Oral history interview with Thurmond Knight

Oral history interview with Thurmond Knight

Thurmond Knight speaks of his childhood spent outdoors in the Florida Everglades, his family’s strong musical connection in their Southern Baptist church community, attending Florida State University and the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, Pennsylvania, and, in 1973, becoming part of a medical practice and joining the staff at Gifford Medical Center in Randolph, Vermont. He describes being invited by a lay midwife to attend a homebirth in Shoreham, Vermont, and contrasts that experience with standard hospital childbirth practices at the time, and his consequent work in supporting lay midwives and assisting with homebirths, including at Quarry Hill and Wooden Shoe communes. He recounts being influenced to advocate for midwife assisted birthing rooms after reading about successes at a Georgia hospital, which eventually led to the opening of the Gifford Birthing Center in 1977, the first of its kind in New England, and the initial opposition to this practice in the conservative medical establishment.

9 May 2016

AudioFile1970s-64

MP3

Audio Files

Orange County (Vt.)

Florida

Permission to publish material from the Vermont 1970s Counterculture Project must be obtained from the Vermont Historical Society.

Rowell, Leslie

Knight, Thurmond, 1946-

Glover (Vt.)

1 hr., 37 min., 36 sec.

Vermont Historical Society Library, 60 Washington Street, Barre, VT 05641-4209