Mary Stepp Burnette Hayden (1858 - 1956), known as “Granny Hayden,” was born enslaved in 1858 in Black Mountain, North Carolina, to Hanah Stepp, a midwife and healer brought from Alabama as a teenager. Freed at age seven after the Civil War, Mary learned midwifery directly from her mother, inheriting knowledge of herbs, prayer, and birthing that she later carried across the mountain paths she walked at night—undaunted by bears, segregation, racial violence, or the constant threat of lynching that Black women faced. With quiet strength she delivered hundreds of babies, Black and white alike, at a time when hospitals excluded Black families, even delivering her own grandchildren, including Mary Othella Burnette, who recalled her grandmother marveling when the newborn opened her eyes and turned her head moments after birth. Practicing well into her nineties, Granny Hayden died in 1956 at age 98, her life reflecting an ancestral lineage of midwifery that stretched from African traditions of burying placentas in sacred earth, to European healers persecuted as witches, to women catching babies in chains on slave ships, to Southern granny midwives walking with satchel and Bible—an enduring legacy embodied in Mary Stepp Burnette Hayden herself, living proof that midwives cannot be erased.

A spacious and trendy tote bag to help you carry around everything that matters.

• 100% polyester
• Bag size: 15″ × 15″ (39 × 39 cm)
• Capacity: 2.6 US gal (10 l)
• Maximum weight limit: 44lbs (20 kg)
• Dual handles made from 100% natural cotton bull denim
• Handle length: 26″ (67 cm), width 1″ (2.5 cm)
• The handles can slightly differ depending on the fulfillment location

This product is made especially for you as soon as you place an order, which is why it takes us a bit longer to deliver it to you. Making products on demand instead of in bulk helps reduce overproduction, so thank you for making thoughtful purchasing decisions!