A Social History of Wet Nursing in America

Abstract

A Social History of Wet Nursing in the United States: From Breast to Bottle examines the intersection of medical science, social theory and cultural practices as they shaped relations among wet nurses, physicians and families from the colonial period through the twentieth century. It explores how Americans used wet nursing to solve infant feeding problems, shows why wet nursing became controversial as motherhood slowly became medicalised, and elaborates how the development of scientific infant feeding eliminated wet nursing by the beginning of the twentieth century. Janet Golden's study contributes to our understanding of the cultural authority of medical science, the role of physicians in shaping child rearing practices, the social construction of motherhood, and the profound dilemmas of class and culture that played out in the private space of the nursery.

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