Ebling Library is pleased to announce the opening of a new exhibition in the Historical Reading Room, “Modeling for Motherhood”: Visions of Maternity from the Ebling Library Collections.
“Modeling for Motherhood” brings together five centuries of publishing on pregnancy and birth to highlight the role textual objects played in the development of modern obstetrics. Through medical illustrations, birthing guides, and pedagogical works, the exhibition traces the Western medical canon’s parallel functions up to the 1950s, both as a tool to legitimize male intervention in birthing spaces and as a force in defining cultural expectations around pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum experience. These normalizing forces are juxtaposed with radical and feminist works of the midwifery movement, which challenged obstetrical hegemonies in the second half of the twentieth century. By understanding the legacies of both conventional and countercultural obstetrical texts, we can interrogate our own assumptions about what modern maternity is or should be.
The exhibition will be on view during Reading Room open hours from September 8th, 2025 through January 5th, 2026. Open hours vary; we advise contacting the History of Health Sciences team (eblinghistorical@hsl.wisc.edu) before visiting.