Indivisible: Doula Archival Collection
Manuscript Collection 215

A collection from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University featuring the Doula Service of the Stony Brook University Hospital and Health Sciences Center in Stony Brook, New York.
3 cubic ft.
Includes photographic prints, slides, primary interviews, working logs, and multimedia.
Finding aid created in November 2001 by Kristen J. Nyitray

Introduction

Indivisible is a project of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University in partnership with the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona and is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts. The organization's donation of material to Stony Brook University Libraries' Special Collections Department was received in October 2001. The Doula Archive includes photographic prints, slides, primary interviews, working logs, and multimedia.

The project's official language states: "Indivisible is a national documentary project exploring community life in America today. Through photographs and recorded voices, Indivisible focuses on the real-life stories of struggle and change in twelve communities from Delray Beach, Florida, to Ithaca, New York; from the North Pacific Coast of Alaska to Chicago's Southwest side; from the Rio Grande Valley in Texas to the Yaak Valley, Montana. In these places people are patrolling streets, building homes, reviving towns, protecting ecosystems, and otherwise finding ways to improve their lives and surroundings. Their compelling experiences, captured through the creative lens and on audiotape, provide the content for Indivisible, presented in a traveling museum exhibition, a touring free postcard exhibit, a book, and a web site. The project also includes a guide for educators, a booklet for documenting community change, and major research archives."

Additional information about this organization and exhibit can be found at Indivisible's official site http://www.indivisible.org and via The Center for Creative Photography's web site http://www.creativephotography.org.

History

"The impersonality of hospital-based birth, together with increasing medical intervention and the growing isolation of new mothers, has led to the development of doula service, a new community role with deep roots in traditional practice. "Doula" is a Greek word denoting a woman's servant, or someone who acts in service of another person. Today the term describes a person who is trained to offer prenatal and labor support, as well as emotional and practical assistance through the early post-partum weeks at home.

The Doula Service of the University Hospital and Medical Center in Stony Brook, New York, trains Long Island women to be doulas, and provides the option of doula support to expectant mothers regardless of their ability to pay. In tandem with Suffolk County's first hospital midwifery practice, a small group of women, led by an inspired trio of obstetrician, nurse-midwife, and doula instructor, serve as doulas for mothers of all ages and backgrounds.

While the work of doulas during childbirth largely consists of encouraging words, wiped brows, massages, hand-holding, and help with walking and position changes, the presence of a doula in the delivery room results in remarkably lowered rates of cesarean sections and use of anesthesia, particularly epidurals. Their postpartum service includes breast feeding advice, companionship and conversation, and such necessary tasks as babysitting older siblings, cooking, cleaning, shopping, and newborn care. A doula intends never to supersede the relationship between mother and child, nor the role of the father, family, and friends, but rather to help create a supportive environment for those relationships to flourish in the presence of new life."

Scope and Content

The Doula Archive includes photographic prints, slides, primary interviews, working logs, and multimedia.The collection consists of nine series: Photographic Prints; Slides; Audio cassettes - Primary Interview Sources; Working Logs; Working Transcripts; Books; Postcards; Multimedia; and Catalogs.

Series Description

I. Photographic Prints: 21 prints, black and white, 16" x 20"

II. Slides: 25 slides total

III. Audio cassettes - Primary Interview Sources: 9 cassettes total, labeled on spine

IV. Working Logs of the Audio cassettes-secondary interview source: One set, created by the interviewer to outline the contents of each recording (1 folder)

V. Working Transcripts of Interview excerpts-secondary interview source: One set, used to edit the Indivisible publication and its accompanying CD, the studio tour of the museum exhibition, and other project components (1 folder)

VI. Book: One book: Local Heroes Changing America, edited by Tom Rankin and published by Lynhurst Books at the Center for Documentary Studies, in association with W.W. Norton & Company (October 2000); publication includes an audio CD with voices of the community members profiled in Indivisible

VII. Postcards: One complete set (60 cards) from the traveling postcard version of the museum exhibition, Indivisible: Stories of American Community (1 folder)

VIII. Multimedia: One CD-ROM of the 2001 Indivisible website

IX. Indivisible Catalog: One catalog of the organization's materials (1 folder)

Container Listing

Box 1: Series I - Photographic Prints

Doula 1: Robert and Sunshin Gordon's first look at their new daughter.
Doula 2: Robert Gordon holds Sunshin as first-time doula Jacqueline Shepard adds support.
Doula 3: Jacqueline Shepard and a fellow student in a doula class train for labor support through role playing.
Doula 4: Midwife Jane Arnold attends Sunshin Gordon and Robert Gordon hours before the birth of their first child.
Doula 5: Hands holding cast of body.
Doula 6: Jacqueline Shepard witnesses her first birth as a doula.
Doula 7: Laboring Sunshin Gordon with her husband, Robert, and first-time doula Jacqueline Shepard.
Doula 8: Sarah Matematico.
Doula 9: Doula Debra Pascali-Bonaro helps Paula Restivo-Wilkens create a plaster cast of her body to commemorate her pregnancy.
Doula 10: Lise Golub makes a post-partum visit and delights in Olivia Gordon, a baby whose birth she recently attended as a doula.
Doula 11: Sarah Matematico and her new baby, Phayseria, wait with mid-wife Jane Arnold for their ride home from the hospital.
Doula 12: Phayseria Karla Mitchell with her father Philip and her uncle.
Doula 13: Sarah Matematico and Phayseria wait for the baby's father at his mother's house.
Doula 14: Sunshin Gordon is comforted by the hands of midwife Jane Arnold and doula Jacqueline Shepard.
Doula 15: Baby looking from over shoulder.
Doula 16: Keith Swarthout holds his new child, just born by cesarean section, as mother Tammy Price lays her hand on the baby's head.
Doula 17: Ana Fox Savillo at home with her son, Alejandro.
Doula 18: Olivia Gordon studies her father, Robert, moments after delivery.
Doula 19: Unidentified mother and child being kissed.
Doula 20: Sunshin, Robert, and Olivia Gordon pose for their first family portrait.
Doula 21: Newborn child being held by gloved hands.

Box 2: Series II - Slides

Doula 1: Robert and Sunshin Gordon's first look at their new daughter.
Doula 2: Jacqueline Shepard holds up portraits of her role models, her mother and sister, in her brother's backyard.
Doula 3: Jacqueline Shepard and a fellow student in a doula class train for labor support through role playing.
Doula 4: Midwife Jane Arnold attends Sunshin Gordon and Robert Gordon hours before the birth of their first child.
Doula 5: Sunshin Gordon in labor.
Doula 6: Jacqueline Shepard witnesses her first birth as a doula.
Doula 7: Laboring Sunshin Gordon with her husband, Robert, and first-time doula Jacqueline Shepard.
Doula 8: Sunshin Gordon rests in the delivery room.
Doula 9: Doula Debra Pascali-Bonaro helps Paula Restivo-Wilkens create a plaster cast of her body to commemorate her pregnancy.
Doula 10: Lise Golub makes a post-partum visit and delights in Olivia Gordon, a baby whose birth she recently attended as a doula.
Doula 11: Sara Matematico and her new baby, Phayseria, wait with mid-wife Jane Arnold for their ride home from the hospital.
Doula 12: Phayseria Karla Mitchell with her father and her uncle.
Doula 13: Sarah Matematico and Phayseria wait for the baby's father at his mother's house.
Doula 14: Soubia Asim and her baby receive a home visit from Lise Golub, their doula.
Doula 15: Ana Fox Savillo with her just-delivered son, Alejandro Antonio Domingo Savillo.
Doula 16: Keith Swarthout holds his new child, just born by cesarean section, as mother Tammy Price lays her hand on the baby's head.
Doula 17: Ana Fox Savillo at home with her son, Alejandro.
Doula 18: Olivia Gordon looks at her father, Robert, moments after delivery.
Doula 19: Robert Gordon kisses his newborn baby daughter.
Doula 20: Susnshin, Robert, and Olivia Gordon pose for their first family portrait.
Doula 21: Sunshin Gordon in labor, being attended by doula Jacqueline Shepard and midwife Jane Arnold.
Doula 22: Robert and Sunshin Gordon
Doula 23: Jacqueline Shepard and Sunshin Gordon
Doula 24: Robert and Sunshin Gordon
Doula 25: Robert Gordon and his child, Olivia

Series III - Audio cassettes - Primary Interview Sources

Doula Project 2 - 3/2/99 (K. Michel)
Doula Project 5.1- 4/14/99 Jane Arnold training (K. Michel)
Doula Project 5.2 - 4/14/99 Jane Arnold, interviews, training (K. Michel)
Doula Project 6.1 - 4/14/99 Training, Planned Parenthood (K. Michel)
Doula Project 6.2 - 4/14/99 Training, Planned Parenthood (side A only) (K. Michel)
Doula 7 - (K. Michel)
Doula 8 - tape 1 (K. Michel)
Doula 8 - tape 2 (K. Michel)
Doula 9 - (K. Michel)

Series IV - Working Logs

One set created by the interviewer to outline the contents of each recording.

Series V - Working Transcripts

One set of the transcripts used to edit the Indivisible publication and its accompanying CD, the studio tour of the museum exhibition, and other project components.

Series VI - Book

Local Heroes Changing America, edited by Tom Rankin and published by Lynhurst Books at the Center for Documentary Studies in association with W.W. Norton & Company (October 2000); publication includes an audio CD with voices of the community members profiled in Indivisible.

(Separation note: Removed from collection and housed in Special Collections under call number Archives X HN 59.2 .R36 2000)

Series VII - Postcards

Midwifery Practice and Doula Service, University Hospital and Medical Center, Stony Brook, New York (5 cards)
Dine' bi' iina', Inc. (Navajo Lifeways), Navajo Nation (5 cards)
Eau Claire Community Council and Eau Clair Community of Shalom, Eau-Clair-North Columbia, South Carolina (5 cards)
Proyecto Azteca, San Juan, Texas (5 cards)
Southwest Youth Collaborative, Chicago, Illinois (5 cards)
Yaak Valley Forest Community, Yaak Valley, Montana (5 cards)
Haitian Citizens Police Academy and Roving Patrol, and MAD DADS Street Patrol, Delray Beach, Florida (5 cards)
Alaskan Fishing Communities, North Pacific Coast, Alaska (5 Cards)
CHALK (Communities in Harmony Advocating for Learning and Kids), San Francisco, California (5 cards)
Alternatives in Federal Credit Union, Ithaca, New York (5 cards)
Hand Made in America, Small Town Revitalization Project, Western North Carolina (5 cards)
The Village of Arts and Humanities, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (5 cards)

Series VIII - Multimedia

One CD-ROM of the 2001 Indivisible website.

Series IX - Indivisible Catalog

One catalog of materials housed at the two main Indivisible archives. The main archives are at the Duke University Special Collections Library and the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona.