About Bridget "Biddy" Mason

CAM named our inaugural student midwife scholarship program and fund after Bridget “Biddy” Mason, in honor of her foundational contribution to the midwifery profession in California. One of the earliest midwives recorded in state history, Mason had been forced to migrate westward on a years' long journey with her enslaver and his family in the 1840s.

"If you hold your hand closed, nothing good can come in. The open hand is blessed, for it gives in abundance, even as it receives." – Bridget "Biddy" Mason

In a groundbreaking legal ruling, Mason secured legal freedom for herself and her family a year before the Dred Scott decision denied citizenship to formerly enslaved people. She went on to establish a successful midwifery practice, using her earnings to make astute real-estate investments that allowed her to build considerable personal and family wealth.

Mason became renowned for her philanthropy and for the remarkable healing properties of her folk medicines, and her subsequent employment by a prominent physician has led some chroniclers of her life to mistakenly label her occupation as nursing. However, Mason is more rightfully understood as both heir to and keeper of the Black midwifery and healing traditions forged under slavery by generations of women on the South Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi plantations of her youth and early adulthood.

A true community midwife, Mason's life work embodies the unrealized potential of a thriving and diverse midwifery workforce in California and inspires our commitment to its restoration and revitalization.

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Great-great-great-granddaughter receives plaque from Jean Delacour, director of the Los Angeles County Museum of History, Science and Art, in honor of renowned midwife and philanthropist, Bridget "Biddy" Mason, 1957. Courtesy of the Miriam Matthews Photograph Collection; OpenUCLA Collections; Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library.

Gathering for the presentation of the plaque honoring renowned midwife and philanthropist, Bridget "Biddy" Mason, at the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art, with her great-granddaughters Vassie Wright and Gladys Owens at the center, 1957. Courtesy of the Mirian Matthews Photograph Collection; OpenUCLA Collections; Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library.