![]() Popular and media imagery reflected and perpetuated wide disparities in breastfeeding rates between Black and White mothers. Magazines such as National Geographic portrayed breastfeeding Black women as exotic and savage. Over the following decades, as images marketing formula to Black women increased, positive images of Black women breastfeeding remained virtually nonexistent. This comforting belief made it easier for them to succumb to a host of external pressures not to breastfeed. Through Pet Milk’s bold marketing scheme, many Black women became convinced that formula was just as healthy as, or even healthier than, breast milk. The company was one of the first to market anything but alcohol, tobacco, or beauty products directly to Black families. Pet Milk’s campaign directed at Black women reaped unexpectedly high profits. ![]() The consequences of this contract reached far beyond the Fultz sisters. The deal he made with Pet Milk set in motion a chain of events that would lead to Annie Mae losing, not just the right to name her girls, but the girls themselves. ![]() The company with the highest bid would be the first to target Black women with a formula advertising campaign. He began negotiating with formula companies that sought to become the newly famous Fultz Quads’ corporate godparent. Klenner gave all the sisters the first name Mary then middle names belonging to his wife, sister, aunt, and great-aunt: Ann, Louise, Alice, and Catherine.ĭr. Klenner snatched the privilege of naming the girls from Annie Mae and their father, Pete, a tenant farmer on a nearby tobacco farm. He began testing his controversial theories about vitamin C on the girls on the day of their birth, injecting them with fifty milligrams each. Klenner quickly realized how his new patients’ instant celebrity could benefit him. Andrea Freeman.įred Klenner was the White doctor who delivered the girls in Annie Penn Hospital, in the basement wing reserved for Black patients. But this overwhelming happiness was far too short-lived. Annie Mae’s joy at her perfect new daughters was irrepressible, expressed in exuberant debates with friends and relatives at her hospital bedside about possible names for the girls. Word of their birth spread quickly throughout the country. Against the odds, each of these four tiny girls survived their first few hours and began to grow steadily. Beginning at 1:13 a.m., Annie Mae gave birth, in short intervals, to the world’s first recorded identical quadruplets. She had lost her ability to speak and hear during a childhood illness. Annie Mae was a tall, beautiful, Black-Cherokee mother of six children. The woman responsible for this miracle was Annie Mae Fultz. On May 23, 1946, in the rural southern town of Reidsville, North Carolina, a small miracle occurred. Here & Now's Tonya Mosley speaks with Andrea Freeman - whose book " Skimmed: Breastfeeding, Race, and Injustice" looks at how formula was marketed to black women in the late 20th century. (Allison Hagan/Here & Now) This article is more than 3 years old. "Skimmed: Breastfeeding, Race, and Injustice" by Andrea Freeman.
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