From Home to Hospital: Jewish and Italian American Women and Childbirth, 1920-1940

by Angela D. Danzi

Overview

Employing seventy-eight in-depth interviews with Italian and Jewish American women, this study presents the subjective voices of women caught up in an important social change: the pre-1940 transformation of childbirth. Italian women were more varied in their choices—some were more likely to prefer home birth with a midwife, while others used a hospital clinic or private physician. A significant number moved from home to hospital over their birth careers, while nearly all Jewish women selected physician-assisted hospital birth. These differences are explained by looking at the structure and context of women's family and friendship networks and their personal links to varying childbirth caretakers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761809111
Publisher:	UPA
Publication date:	11/28/1997
Pages:	244
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Angela D. Danzi is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the State University of New York, Farmingdale.

Editorial Reviews

Danzi's study points to the way in which the culture of everyday practices, when studies within a historical framework, allows us to understand further the complexities of immigrant women's lives and of ethnic communities generally.

Italian American Review

Danzi's study points to the way in which the culture of everyday practices, when studies within a historical framework, allows us to understand further the complexities of immigrant women's lives and of ethnic communities generally.

The Italian American Review