Remembering Anarcha

An enslaved woman is forced to undergo experimental gynecological surgeries without anesthesia in 19th century Alabama.

Author J. C. Hallman uncovers the sacrifices made by Anarcha Westcott, a young enslaved woman, who was victimized by a racist doctor in the name of science.

For more than a century, Dr. J. Marion Sims was hailed as the “father of modern gynecology.” He founded a hospital in New York City and had a profitable career treating gentry and royalty in Europe, becoming one of the world’s first celebrity surgeons. Statues were built in his honor, but he wasn’t the hero he made himself appear to be.

Sims’s greatest medical claim was the result of several years of experimental surgeries, using only opium as anesthesia, on a young enslaved woman known as Anarcha. His so-called cure for obstetric fistula forever altered the path of women’s health.

One medical text after another hailed Anarcha as the embodiment of the pivotal role that Sims played in the history of surgery. Decades later, a groundswell of women objecting to Sims’s legacy celebrated Anarcha as the “mother of gynecology.” Little was known about the woman herself. The written record would have us believe Anarcha disappeared; she did not.

Through tenacious research, J. C. Hallman has unearthed the first evidence of Anarcha’s life that did not come from Sims’s suspect reports. Hallman reveals that after helping to spark a patient-centered model of care that continues to improve women’s lives today, Anarcha lived on as a midwife, nurse, and “doctor woman.”

Say Anarcha excavates history, deconstructing the biographical smoke screen of a surgeon who has falsely been enshrined as a medical pioneer and bringing forth a heroic Black woman to her rightful place at the center of the creation story of modern women’s health care.

Remembering Anarcha

In 2021 Remembering Anarcha, a documentary by Josh Carples, was released. The book, Say Anarcha, was released in 2023.

A statue of Dr. James Marion Sims stands on the grounds of the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery. The South Carolinian spent almost two decades in Montgomery, pre-Civil War, practicing medicine. Sims is known as “the father of modern gynecology,” but his detractors call him “Father Butcher” for his experiments on enslaved women – without anesthesia or what is now “informed consent.”

His legacy, and the statues dedicated to him in Montgomery, Columbia, SC, and New York City’s Central Park (until its removal in early 2018), only tell part of the story. Remembering Anarcha explores this history and issues of ethics, race, and the lingering effects on modern society and medicine.

Visit rememberinganarcha.com.

Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey

The Mothers of Gynecology

Michelle Browder, who appears in the film, has created the Mothers of Gynecology Monument in Montgomery, AL. Along with the monument, she owns the building located at the former site of the clinic where J. Marion Sims conducted the Alabama fistula experiments. She is creating a health and wellness museum and clinic at the site.

Find out more by visiting AnarchaLucyBetsey.org.