There's A Manual For Everything

     Today the series of books called "....For Dummies" is a self-help manual series that explains from point A to point B how to accomplish something. While these books are a recent invention, the idea of a self-help manual is not. In the sixteenth century there were manuals from birthing to biological changes in men and women. It is of no surprise that the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century paved the way for manuals to become common and referenced daily. One type of manual that I found particularly interesting was that of the midwives manual. According to Mary Wiesner-Hanks, "these manuals contained advice for prenatal care for the mother as well as the handling of the deliveries" (84).              
   The following image is by Eucharius Rosslin and it depicts a woman in labor with two midwives in attendance. This image, along with many others, were used in the manuals to illustrate the points. 

http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/301195/enlarge

    Midwife manuals were not the only types of manuals produced in the sixteenth century. Marriage manuals, menstruation manuals, among others, became widely popular among all social classes within society. I question, who wrote these manuals? Were both men and women writers of these manuals and both were accepted by the public? Were manuals that dealt directly with issues of the female sex written by women? Was this genre of literature one of the only ways women writers could be published without critique during the sixteenth century?  

                                                                Works Cited

Wiesner-Hanks. Women and Gender In Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University   Press, 2008. 

"Science Photo Library." Accessed February 4, 2014.http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/301195/enlarge.