These photographs of Nurse Maude Callen by Eugene Smith appeared in Life Magazine in 1951.
Editor’s Note: At the request of his readers and in memory of Warner M. Montgomery, Ph. D, we will continue to publish his Adventure Travel stories for the time being.
Nurse Maude Callen was the subject of a 12-page photoessay in Life Magazine in 1951. The author, Eugene Smith, a World War II photojournalist, became enamored with Nurse Maude as he followed her on her daily rounds. He watched as she delivered babies and attended to the general health needs of the impoverished population of Berkeley County.
Smith’s impassioned photographs grabbed the attention of readers around the world. They saw the dedicated black midwife-nurse delivering a baby, teaching a class of midwife trainees, vaccinating children, comforting a paralyzed man in a wheelchair, and racing to a distant hospital in the vain hope of saving a dying infant.
The photographer got in the act himself when a baby needed a blood transfusion. He volunteered to give his own blood, and while the blood drained from his arm into the child’s, the white doctor and nurse complained about a white man giving blood to a black child. Smith was shocked! And when the doctor botched the procedure and the child died, he was overcome with grief.
Smith said later, “Maude Callen is, to me, near the pure ideal of what a life of affirmative contribution can be. She is perhaps the most completely fulfilled person I have ever known—combining a marvellous wisdom and compassion, a strength of true humility and true pride, in a sheerly beautiful balance against insufferable odds…To the best of my knowledge, it was the first time that a major magazine ever published a major essay on a colored person.”
The photoessay in Life made a very strong point against racism by simply showing a remarkable woman doing a remarkable job in an almost impossible situation.
The letters and contributions poured into Pineville, swamping the local post office. The $27,000 Nurse Maude received went into the construction of a permanent clinic for her work with the Berkeley County Health Department.
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