For more than 75 years, the Chicago Maternity Center provided safe home deliveries for Chicago mothers. However, when modern medicine’s attitude toward home birth changed and funding from Northwestern University declined in 1974, the center was forced to close. This film interweaves the history of the center with the stories of a young woman about to have her first baby and the center’s fight to stay open in the face of the corporate takeover of medicine.
60 minutes
Kartemquin and the New Deal
April 10, 2008
Kartemquin's The Chicago Maternity Center Story was referenced in an article today in the Chicago Reader by J.R. Jones covering a series of film screenings called, "For a Better America: The New Deal on Film." The collection of work illustrates how cinematic experimentation wove its way through the New Deal sponsored government films. Jones describes one of the films included in the event, The Fight for Life, and how clips from it are featured in Kartemquin's Maternity Center doc.
- Made by
- Jerry Blumenthal
- Suzanne Davenport
- Sharon Karp
- Gordon Quinn
- Jennifer Rohrer
- Assistance
- Teena Webb
- Susan Delson
- Vickie Cooper
- Betsy Martens
- Richard Schmeichen
- Judy Hoffman
- Peter Kuttner
Chicago International Film Festival, 1977 – Silver Hugo
Filmex – Certificate of Merit
Melbourne Film Festival – Diploma of Merit
Leipzig Film Festival – Official Selection