Iconizing Motherhood, Ignoring Mothers: Romanian Forty-Eighter Women, Public Health, and
the Limits of Maternal Medicalization
Ioana Moroşan
Research Institute of the University of Bucharest
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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 15 Issue 3 (2026): 435-463 DOI 10.38145/2026.3.435
One of the earliest public representations of women in Romanian culture is closely tied to maternal identity. In nineteenth-century Romania, women gained political legitimacy both through their association with politically active men and through their status as mothers, which was reframed as a national mission within the broader emergence of nationalism. This romanticized image of motherhood coexisted alongside a persistent crisis of midwifery and the uneven medicalization of childbirth, revealing a significant gap between the Romanian sphere and other Central and Eastern European contexts. The entry into the public sphere of women involved in the Revolutions of 1848, notably Maria Rosetti (1819–1893), combined with the revolutionary and philanthropic ethos of the period fostered engagement among women in initiatives related to public health and the diffusion of medical knowledge. By tracing key moments in the development of medicalization and the medical crisis of the nineteenth century, this study examines both the scope and the limits of these women’s interventions, with particular attention to the life and career of Maria Rosetti. It highlights the paradox of their participation in public health: while they contributed to the dissemination of medical practices, their involvement remained shaped by gendered constraints and did not fundamentally challenge the growing exclusion of women from the medical profession. At the same time, the article argues that figures such as Maria Rosetti functioned as important intermediaries in the process of medicalization, particularly in contexts in which institutional medical structures remained underdeveloped.
Keywords: Revolution of 1848, medical crisis, midwives, women’s exclusion, medicalization of childbirth, maternal body, nationalism