‘Poor Whiteism’, White Maternal Mortality, and the Promotion of Public Health in South Africa: The Department of Public Health's Endorsement of Contraceptive Services, 1930–1938

References

• 1932 . Between and 1936, birth-control clinics were established in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Benoni, Pretoria, Pietermaritzburg, East London, Durban (for a few months only) and Port Elizabeth. Elsewhere I discuss the origins of, and the extent of Opposition to, the South African birth-control movement: S. Klausen, ‘The Formation of a National Birth-Control Movement and the Establishment of Contraceptive Services in South Africa, 1930–1939’ (PhD thesis, Queen's University at Kingston, 1999)
   Google Scholar
• Marks , S. Mar. 1997 . “ ‘South Africa's Early Experiment in Social Medicine: Its Pioneers and Politics’ ” . In American Journal of Public Health Mar. , 453 87, 3 (See also, for example, R. Packard, White Plague, Black Labor: Tuberculosis and the Political Economy of Health and Disease in South Africa (Berkeley, 1989)
   Google Scholar
• Dubow , S. 1995 . Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Cambridge The literature on eugenics is vast and expanding. On South African eugenics, see (and two studies by S. Klausen, ‘“For the Sake of the Race”: Eugenic Discourses in the South African Medical Record, 1903–1926 and the Journal of the Medical Association of South Africa, 1927–1931’, Journal of Southern African Studies 23 (Mar. 1997), 27–50;and ‘The Race Welfare Society: Eugenics and Birth Control in Johannesburg, 1930–1939’, in S. Dubow, ed., Science and Society in Southern Africa (Manchester, 2000), 164–87. On eugenics in North America and Britain, a good introduction is D. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (New York, 1985). For Latin America, see N. Stepan, ‘The Hour of Eugenics’: Race, Gender, and Nation in Latin America (Ithaca, N.Y. and London, 1991)
   Google Scholar
• Iliffe , J. 1987 . The African Poor: A History Edited by: Hellmann , E. Cambridge (117, and, ed., Handbook on Race Relations in South Africa (Cape Town, 1949), 13, Table VI
   Google Scholar
• Morrell , R. , ed. 1992 . White But Poor: Essays on the History of the Poor Whites in Southern Africa, 1880–1940 Pretoria See the collection of essays in, ed., (T. Keegan, Racial Transformation in Industrializing South Africa: The Southern Highveld to 1914 (Basingstoke, 1987);D. O'Meara, Volkskapitalisme: Class, Capital and Ideology in the Development of Afrikaner Nationalism 1934–1948 (Cambridge, 1983);R.H. Davies, Capital, State and White Labour in South Africa (Brighton, 1979);and W. Beinart, P. Delius and S. Trapido, eds., Putting the Plough to the Ground: Accumulation and Dispossession in Rural South Africa, 1850–1930 (London, 1986)
   Google Scholar
• Gray , L. J. 1937 . South African Medical Journal 492 For example, ‘Sterility and the Falling Birth-Rate’, (24 July
   Google Scholar
• O'Meara . 1979 . Volkskapitalisme H. Adam and H. Giliomee, Ethnic Power Mobilised: Can South Africa Change? (New Haven, I. Hofmeyr, ‘Building a Nation from Words: Afrikaans Language, Literature and Ethnic Identity, 1902–1924’, in S. Marks and S Trapido, eds, The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth-Century South Africa (London and New York, 1987), 95–123;S. Dubow, Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa, 1919–36 (Basingstoke, 1989);and L. Thompson, The Political Mythology of Apartheid (New Haven, 1985)
   Google Scholar
• Dubow . Racial Segregation 15
   Google Scholar
• National Archives of South Africa, Pretoria (hereafter NASA), SAB (Central Archives Depot), GES (Department of Public Health) 2277 77/38, Dr. E.G. Dru-Drury to Dr. A.W. Murray, n.d.;GES 2277 77/38, JB. Holtzhausen to Dr. A.W. Murray, n.d
   Google Scholar
• See Klausen, ‘The Race Welfare Society’
   Google Scholar
• Malherbe , E. G. 1932 . The Poor White Problem in South Africa. Report of the Carnegie Commission, Part III: Education and the Poor White 212 – 38 . Stellenbosch
   Google Scholar
• Ibid., 212
   Google Scholar
• Ibid., 212–25
   Google Scholar
• Ibid., 236
   Google Scholar
• The Poor White Problem in South Africa. Report of the Carnegie Commission: Joint Findings and Recommendation, xxiv–xxv (emphasis added)
   Google Scholar
• Albertyn , J. R. The Poor White Problem in South Africa. Report of the Carnegie Commission, Part V: The Poor White and Society 30–46
   Google Scholar
• Malherbe , E. G. 1981 . Never A Dull Moment 130 – 1 . Cape Town
   Google Scholar
• Ibid., 131
   Google Scholar
• 1932 . GES 2281 85/38, Vol. 1, Assistant General Secretary for the South African Association for the Advancement of Science to Secretary for the Department of Public Health (hereafter SPH), 16 Sep.
   Google Scholar
• Wilcocks , R. W. The Poor White Problem in South Africa. Report of the Carnegie Commission, Part II: The Poor White 83
   Google Scholar
• Rothmann , M. E. The Poor White Problem in South Africa. Report of the Carnegie Commission, Part V: The Mother and Daughter of the Poor Family 156–86
   Google Scholar
• Ibid., 196–7
   Google Scholar
• du Toit , M. 1996 . ‘Women, Welfare and the Nurturing of Afrikaner Nationalism: A Social History of the Afrikaanse Christelike Vroue Vereniging, c. 1870–1939’ 277 PhD thesis, University of Cape Town
   Google Scholar
• Ibid., 278
   Google Scholar
• The ACVV also petitioned the State in favour of forced sterilization of women who were ‘unsuitable’ for motherhood: ibid., 280
   Google Scholar
• McKendrick , B. W. , ed. 1990 . Introduction to Social Work in South Africa Pretoria See, ed.
   Google Scholar
• 1935 . Ibid., 62
   Google Scholar
• Annual Report of the Department of Public Health (hereafter ARDPH), Year Ended June 30, 1936 (Pretoria, 1936), 242
   Google Scholar
• Giliomee , H. ‘The Growth of Afrikaner Identity’, in Adam and Giliomee, Ethnic Power Mobilized, 104–5
   Google Scholar
• 1936 . GES 2281 85/38, Vol 1, SPH to the Minister of Public Health (hereafter MPH), 12 Dec.
   Google Scholar
• Loudon , I. 1880–1950 . Women and Children First: International Maternal and Infant Welfare 1870–1945 Edited by: Fildes , V. , Marks , L. and Marland , H. 24 – 5 . London and New York The rate of maternal mortality is defined by Irvine Loudon as ‘the number of maternal deaths occurring in pregnancy, labour or the postnatal period (conventionally defined as the 6 weeks following delivery)’ per 1 000 live births. From, ‘Some International Features of Maternal Mortality,’, in, eds, (1992, During the 1930s the DPH included indirect maternal deaths (in relation to pregnancy or childbirth) in its published figures. Other countries included only direct deaths (in relation to childbirth only), important to note when making international comparisons
   Google Scholar
• 1930 . Debates of the House of Assembly Pretoria (14 (17 Jan. to 4 Apr. 1930), 77
   Google Scholar
• ARDPH, Year Ended June 30, 1935, 57
   Google Scholar
• Loudon . 1880–1950 . ‘Some International Features of Maternal Mortality,’, 12
   Google Scholar
• 1930 . Debates of the House of Assembly , 14 (17 Jan. to 4 Apr., 77;ARDPH, Year Ended June 30, 1938, 57–9
   Google Scholar
• A white person required a certificate of indigency from a magistrate in order to obtain free medical attention
   Google Scholar
• Rothmann . The Mother and Daughter of the Poor Family 177–91
   Google Scholar
• Loudon . 1880–1950 . ‘Some International Features of Maternal Mortality,’, 15–22
   Google Scholar
• Marks , S. 1994 . Divided Sisterhood: Race, Class and Gender in the South African Nursing Profession 67 – 8 . London
   Google Scholar
• 1930 . Debates of the House of Assembly , 14 : 77 (17 Jan. to 4 Apr.
   Google Scholar
• 1932 . Official Year Book of the Union 233 Pretoria
   Google Scholar
• 1932 . South African Medical Journal 303 See, for example, ‘Minutes of the Meeting of the Cape Town Division of the Cape Western Branch of the Medical Association of South Africa (BMA)’, (14 May
   Google Scholar
• Ibid.
   Google Scholar
• Goddefroy , B. 1932 . “ ‘Medical and Ethical Aspects of Abortion’, a talk presented at the Northern Transvaal Branch of the South African Medical Association (BMA) ” . In South African Medical Journal 476 (23 July, Goddefroy also called for the decriminalization of abortion and the provision of free abortion Services
   Google Scholar
• Woodrow , E. 1932 . “ ‘Contraception: Its Justification and Practice’ ” . In South African Medical Journal 655 (22 Oct.
   Google Scholar
• Block , I. J. 1934 . “ ‘The Work of a Birth Control Clinic’ ” . In South African Medical Journal Vol. 1 , 492 (14 July, See GES 2281 85/38, Vol
   Google Scholar
• 1931 . GES 2281 85/38, Vol. 1, RWS Executive Committee to SPH, 17 Feb.
   Google Scholar
• McLaren , A. 1990 . A History of Contraception. Front Antiquity to the Present Day Oxford For an introduction to discussion about women's attempts to control their fertility across time and cultures see
   Google Scholar
• 1931 . GES 2281 85/38, Vol. 1, ‘Proposed Birth Control Clinic’, to RWS Executive Committee, 11 Mar.
   Google Scholar
• Hyslop , J. 1934–9 . Journal of African History , 36 : 61 ‘White Working-Class Women and the Invention of Apartheid: “Purified” Afrikaner Nationalist Agitation for Legislation Against ‘Mixed’ Marriages,’, (1995
   Google Scholar
• Toit , Du . ‘Women, Welfare and the Nurturing of Afrikaner Nationalism’, 14
   Google Scholar
• Cited in ibid., 282
   Google Scholar
• Rothmann . The Mother and Daughter of the Poor Family 185
   Google Scholar
• Ibid., 190
   Google Scholar
• Recommendation 47a, The Poor White Problem in South Africa. Report of the Carnegie Commission: Joint Findings and Recommendations, xvi
   Google Scholar
• Toit , Du . ‘Women, Welfare and the Nurturing of Afrikaner Nationalism’, 304
   Google Scholar
• Koven , S. and Michel , S. , eds. 1993 . Mothers of a New World: Maternalist Politics and the Origins of Welfare States New York For comparative essays on maternal feminism and the development of social programmes, see the collection of essays in, eds
   Google Scholar
• Toit , Du . ‘Women, Welfare and the Nurturing of Afrikaner Nationalism’, 291
   Google Scholar
• Ibid., 293
   Google Scholar
• Malherbe . Never A Dull Moment 130
   Google Scholar
• Rothmann was never a member of the DRC: Du Toit, ‘Women, Welfare and the Nurturing of Afrikaner Nationalism’, 200
   Google Scholar
• 1933 . Die Burger, 3 Aug. See GES 2281 85/38, Vol. 1
   Google Scholar
• 1936 . GES 2281 85/38, Vol. 1, SPH to MPH, 12 Dec.
   Google Scholar
• 1933 . In, women from the country's four Afrikaans women's welfare organizations, including the ACVV, held the Federale Vroue Kongres (the Federal Women's Congress) (hereafter the FVK) that requested the state to establish rural nursing services. The FVK brought much publicity to the Poor White question and, according to du Toit, prompted male Afrikaners to hold a Volkskongres at Kimberley the following year, the National Conference on the Poor White Problem. Women who had participated in the FVK took part in the Volkskongres, which also urged the DPH to establish a rural nursing service. Rothmann was the thread of consistency running through each event: the Carnegie Commission, the FVK and the Kimberley Conference (of which she was a member of the Executive and Continuation Committees)
   Google Scholar
• Planned Parenthood Association of South Africa . 1936 . 4 Johannesburg (hereafter PPASA), Minutes of the First Meeting of the South African National Council for Maternal and Family Welfare (SANCMFW) (6 and 7 Oct.
   Google Scholar
• 1937 . ARDPH, Year Ended June 30, 76
   Google Scholar
• See DPH's flies on birth control. GES 2281 85/38, Vol. 1
   Google Scholar
• 1933 . GES 2281 85/38, Vol. 1, Chair of the MCC to SPH, 10 June
   Google Scholar
• Thornton , E. June 1935 . “ ‘Some Problems of Preventive Medicine’ ” . In South African Medical Journal Edited by: Feierman , S. and Janzen , J. M. June , 743 – 7 . (For other doctors' and bureaucrats' efforts to expand public health care in the 1930s, see N. Andersson and S. Marks, ‘Industrialization, Rural Health, and the 1944 National Health Services Commission in South Africa’, in, eds, The Social Basis of Health and Healing in Africa (Berkeley, 1992), 131–61
   Google Scholar
• 1935 . Debates of the House of Assembly , 25 : 2391 (11 Jan. to 4 May
   Google Scholar
• 1935 . South African Medical Journal 704 Thornton's comments at a symposium called ‘Our Land: Is Our Population Satisfactory?’ (26 Oct.
   Google Scholar
• Davin , A. 1978 . History Workshop , 5 : 9 – 65 . See, for example, ‘Imperialism and Motherhood’, (Spring, B. Semmel, Imperialism and Social Reform: English Social-Imperial Thought, 1895–1914 (London, 1960);G. Mosse, Towards the Final Solution. A History of European Racism (New York, 1978);N. Stepan, The Idea of Race in Science: Great Britain 1800–1960 (London, 1982);G.R. Searle, The Quest for National Efficiency: A Study in British Politics and Political Thought, 1899–1914 (London, 1971);M. Lewis, ‘The “Health of the Race” and Infant Health in New South Wales;Perspectives on Medicine and Empire’, in R. MacLeod and M. Lewis, eds, Disease, Medicine and Empire: Perspectives on Western Medicine and the Experience of European Expansion (London and New York, 1988), 301–15;A. Mayne, “The Dreadful Scourge”: Responses to Smallpox in Sydney and Melbourne, 1881–2', in MacLeod and Lewis, Disease, Medicine and Empire, 219–41;and R. Sullivan, ‘Cholera and Colonialism in the Philippines, 1899–1903’, in MacLeod and Lewis, Disease, Medicine and Empire, 285–300
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Marks , Andersson and . ‘Industrialization’, 146–7. The authors discuss how government commissions and the medical profession began calling for improvements in health services for Africans. Shula Marks elaborates on this theme in ‘Doctors and the State: George Gale and South Africa's Experiment in Social Medicine', in Dubow, Science and Society, 188–211
   Google Scholar
• ARDPH, Year Ended June 30, 2009, 13–17, ARDPH, Year Ended June 30, 1939, 71–2
   Google Scholar
• 1935 . Debates of the House of Assembly , 25 : 1142 (8 Mar. to 4 May
   Google Scholar
• 1937 . Ibid. , 29 : 2471 – 2 . (8 Jan. to 17 May
   Google Scholar
• 1935 . Ibid. , 25 : 778 (11 Jan. to 4 May
   Google Scholar
• 1935–6 . For example, see the Official Year Book of the Union, 219
   Google Scholar
• Leipoldt , C. L. 1915 . ‘Medical Inspection of Schools in Relation to Social Efficiency’ . South African Journal of Science , 12 : 530 – 1 . (539, cited in Dubow, Scientific Racism, 176
   Google Scholar
• 1123 . Debates of the House of Assembly , 25 (8 Mar. to 4 May 1935
   Google Scholar
• Ibid., 1128
   Google Scholar
• 1935 . Ibid. , 25 : 778 (8 Mar. to 4 May
   Google Scholar
• 1936 . Ibid. , 27 : 4985 (24 Jan. to 17 June
   Google Scholar
• 1935 . Ibid. , 25 (8 Mar. to 4 May, 1139;ibid. 27 (24 Jan. to 17 June 1936), 4985;ibid. 29 (8 Jan. to 17 May 1937), 2471;ibid., 45 and 46 (16 Jan. to 27 Apr. 1943), 4408
   Google Scholar
• 1942 . ibid. , 43 : 2238 Comment by MP Labuschagne: (12 Jan. to 18 Apr.
   Google Scholar
• Ibid., 2195
   Google Scholar
• 1942–44 . For discussion of the failure of the central government to implement the recommendations of the National Health Services Commission (see Andersson and Marks, ‘Industrialization’
   Google Scholar
• 1936 . 7 PPASA, Minutes of the First Meeting of the SANCMFW (6 and 7 Oct.
   Google Scholar
• Thornton , E. 1934 . “ ‘Some Problems of Preventive Medicine’ ” . In South African Medical Journal 743 (17 Oct.
   Google Scholar
• 1935 . Debates of the House of Assembly , 25 : 2397 (11 Jan. to 4 May
   Google Scholar
• 1931 . GES 2281 85/38, Vol. 1, ‘Proposed Birth Control Clinic’, SPH to RWS Executive Committee, 11 Mar.
   Google Scholar
• 1931 . GES 2281 85/38, Vol. 1, SPH to MPH, 27 Feb.
   Google Scholar
• 1936 . GES 2281 85/38, Vol. 1, SPH to MPH, 12 Dec.
   Google Scholar
• 1933 . GES 2281 85/38, Vol. 1, SPH to Dr. H.J. Milne, MOH for Johannesburg, and T. Shadick Higgins, MOH for Cape Town, 11 Sep.
   Google Scholar
• 1933 . GES 2281 85/3 8, Vol. 1, Higgins to MPH, 15 Sep.
   Google Scholar
• 1936 . GES 2281 85/38, Vol. 1, SPH to MPH, 12 Dec.
   Google Scholar
• Stopes , M. June 1934 . June , 26 ‘Birth Control News’, 13, 2
   Google Scholar
• Klausen . ‘The Formation of a National Birth-Control Movement’
   Google Scholar
• 1936 . GES 2281 85/38, Vol. 1, SPH to the British Ministry of Health, 12 Feb.
   Google Scholar
• 1937 . GES 2281 85/38, Vol. 1, SPH to MPH, 7 Sep.
   Google Scholar
• 1936 . GES 2281 85/38, Vol. 1, SPH to MPH, 12 Dec.
   Google Scholar
• 1937 . GES 2281 85/38, Vol. 1, Francis Phelps, Archbishop of Cape Town, to SPH, 7 Nov.
   Google Scholar
• 1937 . GES 2281 85/38, Vol. 1, SPH to the Minister of Finance, 20 Nov.;SPH to the Secretary for Finance, 18 Sep. 1937;and SPH to MOH for Port Elizabeth, 19 Apr. 1938
   Google Scholar
• 1937 . Numerous times in and 1938 Scott wrote to the Minister of Public Health and to Thornton to suggest that the DPH circularize local authorities ‘on the necessity for establishing Mothers’ Clinic or co-operating in voluntary efforts by subsidies or by making municipal premises and officers available for the work when desired by competent Committees'. See GES 2281 85/38, Vol. 1, Chair of the SANCMFW to MPH, 27 Apr. 1937;GES 2281 85/38, Vol. 1, Chair of the SANCMFW to MPH, 22 May 1938;GES 2281 85/38, Vol. 1, Chair of the SANCMFW to SPH, 26 May 1938
   Google Scholar
• 1938 . GES 2281 85/38, Vol. 1, Clerk of the Borough of King Williams' Town to the SPH, 12 July;Town Clerk of Germiston to SPH, 22 Mar. 1939
   Google Scholar
• 1938 . GES 2281 85/38, Vol. 1, Town Clerk of Bloemfontein to SPH, 19 July;Town Clerk of Krugersdorp to SPH, 25 Mar. 1939
   Google Scholar
• 1938 . GES 2281 85/38, Vol. 1, Town Clerk of Durban to SPH, 14 July;Town Clerk of Grahamstown to SPH, 8 Aug. 1938;Town Clerk of Springs to SPH, 17 Apr. 1939
   Google Scholar