Mamie Odessa Hale

Mamie Odessa Hale (November 19, 1910 – July 10, 1979) was a leader in public health and a midwife consultant who worked in Arkansas for the Department of Health from 1945 to 1950.[1] During this time, Hale's objective was to educate and train 'granny midwives.' (These women managed the medical side of pregnancies and assisted in delivery. They also were the ones who completed birth certificates for new born babies.)[2] Her efforts were in place to address the public health disparity between black and white women that was currently evident.

Mamie Odessa Hale
BornNovember 19, 1910
Keeneys Creek, West Virginia
DiedJuly 10, 1979(1979-07-10) (aged 68)
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Alma materTuskegee School of Nurse-Midwifery for Colored Nurses

Early life and education

Mamie Odessa Hale was born on November 19, 1910 in Keeneys Creek, West Virginia, as the third child to Emanuel Hale and Minnie Maude Creasy Hale.[3] Hale attended the Tuskegee School of Nurse-Midwifery for Colored Nurses in Alabama in 1941.[4] The school was one of the few programs created to educate African American nurses.[3] The Rosenwald Foundation and Children’s Bureau, a government organization used to record and oversee all matters relating to child welfare, funded the school. The school required a bachelor's degree to enroll, but there is no record of where she would have received this education. The school graduated 31 students before its closing in 1946.[5]

Early career

Mamie Odessa Hale began her career in public health in 1942 in Crittenden County health department. At the time many registered nurses were off helping the war effort for World War II, which opened up more opportunities for Hale to further her career. Due to low access to health facilities in rural areas and racial barriers, disparity in the mortality rates of black children became a social issue that had to be handled. Before Hale’s involvement, the attempts made by the state to regulate and educate midwives had been unsuccessful. Hale’s strong community support on these efforts encouraged many women, on average between 60 and 80 years old, to strive to obtain nursing permits.[2]

Career highlights

After much success Hale was appointed to the role of midwife consultant for the Arkansas Department of Health. In this position, she educated “granny” midwives to become more competent in the delivery of children. While working for the Arkansas Department of Health, Hale planned her own 8- to 12-week training program for granny midwives. Many of these women in training were illiterate, so Hale created her program to be demonstration based, consisting of movies, singing, and pictures.[1][6] After the completion of the full training, the midwives became state certified. Her work with the public health system lead to a decrease in the number deaths of African Americans due to pregnancy and childbirth to only 43 in 1950, in comparison to the 128 in 1930.[7] Due to her great influence, Hale gained popularity not only in the medical community, but also in the civil rights movement. Supporters of Hale, both white and black, boycotted restaurants that refused to serve African Americans and called for equality across the country.[8]

References
  1. Eisler, Riane (2014). Transforming Interprofessional Partnerships: A New Framework for Nursing and Partnership-Based Health Care. Sigma Theta Tau. ISBN 9781938835261.
  2. Bell, Pegge (2000). Arkansas Biography: A Collection of Notable Lives. The University of Arkansas Press. pp. 127–128.
  3. Smith, Jessie (2011). Encyclopedia of African American Popular Culture. Greenwood. pp. 936–940. ISBN 978-0-313-35796-1.
  4. Hine, Darlene (2005). Black Women in America (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195156775.
  5. Dawley, Katy (March 4, 2003). "Origins of Nurse-Midwifery in the United States and its Expansion in the 1940s". Journal of Midwifery & Women's Health. 48 (2): 86–95. doi:10.1016/S1526-9523(03)00002-3.
  6. Potter, Teddie (2010). Reconstructing a New Story of Nursing: Critical Analysis of Nursing Textbooks Using Raine Eisler's Partnership Paradigm. San Francisco, California: California Institute of Integral Studies. p. 186.
  7. Bell, Pegge (1993). Nursing History Review Vol. 1. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0812214505.
  8. Luke, J.M. (2016). Catchin' Babies: African American Midwives, Maternity Care, And Public Health Debates In The Jim Crow South, 1920-1970.
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