A social history of wet nursing in America
Subtitle: from breast to bottle
By: Janet Golden.
Series: Cambridge history of medicine
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Cambridge [England]; New York, NY
Language: eng
Number of pages: 215
Subjects: Wet-nurses -- United States -- History.; Motherhood -- United States -- History.; Infants -- United States -- Nutrition -- History.; Breastfeeding -- United States -- History.; Physician and patient -- United States -- History.
Description: A Social History of Wet Nursing in America: 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 in the eighteenth century, shows why wet nursing became controversial in the nineteenth century as motherhood slowly became medicalized, and elaborates how the development of scientific infant feeding eliminated wet nursing by the beginning of the twentieth century.

Setting these changes in the context of women's history and the history of medicine, the book makes a significant contribution 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.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.