Mothers, Milk, and Money: A History of Infant Feeding in the United States, 1850s-Present

FAIN: FEL-289441-23

Lara Vapnek
St. John's University, New York (Queens, NY 11439-9000)

Research and writing leading to a book on the history of infant feeding practices in U.S. from the 19th century to the present with a focus on women of color.

As any new parent knows, the labor of feeding a baby, whether by breast or by bottle, can be intense and unremitting. Normed primarily as women’s work, the history of infant feeding provides an opportunity to investigate the shifting and unstable boundary between women’s paid and unpaid labor. By reconstructing the diverse practices of infant feeding in the United States from the mid-19th century to the present, Mothers, Milk, and Money reveals how motherhood was shaped by differences of gender, race, and class. Moving beyond the breast versus bottle paradigm that structures the current literature, I show how breast-feeding and bottle-feeding co-existed and changed over time, incorporating new technologies, and responding to women’s growing presence in the paid labor force. Furthermore, I diversify the history of motherhood by highlighting how social welfare programs shaped poor women’s options for feeding their babies.