![]() Versions of it are found across the US as well as in Britain. Some, like Melissa Martinez, link it with another rhyme called Miss Suzy and claim that both originally “came from the same source-probably an old Black-American banjo song from the late 1800s, ‘Shout Lulu.’” Others place its origins in the late to mid-twentieth century. The origins of Miss Lucy, for example, are contested. Now, of course, I know a bit more about their long and often complex histories and meanings. Growing up, I wondered if Miss Lucy too had medical tools or potions in her mysterious alligator purse.Īs a child, I thought that rhymes like Miss Lucy were unique creations made up by my mom and Nana, who boasted an impressive repertoire. ![]() Still, she meticulously removes and cleans every item from her midwifery bag: brushes, scissors, gauze, linens for baby. In one particularly detailed scene, Coley arrives home late at night after a particularly exhausting birth. (© Peaslee Bond).Īs the camera follows Coley, highlighting her skills and her interactions with parturient women and infants, it hones in on the material culture of childbirth: the items, including cardboard boxes, that women collected to prepare for birth, and the bag that Coley carried. ![]() Mary Francis Hill Coley, midwife featured in All My Babies. The classic 1950s educational film “ All My Babies,” for example, documents the work of Mary Coley, an African-American midwife in rural Georgia. I’m particularly interested in the bags of nurses and midwives. More recently, my research on women’s history and material culture has me, albeit in another context, exploring the bags and purses that women carried around and the health-related things in them. ![]() My mom’s purse reflected not only her own needs but also her care work as a mother and, essentially, domestic healer. And bandaids - always a necessity with four kids. It was a mess, full of a treasure trove of endlessly fascinating items: Chapstick (always the original kind-the black packaging, wax-like, no flavor), a comb, cigarettes, tissues with small pieces of fragrant tobacco on them, baby pacifiers, Neosporin. I sat in the car as she drove, and she let me look in the pocketbook. When I was small, my mom’s purse went everywhere with her. “Miss Lucy Had a Baby,” in my memory, is conflated with my explorations of my own mother’s “pocketbook” (as it was called in 1970s Massachusetts). Why did Miss Lucy call her when Tiny Tim ate everything in the bathroom? And, most importantly, what on earth was in that alligator purse? ![]() Particularly fascinating to me were not the presence of the nurse, doctor, or even Tiny Tim (really, what an idiot) but rather the enigmatic Lady with the Alligator Purse. The rhyme that most captured my attention when I was a child, however, was Miss Lucy Had a Baby: Miss Lucy had a baby A Tisket a Tasket, Three Little Fishies, Baa Baa Black Sheep - these nursery rhymes were an integral part of my childhood experience. ![]()
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