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The Florida Board of Health initiated a midwife licensing program in 1931 to reduce infant mortality and to promote maternal and child health [1].

The Board of Health’s first formal training institute was the West Florida Midwives Institute, held at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, Florida. The week-long institute brought together midwives from surrounding regions to learn safe and aseptic delivery practices [2].

Pictured in this photo gallery, among images of unidentified Florida midwives are:

  • Georgianna Pride, Miccosukee, FL
  • Rosanna Ruso
  • Nurse McGreen
  • Uncle Ab
  • Certified Nurse Midwife E.J. Kirkland
  • Janie Stokes (from Suwannee County)
  • Georgianna Alexander Greenville (from Jefferson County)
  • Rachel Washington

  • You may order prints from the Florida Memory Collection if you find an ancestor here!

    Further Reading

    You can read more about Florida midwives in the book In the Way of Our Grandmothers: A Cultural View of Twentieth-Century Midwifery in Florida by Debra Anne Susie.


    References Cited

    [1] Florida State Archives, Florida Memory Collection, http://www.floridamemory.com, accessed 23 Mar 2013.

    [2] Susie, Debra Anne 2009 In the Way of Our Grandmothers: A Cultural View of Twentieth-Century Midwifery in Florida University of Georgia Press, p. 42.

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