I propose to write a history of the change from midwife to physician-attended childbirth in the crucial years between 1870 and 1930. My study will examine the shift in childbirth attendants in terms of the broader issues of community and family, the rise of science, and the growth of professional authority. While there have been several prior studies of midwives in the United States, they have focused on the midwife debates among American physicians. My work concentrates instead on the larger historical and cultural context in which midwives and physicians delivered babies. By analyzing the education, the geographic components of practice, and the demographic characteristics of midwives and physicians who practiced in Wisconsin, my work explores the rise of professionalism within the context of particular communities. To study large numbers of practitioners over a fifty year period, this study uses the methodology of social science history, particularly quantitative, statistical analysis and historical demography. Through a number of large, linked data sets, both the practitioners and the changes in their practices are followed in a variety of geographic and cultural settings. Most of the physicians and midwives were identified from a sample of almost 29,000 birth certificates filed in four Wisconsin counties between 1870 and 1920. Midwife and physician licenses were used to ascertain parameters of midwife and physician training. The federal and state manuscript census provided data on about 400 midwives and 900 physicians and their families. The birth certificate data were useful in tracing the ecological facets of practice and the pace of practice for midwives and physicians.
