Communications and Latin American and border studies double major Mia Santoscoy ’26 and political science major and Latin American and border studies minor Natalia Morales Robles ’27 presented, along with Associate Professor of History and Latin American and Border Studies Jethro Hernández Berrones, at the Southwestern Council of Latin American Studies 73rd Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, NV. Their presentation, titled “Mapping Midwives from Mexico City: A Visualization Project Introducing Undergraduates in the United States to the History of Reproduction in Mexico,” described the methodology to produce historical digital maps and a website showcasing the history of the Free School of Obstetrics and Nursing in Mexico City in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as the work of some of its graduates. Students discussed their contributions to the project and the impact this work has had on their academic experiences and skill development. The website can be viewed here.

Associate Professor of History Jethro Hernández Berrones presented a brief lecture titled “Mapeando las prácticas de partería de la ciudad de México: La Escuela Libre de Obstetricia y Enfermería y la visualización de los partos en casa después de la revolución. [Mapping Mexico City’s midwifery practices: The Free School of Obstetrics and Nursing and the visualization of at-home births after the revolution].” The presentation was part of the activities of the second workshop of MX.digital, an interdisciplinary group of scholars from the United States and Mexico, including historians, anthropologists, geographers, and computer scientists, interested in the creation of digital repositories and maps for the visualization of the history of Mexico, organized by the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), Aguascalientes, and sponsored by John Hopkins University. He became a member of the curricular committee tasked to design a general and flexible curriculum to disseminate knowledge, methodology, and projects on digital and public history for the collection, organization, and visualization of historical information.

Associate Professor of History Jethro Hernández Berrones presented his work, titled “Visualizing at-home births in Mexico City after the revolution: Midwives from the Free School of Obstetrics and Nursing, 1920s and 30s,” at the seminario permanente de investigación de Atlas.mx, sponsored by CIDE, CONACYT, INEGI, UCMexus, UC Riverside, and John Hopkins University. He discussed his previous work with students to develop a digital map to locate midwives who graduated from this school and the women they aided. The talk also introduced his new project, co-directed with Assistant Professor of Geographic Information Sciences Stephanie Insalaco, to create an interactive digital map aimed at making the historical archive of these midwives public.

Associate Professor of History Jethro Hernández Berrones participated in a roundtable titled “Reproductive Science: Comparative Perspectives on the Past; Global Inspirations for the Future” at the 2024 annual meeting of the History of Science Society. His contributions were based on his most recent research project, titled “An In(di)visibilized Labor: The Free School of Obstetrics and Nursing and the Erasure of Professional Midwifery in Post-Revolutionary Mexico City.” He argues that this free school offered an alternative program that challenged the state’s model of birth by giving its graduates more autonomy to perform their services, including complicated births, at home without male doctors’ oversight. Despite the essential role of midwives both at home and in welfare institutions, the normalization of natural births, the regulations that restricted midwives’ intervention to natural births, and their ability to exercise obstetric autonomy just at home rendered midwives’ labor necessary for the reproduction of the Mexican nation, yet invisible.

History and biology alumna Katherine Montgomery ’23 presented a paper, titled “A Crafty Woman in a Mangled World: The Intersection of Art and Facial Reconstruction in Anna Coleman Ladd’s Mask Making,” at the Virtual Graduate Conference of the Southern Association for the History of Medicine held on September 13. Katherine originally worked with Chair and Associate Professor of History Joseph E. Hower on this project during her history capstone course. After graduation, she worked with Associate Professor of History Jethro Hernández Berrones to turn her project into a piece for publication. Her presentation explored the intersections of gender, disability, surgery, and military history to highlight the innovative work in the field of prosthetics of Anna Coleman in the late 1910s.