Blood from a Stone

Abstract

Abstract Racial disparities in iron status persist among U.S. women, a phenomenon with a long social reach. This chapter argues that iron deficiency in the United States is gendered and racialized, tracing the history of two distinct iron-related ailments pre-20th century: chlorosis and Cachexia Africana. Colonialist race science shaped the way each illness was defined; and each illness disappeared as the social need for them changed with time. Iron status was also targeted as the science of heredity exploded in the early 20th century. The chapter discusses the racialization of iron status by scientists and anthropologists who saw racial disparities as genetic, the cause of different bloods, and further proof that Black and White people had fundamentally different genes. This structural racism has profoundly unequal effects on maternal morbidity and mortality, an enduring legacy of a racist science.