Catharina Schrader

Catharina Schrader

Catharina Gertraut Schrader (born September 1656 in Bentheim , † October 30, 1746 in Dokkum ) was a Dutch midwife .

Life

Catharina Gertraut (also Geertrudia) Schrader was born as the eldest daughter of Friedrich Schrader and Gertrud Nibberich. Her father was a tailor at the court of Ernst Wilhelm zu Bentheim and Steinfurt . She had four siblings. In the late 1670s, many members of the family moved to neighboring Leiden , as the Bishop of Munster was attacked in the county of Bentheim due to inheritance and religious disputes. Her brother Ernst E. Wilhelm lived in Leiden and Catharina Schrader also lived there until she moved back to Bentheim in 1682. On January 7, 1683, she married the surgeon Ernst Wilhelm Cramer in Bentheim , who was probably his second marriage. Cramer was probably already running a practice in Hallum , Friesland at the time . However, the family initially stayed in Bentheim and the daughters Geertrud Elisabeth and Anna Elisabeth were born. In 1686 the family moved to Hallum and four other children, Jan Frederik, Hendrick, Anna Magdalena and one other daughter were born. Ernst Wilhelm Cramer died on February 4, 1692 and Catharina Cramer was left with six small children.

After the death of her husband in January 1693, Catharina Cramer began working as a midwife to support the family. In 1695 she moved with her family to Dokkum and opened a practice there. This also made it possible for their children to attend school. On February 22, 1713, she married the gold and silversmith Thomas Higt in Dokkum, who was also mayor of Dokkum. A month later, her daughter married Thomas Higt's foster son and nephew, Tjeerd Higt. After her marriage, she almost completely stopped working as a midwife. She only cared about family births. The family was well off, and the daughters could have good marriages too. In 1718 she helped give birth to her first grandchild. Her second husband, Thomas Higt, died in 1720. She then resumed her work as a midwife. Catharina Schrader enjoyed good health well into old age. At the age of 88 on February 7, 1745, she last reported in her notebook, which was later published under the name Memoryboeck van de Vrouwens , of a birth and on October 30, 1746 she died at the age of 90 in Dokkum.

Memoryboeck van de Vrouwens

Her notebook, the Memoryboeck van de Vrouwens , covers the period from January 9, 1693 to February 7, 1745. It consisted of 9 booklets. In these notebooks she kept records of the births and her work as a midwife and surgeon, she also described the births and recorded her income. She did not keep the book as a medical diary in the strict sense of the word, but rather used it for records. Each year it closed with a list of the number of births, their expenses and income. Every new year started with a prayer. It is believed that she kept her detailed records of labor, fees, and patients for other midwives, such as her daughter. In addition to the course of the birth, she also recorded who paid her and with what amount; this could be the child's parents as well as the grandparents. In some cases she received no payment, sometimes only part of the amount she asked for. She was also paid in kind, so she received a pair of shoes from a shoemaker and a pot of shrimp from a trader. Between 1696 and 1712 she earned between two and three hundred guilders a year. According to the information in her book, her income was 4200 guilders from 1712 to 1733 , through her work as a midwife and 1000 guilders through her work as a surgeon or the sale of medicine. For an average two-day job, she received around two guilders, which at that time was roughly the weekly wage of a skilled worker. After the death of her second husband, she lived in relative prosperity and owned 5 houses under her name.

Catharina Schrader became a very experienced midwife. She records about 4,000 cases of birth entries in her notebooks. She traveled around supporting difficult births, but most of the births took place near where she lived. More than 92% of babies survived childbirth when she was present as a midwife, a far higher rate than anywhere else at the time. She doesn't seem to have used any devices such as tweezers or anything else for the births that were being developed in Holland at the time.

Schrader kept another separate diary for her gynecological and surgical activities. This was kept as detailed as the book about her birth cases.

review

Judy Chicago dedicated an inscription on the triangular floor tiles of the Heritage Floor to Catharina Schrader for her installation The Dinner Party . The porcelain tiles labeled with the name Mrs. Cramer are assigned to the place with the place setting for Caroline Herschel .

literature

• Catharina Geertruida Schrader: Mother and Child Were Saved: The Memoirs (1693-1740) of the Frisian Midwife Catharina Schrader . Rodopi, 1987, ISBN 978-90-6203-620-2 , pp. 6 ( books.google.de ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Catharina Geertruida Schrader: Mother and Child Were Saved: The Memoirs (1693-1740) of the Frisian Midwife Catharina Schrader . Rodopi, 1987, ISBN 978-90-6203-620-2 , pp. 6 ( books.google.de ).
2. ↑ Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie, Joy Dorothy Harvey: The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: LZ . Taylor & Francis, 2000, ISBN 978-0-415-92040-7 , pp. 1165 ( books.google.de ).
3. ↑ Brooklyn Museum: Mrs. Cramer. In: brooklynmuseum.org. Retrieved March 8, 2020 . 

Web links

Commons : Catharina Schrader  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Brooklyn Museum