Rooming-In: Cold War Consumer Product?

Authors

  • Isabel Emma Eggleston Beshar Yale University

Keywords:

Rooming-in, Cold War medicine, preventative mental health

Abstract

In 1946, Edith B. Jackson would open the nation's first "rooming-in unit," a maternity ward facilitating the joint post-partum recovery of mothers and babies. Although rooming-in transformed maternal health by rejecting the isolated infant nurseries so common to Cold War medicine, "rooming-in" also served as a powerful Cold War weapon. Employed as a preventative mental health program, "rooming-in" became a way to strengthen the American home front. In doing so, however, "rooming-in" affirmed stereotypical gender roles, calling into question its historic "celebration" as a step-forward in women's rights.   

Author Biography

  • Isabel Emma Eggleston Beshar, Yale University
    Isabel Beshar is a senior at Yale University, currently double-majoring in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and History of Science & Medicine. She has a specific interest in global health, particularly on international policies related to chronic disease management. Next year, she will head to Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar; she will then return to the United States for medical school.

Downloads

Published

2014-03-29

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 1 (2014)

Section

Research Articles

License

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

    1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

    1. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

  1. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).