Southern Cultures

Abstract:

This article analyzes and considers the contemporary significance of Palmour Street: A Study of Family Life (1950) and All My Babies: A Midwife's Own Story (1952), two nontheatrical films produced for the Georgia Department of Health (GDPH) in the early 1950s and now available online. Made by progressive writer/director George Stoney, the health-focused films feature rare documentary images of black mothers and midwives in rural southern homes and communities. As GDPH productions, they also envision a "useful" South in the midst of institutional modernization during the late Jim Crow era. The two films ultimately represent black women according to their utility in this New South by looking past the larger effects of racial segregation on cinematic and institutional perceptions of health. Today, Palmour Street and All My Babies allow us to confront a screen South that allows us to better imagine and create a region that embraces difference.