Anne Fox oral history collection

Collection

Identifier: HHC 135

Staff Only

Scope and Content

This interview with Ms. Anne Fox (1904-199?), a nurse-midwife of Santa Fe, New Mexico, surveys her career in nursing, but focuses on her twenty years' tenure in New Mexico. Coming to the state in 1945, Ms. Fox served twenty years as Nurse-Midwife Consultant in the New Mexico Department of Health. In this interview she discusses that service, including much detail regarding state supervision and training of midwives.

Dates

1986
Majority of material found within 1986

Language of Materials

English

Access Restrictions

The collection is open for research.

Copy Restrictions

Limited duplication of print materials allowed for research purposes. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Biography / History

Born and educated in England though of Irish heritage, Anne Fox (1904-199?) was a nurse and midwife whose medical training was followed by a dozen years’ private and maternity home practice and a degree in midwifery teaching through Queen’s College. She was hired by the Frontier Nursing Service in the southeastern U.S. after a Kentucky study on conditions in the care of mothers and infants prompted a plan to ‘import’ nurses from the British Isles to set up a nurse-midwifery training program. While with this nurses on horseback service, Miss Fox was a locum tenens for other nurses in a wide area of rough and isolated country. After a year, she was recruited by the Catholic Maternity Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico to direct home deliveries.

New Mexico’s rural areas had a long tradition of midwife-assisted births which the state’s Department of Public Health hoped to incorporate into a more modern delivery system. In 1946, Miss Fox was hired by the department to organize a training program for traditional midwives that would encompass information on anatomy and physiology. A manual prepared by Fox was used as a reminder of the things they had learned. A yearly refresher was provided so they could renew their licenses. Miss Fox retired from service with the Department of Public Health in 1965.

Extent

1 folder, 2 audio cassettes

Additional Description

Abstract

This interview with Ms. Anne Fox, a nurse-midwife of Santa Fe, New Mexico, surveys her career in nursing, but focuses on her twenty years' tenure in New Mexico.