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

we can see a struggle not just over childbirth, but also a battle between the identity of an old,
traditional China versus a new and modern nation dependent on youth. Obviously, the midwife
training schools were part of the latter.
Why did these schools publish such texts? Who was the intended audience? In her work
on the Chinese women’s press, Charlotte Beahan wrote that women’s journals (and I would add
school publications here too) “promoted a feeling of group identification and [provided] new
alternatives to a physically and mentally confining life dictated by social custom.” 566 These
women belonged to a new and progressive professional group. I argue that this group identity
was crucial to the formation of a strong midwifery profession. Together with other members of
their group, they did not see themselves as outsiders, but as an important part of new China.
This type of group identity led to the creation of a professional identity, along with professional
organizations that wielded political and social power (see Chapter Four).
Yearbooks were meant primarily for current students, but they were also good
advertising. Yearbooks and annual reports were sent to prospective donors and school
supporters, and were also used to increase enrollment. Both types of documents are
advertisements for the services the midwifery schools perform, namely maternal and child health
care and obstetrics. The schools very deliberately presented themselves as modern, professional
establishments, most notably through the use of photographs, a modern, Western invention. One
could argue that the midwives were Western-trained, and that they would necessarily use
Western photography because it had been imported by Westerners and was present in their
schools. However, the Tuqiang Advanced Midwife Training School, for example, was always
an independent Chinese institution, albeit one that trained women to use Western scientific
566 Beahan, "Feminism and Nationalism," 380.
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