A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal

Mothercraft, “Clean” Midwifery, and Child Care: “Scientific” Motherhood Advice at Health Exhibitions in Colonial Bengal




AuthorsSaha, Ranjana

PublisherUniversity of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress)

Publication year2025

Journal: Canadian Journal of Health History

Volume42

Issue2

First page 362

Last page395

ISSN2816-6469

eISSN2816-6477

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.3138/cjhh.705-062024

Publication's open availability at the time of reportingNo Open Access

Publication channel's open availability No Open Access publication channel

Web address https://utppublishing.com/doi/10.3138/cjhh.705-062024


Abstract

This study examines “scientific” mothercraft child healthcare advice from public health exhibitions (child welfare, baby week, and health week) in colonial India, with a particular focus on Bengal, mainly Calcutta. I analyze “expert” advice about mothering and midwifery given by famous figures such as the Bengali nationalist daktar Sundari Mohan Das at the Health and Child Welfare exhibition in colonial Calcutta in 1920, as well reports from public health exhibits in the region. The first section of this paper shows how baby and health week exhibitions directed public health education particularly to mothers and upheld the middle-class values on which both mothercraft and nationalism were predicated. The following two sections examine child feeding, hygiene, and midwifery. I argue that in colonial India engagement with Western medicine did not solely objectify the colonized but also allowed their agency and identity formation. These public health exhibitions can offer historians a significant entry point into transnational child health histories, illustrating how ideas and practices circulated widely in the early twentieth century and were taken up locally in specific ways.



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