ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of issues and impact that authors have had on thinking and writing about history of the maternity. It concentrates on the historiography of maternity, birth and midwifery. Much of the traditional writing on the history of maternity has come from the twin spectra of Whig history and what might be termed ‘great men’. The sense of conflict and the idea of maternity as a battleground developed between doctors and midwives, but in the atmosphere of the 1970s and 1980s an equally powerful debate emerged with motherhood at its heart. The idea of using oral interviews to explore the experiences of women, rather than of midwives, was used initially in the social sciences; the work of Oakley being particularly important. The experience of maternity, whether as a mother or as a care giver, has never existed in a social vacuum. In the twentieth century midwifery was debated, regulated and even outlawed in various countries across the world.
