Honoring Women’s History Month: The Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Museum Midwifery Tour

Alexandria, VA – March is Women’s History Month, and Historic Alexandria offers residents and visitors a chance to learn about the role, knowledge, and challenges of midwives through the lens of the Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Museum on March 21 and 22. The tour covers the medical herbs and ingredients midwives used in their practices and the historical context in which midwives practiced, particularly at the beginning of the 20th century. The tour covers the complex history of women’s medical care and is recommended for guests aged 18 and older.

Until the 20th century, midwives were trained on an apprenticeship basis, attending calls and births with older midwives. As members of the communities they served, midwives had a unique lens into the lives of their neighbors and a patient-focused approach. They often performed taboo or neglected duties, like caring for the elderly and ill, preparing the dead for burial, and (less publicly) helping women with menstrual care and contraception.
The Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Midwifery tour highlights a case rediscovered by Shay Merker and Julia Walsh as they researched an earlier version of this tour.

On December 19, 1893, the Alexandria Gazette highlighted the case of Abbie Williams. The case involved a woman giving birth to a child who died at birth. The coroner, Dr. Purvis, accused the midwife, named Abbie Williams, of criminal neglect. A jury acquitted Williams on charges of foul play, but despite the acquittal, the article insisted that she had been negligent in her care of the mother and child. Williams’ case shows the intersection of inequalities in segregated Alexandria, where medical practices and medical care were viewed through a lens prejudiced against women of color, whether as midwives or as patients giving birth.
The Gazette noted that Dr. Purvis “had his suspicions aroused on several other occasions by the apparent death of colored infants from neglect.” At the same time, the coroner noted that “the operation had been properly enough performed to insure safety to the mother.” The article claimed that Dr. Purvis questioned Ms. Williams or “Granny” closely. When pressed, Abbie Williams “said she couldn’t see very well and supposed she had performed her duty satisfactorily.”
The Alexandria Gazette speculated that medical negligence “is committed with impunity in this city.” The newspaper’s prime complaint was that stillborn Black children:
are buried at the city’s cost, while their improvident and depraved parents prowl the city night and day leading lives of immorality, laziness and dishonesty.
The author gave no other examples of medical negligence by Black practitioners. Nor did it explain what a more qualified medical professional would have done for the unfortunate child in this case, whose skull never fully formed.

The jury’s recommendation that “all midwives be required to be registered at the auditor’s office” became a reality almost 20 years later. In 1912. Alexandria created a Board of Health and hired a Health Officer to inspect businesses accused of being unhealthy or unhygienic. The new office aimed to protect the public in terms of hygiene, sanitation, and preventing mass outbreaks of contagious diseases. The Board also regulated the practice of midwifery, requiring all births to be registered, all midwives to pass an examination, and to pay one dollar ($30.67 in 2024) to the Commissioner of Revenue.
While well-intentioned, the fees and exam requirements disproportionately burdened women with barriers to wealth and whose knowledge was built on experience rather than schooling. Modern day readers might ask what the medical options for Abbie Williams’ former patients were if she stopped practicing. On January 5, 1914, the Alexandria Gazette printed a list of registered midwives separated by race. Sixteen White women and eight Black women are listed, showing the disparity in medical options for women of color.

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