Mary Francis Hill Coley was an American lay midwife who ran a successful business providing a range of birth services and who starred in a critically acclaimed documentary film used to train midwives and doctors. Her competence projected an image of black midwives as the face of an internationally esteemed medical profession, while working within the context of deep social and economic inequality in health care provided to African Americans.
Biography
Coley was born Mary Francis Hill in Baker County, Georgia. She was the youngest of four children, a sole-surviving twin at birth. She was raised by relatives after her parents died. She received almost nothing in the way of formal education, leaving after third grade but relied instead on practical training and apprenticeship. In 1930, she married Ashley Coley, a carpenter, and moved with him to Albany, Georgia. He abandoned the family with ten children, and she turned to practical nursing and midwifery under the tutelage of Onnie Lee Logan. Coley was a particular type of lay midwife, often referred to as a "granny-midwife," one who was called to the profession spiritually and who apprenticed under an older midwife. Coley developed a busy practice, serving over half the families in the area and charging double the fees of other midwives. Her business afforded her a home, a car, a telephone, an assistant, and a surplus of ready supplies for emergencies. She knew that many families had to save up to pay her, and she knew which families could afford more or less than others. She would also accept payment in kind in some circumstances. Coley pursued a career in midwifery at a time of increased scrutiny and regulation and during an era when public resources were invested in the expansion of hospitals and obstetric care rather than the midwifery model of care. Although increased surveillance of midwifery practice cut in half the number of midwives between 1930-50, Coley went on to provide a range of birth and family services across Georgia for more than three decades. As an African American, she advocated for the health of Georgia's black population and was known for her willingness to work with women regardless of race in a time of segregation. It is estimated that she delivered over 3,000 babies in her career, and she offered additional services to families such as assistance in cooking, cleaning, child-minding, laundering, and helping new parents file official forms and birth certificates. She was known affectionately by her patients as "Miss Mary". Coley served as President of the Women's Auxiliary in the Church of the Kingdom of God, and taught Sunday school classes. She died in Albany in March 1966 after a career of over 30 years as a midwife.
''All My Babies''
In 1952 documentary filmmaker George C. Stoney was recruited by the Georgia Health Department to produce an instructional film for midwives in training. Following a criteria-based selection process, Stoney and Dr. Mason interviewed more than 20 Georgia midwives before selecting Coley. Aware of the social dimensions of media, Stoney initially hesitated to cast Coley because he worried that her screen image could be conflated with contemporary representations of black women on screen, like Hattie McDaniel's Academy Award-winning performance as Mammy in Gone with the Wind. Ultimately, Coley's fit as a model of hygienic clinical practice that could be exported internationally as evidence of the competence of American medicine secured her the role.In her documentary film performance, Coley exhibited multiple layers of credibility--as a mother, as a spiritual leader, and as a science-based health professional. Over a four-month period, Stoney accompanied Coley as she went about her work of visiting women and delivering babies in the Albany area. Coley not only performed but also collaborated in developing the script. Her sons and three grandchildren performed roles in the film as well. The filming focused on two women, in circumstances both ideal as well as challenging, and included a live birth scene. He filmed her, her patients and their surroundings, and her interactions with patients and medical professionals. Stoney became impressed with the skill, ingenuity, and high standards for cleanliness that Coley brought to her work, as well as the strong influence she had with her patients and their families. The resulting film, All My Babies: A Midwife's Own Story followed Coley through the births of two babies. Its use for the training of midwives expanded from Georgia to other parts of the American South and eventually the rest of the world, via UNESCO and the World Health Organization. The film was critically acclaimed as a documentary. In 1953 it was honored with a special Robert J. Flaherty Award for documentary film. In 2002, the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry, calling it a "landmark". A 1999 retrospective of the work of George Stoney described All My Babies as having made Mary Coley "one of the towering figures of the documentary tradition". In 2007, Stoney produced a second film about Coley, a reunion of 150 people whom Coley had delivered as a midwife.
