Writing Bahian Women into the Social History of Medicine, 1923–45

This paper draws on research on maternal health and social welfare to argue for the utility and centrality of public health institution-focused investigations in elucidating the dynamics of Bahian society. Between 1923 and 1945, Bahia experienced the unprecedented institutionalization of a series of local and federal programs aimed at improving the health of mothers and children. In the capital of Salvador, a place long characterized through maternal tropes, medical organizations provided pre-natal, well-baby, foundling, and foster care; nutritional support; and direct cash transfers for the first time – a result of social, political, and ideological transitions that played out in Bahia and elsewhere. These developments unveil the obstacles families faced in staying healthy, and, for many women and men, the opportunities available to translate public interest in health into activism and professional activities. This approach reveals Bahian women as social actors in their own right and neither one-dimensional heroines nor downtrodden victims of circumstance. Significantly, this study allows for reading women’s history beyond motherhood, providing a wider window into occupational lives and family situations. This paper explains how the methodologies of the social history of medicine add to our understanding of 20^th-century Bahia, an era we know far too little about. It pushes beyond individual experiences to the interaction of community members with private philanthropy and public health institutions. Through institutions, I use the case study of Bahia to uncover the praxis of race and gender – not just its discourses and politics. Finally, this paper engages the question of methodologies for research into Bahian social medicine. Bahian archives provide a unique challenge, not just in structure, preservation, and knowledge production, but also in the difficulties of accessing 20^th-century records, framing the questions we ask and answer and encouraging us to seek medicine in unexpected places.