"Good Neighbors: Women and Health Care in Pennsylvania's Anthracite Coal Region"

Time: 12:15 p.m.

Place: 2U Conference Room, Claire Fagin Hall, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing

Neighborhood women—medical caregivers who offered aid to family members and neighbors—were an important source of health care for female residents and children of the anthracite coal region. Using domestic medicine, these women extended their maternal roles beyond the confines of their own homes and out into the homes of their neighbors. While caring for the sick, these women doctored their feminine identities. Yet, as the maternal roles of women changed and the status of physicians improved during the second half of the twentieth century, much of the work once completed by neighborhood women came to be done by family doctors. Karol Weaver, Ph.D., is Associate Professor, Department of History, Susquehanna University.