Date of Award

Summer 2025

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Department

History

First Advisor

Kathryn A. Edwards

Abstract

The Penn School of the Sea Islands provided an education to thousands of rural, Black South Carolinians over the twentieth century. Northern missionaries including the founders of the Penn School, Laura M. Towne and Ellen Murray, taught and provided healthcare to the residents of the Port Royal Experiment through the Civil War and into Reconstruction. With the arrival of Rossa Cooley and Grace House, the Penn School put emphasis on auxiliary programing including midwifery training institutes held in conjunction with Dr. Hilla Sheriff and the South Carolina Department of Public Health’s Division for Maternal and Child Health. With the goal of uplifting rural, Black communities through practical trainings and healthcare, the Penn School educated thousands of midwives in sanitation, medical techniques, and basic literacy. The Penn School acted as the epicenter for informal healthcare networks around the state as midwives met, communed, and studied together at the Penn School each year. Cumulating in a case study of Maude Callen, this study argues that the Penn School’s midwifery and health education programming furthered its mission of uplifting rural, Black communities. Additionally, it explores how informal networks of healthcare practitioners formed across the state between midwives who gathered yearly at the Penn School for midwifery institutes.

Rights

© 2025, Kathryn Addison Greenberg

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