BUILDING THE NATION THROUGH WOMEN'S HEALTH: MODERN ...

physicians, could not grasp the scientific childbirth methods that physicians could. According to
Charlotte Borst, the reason physicians displaced midwifery in the United States is that the latter
failed to professionalize, especially by establishing educational institutions. 464 Magali Sarfatti
Larson, in a study of the growth of professionalism, states that
“education plays a key role in the institutionalization and legitimation of a
profession. Historically, instruction for many occupations has evolved from the
relative informality of apprenticeships to formal training based on the
standardization and codification of knowledge. …Once established, this school-
based education has then been the main support of a professional subculture. In
addition, … professional development has also needed to claim an exclusive body
of knowledge. To then achieve a monopoly over practice, the profession needs to
control both the ‘production of knowledge and the production of producers.’” 465
The apprentice-trained midwives in the United States did not qualify for such
professionalization. They did not control the means of education, and they did not form strong
professional organizations. By the 1920s and 1930s, physicians were already beginning to
displace midwives in the birthing room, and women had long been excluded from the male-
dominated professional organizations. More recounts that “as late as 1929, according to the
well-known Chicago obstetrician-gynecologist Bertha Van Hoosen, women ‘were not regarded
as eligible for membership’ in the national obstetrical and gynecological societies.” 466 The
American Gynecological Society, which was created in 1876, did not elect its first female
member (Dr. Lillian K.P. Farrar) until 1921. The second was elected in 1971. Three more were
elected in 1980. The official history of these two organizations, published in 1985, maintains
that “the Society’s slowness in incorporation of women into membership should change in the
464 Borst, Catching Babies.
465 Larson, The Rise of Professionalism.
466 More, Restoring the Balance, 49.
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