By Michael Ann Sullivan On October 27, 1937, the Santa Fe Maternal Health Center (SFMHC) opened under the auspices of Margaret Sanger and the New York Clinical Research Bureau. Florence Davenport, Faith Meem, and several other prominent Santa Fe women had invited Sanger to tea the previous summer to…
An Essay by Rick Hendricks For the last three decades, ethnohistorians and historical demographers have debated the role of infectious diseases on the populations of Spain's New World colonies. Completely lost in this scholarly discussion is the impact of such illnesses on the El Paso del Norte area, which…
by Lena McQuade In Spanish partera means midwife or a person who assists women during labor and delivery. In New Mexico, parteras are usually Spanish speaking, empirically trained, midwives. It is estimated that between 800 and 900 women practiced as parteras in the early 1900s. By 1951 there were…
By Allegra Huston In January 2002, as I sat in a New York City taxi on my way into Manhattan from JFK airport, I was suddenly hit with waves of nausea. I clenched my stomach, determined to hold on until I reached my friend’s apartment. She was four months…
Seeking a Cure, Transforming New Mexico: The Lungers and Their Legacy by Nancy Owen Lewis, Ph.D. Thousands of people flocked to New Mexico from 1880 through 1940 seeking a cure for tuberculosis, the leading cause of death in America. These lungers, as they were called, included artists such as…
