Doctors and Healers: The Impact of Institutionalized Medicine for Reproductive Care for Mexican and Mexican American Women in the Early 20th Century

This presentation will explore the changes in obstetrical care wrought by the advent of Western-style hospitals in the US-Mexico borderlands at the turn of the twentieth century by examining its impacts on Mexican and Mexican American women. As US commercial interests spread further west, they were accompanied by a growing number of medical facilities designed to show both philanthropic intent and the permanence of American interests in the region. Some came as part of company towns, while others came under the guise of missionary organizations, going to places that were relatively untouched by American businesses. One consequence of this was to make Western-style medicine and public health available for women who lived in the vicinity of these hospitals, whether as wives of workers or simply as residents of nearby towns. These hospitals provided new forms of care to women and their babies, adding to the already vibrant marketplace of folk healers and lay midwives. Educational efforts were also directed at these women, encouraging them to behave and live in a manner deemed respectable by Western society in the name of sanitation. Much like public health projects in the Pacific and Caribbean, these efforts frequently bore an imperialist aspect. But they also provided options for safe access to surgeries, medications, and tools that gave women more freedom of choice in both medical care and daily life. This included access to services like hysterectomies and even abortions, both with and without the financial and moral backing of family members. As women experienced the changing world ushered in by industrialization and foreign investment, new identities formed that reshaped their ideas of whether remedios were good medicine or mere chicanery, and contributed to the development of greater social and physical independence.