The Archaeology of Mothering

"Using archaeological materials recovered from a housesite in Mobile, Alabama, Laurie Wilkie explores how one extended African-American family engaged with competing and conflicting mothering ideologies in the post-Emancipation South. The female head of this household, Lucrecia Perryman, turned to midwifery to support her family and as a midwife, became a vehicle for transmitting cultural, social, and political knowledge to the broader African-American community. As this compelling work moves outward, beginning with the site and its one-time occupants, the story continues to widen, broadening to midwifery in general, and finally mediating on the ideology of mothering."--Publisher.