University of North Carolina at Asheville
D. Hiden Ramsey Library
Special Collections/University Archives

Oral History Register
for

Dorothy Snell Howald

No Picture Available

Title

 Dorothy Snell Howald Oral History

Creator

 Dorothy Snell Howald
Alt. Creator Interviewer: Dr. Louis D. Silveri

Subject

 LCSH:

Subject

Keyword: Midwifery ; Frontier Nursing Service ; Nursing ; Rural health care

Description

 Howald describes life in the county seat of Hyden, Kentucky, a town of fewer than 1,000 residents. She describes the delivery of health care through the Frontier Nursing Service to an impoverished, rural community. As envisioned by its founder Mary Breckenridge, the service was set up like a wheel. Its center was Hyden Hospital, a small facility with 27 beds, "including the bassinets in the nursery." The spokes of the wheel were five outpost clinics, each operated by a nurse midwife and a general duty nurse, visited once a month by a doctor from the hospital.

Transcript of interview only: no tape.

Publisher

D. H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville, NC, 28804

Contributor

 Dorothy Snell Howald

Date

Electronic Record Issued: 2001-07-19

Type

Text

Format

 18 single-spaced pages

Identifier

 http://toto.lib.unca.edu/findingaids/oralhistory/SHRC/howald_d.html

Source

Louis D. Silveri Oral History Collection, D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville 28804

Language

English

Relation

 SHRC Dr. Thomas Howald Oral History

Coverage

 1950's-1970's ; Hyden, KY ; Asheville, NC
Rights No restrictions ;  Any display, publication, or public use must credit the D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville. Copyright retained by the authors of certain items in the collection, or their descendents, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Acquisition

Donor number: 23 ;  Date of acquisition: August, 1977

Processed By

 Southern Highlands Research Center staff , 1978 ; Special Collections staff, 2001

Interview Date

 1977-07-07

Biography

 In 1965, after earning a nursing degree from the University of Rochester, New York, Dorothy Howald pursued her interest in nurse midwifery by joining the Frontier Nursing Service in Leslie County, Kentucky. By 1967 she was assistant dean of the midwifery school, in charge of family planning and home delivery service in the outpatient clinics. After moving to Asheville in 1974, Howald found that the area was becoming open to the idea of nurse midwifes and began working with a group a five obstetricians.

Return to Top         Oral History Collections

[Home] [Ramsey Library] [UNCA]