clinics, and doctor’s offices were totally segregated by race, and many more maintained separate wings or staff that could never intermingle under threat of law.” (Newkirk 2020)

Sharecropping in the South
During this time, it was very common for Black Families to live on white families property. In exchange for the land, the black families would take care of the farm which entails growing the crops, taking care of the farm animals like chickens and hogs and little things like gathering up chicken eggs. "Sharecropping and tenant farming were the dominant economic model of Alabama agriculture from the late-nineteenth century through the onset of World War II." (Phillips 2015)

Racial Differences in Household and Family Structure
During the late 1800s and early 1900s, there was a very clear distinction between the household of black families and the households of white families. Black families tended to be much larger, with most families having closer to 10 kids. While, white families tended to have a much smaller family, with most of them having closer to 3 or 4 kids. Most Black households were ran by women also. “There were racial differences in family and household structure at the turn of the century. Compared with those of native whites, African-American households were less likely to be nuclear and more likely to be headed by women." (Philip 1993)