Module 6 Reading: Wet-Nursing and the Labor of Infant Feeding at the Nursery and Child’s Hospital (1854–1910)
Origins and Founding of the Nursery and Child’s Hospital (NCH)
Mary A. DuBois and the Initial Inspiration: In February 1854, Mary A. DuBois, a resident of Manhattan’s Gramercy Park neighborhood and mother of seven, founded the NCH after hearing the story of Mary Ennis. * The Mary Ennis Case: Ennis, a wet nurse, discovered her infant baby had been exposed to smallpox after being "boarded out" to another nursing mother while Ennis provided milk to a wealthy family. * The Foundational Contrast: Struck by the difference between Ennis’s imperiled child and her own "well nursed" children, DuBois sought to provide safe care for the infants of wet nurses and the "worthy, industrious poor."
Early Funding and Legal Charter: * First Donation: DuBois’s husband, a tobacco merchant, provided the initial sum of $100.00. * Capital Campaign: Within weeks, DuBois raised $10,000.00 from local social networks. * Corporate Charter: Secured by May 1854.
Public Reception: * The New York Times: Praised the effort, citing the "appallling fact" that five out of six children of wet nurses died, mostly from neglect. * The New York Tribune: Lauded the effort to aid poor mothers forced to earn a living by daily labor.
Governance: The institution was managed by a board of thirty "lady managers" who volunteered time and money within the Gramercy Park/Manhattan social circle.
Theoretical Frameworks of Maternal Labor
Moral Motherhood: An ideological extension of the "republican mother" of the early national period. It positioned class-privileged women as public guardians of social virtue. * Cult of Domesticity: The lady managers exemplified the "ethereal qualities" of white womanhood, allowing them to engage in public-facing motherhood while maintaining high social status. * Precursor to Maternalism: These managers bridged the gap between early nineteenth-century idealism and the social-scientific methods of late-nineteenth-century maternalists.
Reproductive Labor Defined: Drawing on feminist scholarship (e.g., Eileen Boris), the text frames wet-nursing as a form of interrogated labor within a capitalist economy. * Four Areas of Reproductive Labor: 1. Maternal labor (pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding). 2. Unpaid family care labor. 3. Paid or coerced care work. 4. Care-providing institutions.
The Continuity of Servitude: Historically, white women outsourced "dirtier" and more difficult tasks of mothering to servants, slaves, or ethnic others, creating a continuum between paid and unpaid labor.
The Physics and Logistics of Breastfeeding in the 19th Century
The Leading Cause of Death: Physicians identified infant feeding problems as the primary cause of infant mortality.
Mortality Statistics: * 1866 Manhattan: Approximately one-third of infants died before their first birthday. * 1880: Rate declined to 29\%. * 1908: Rate reached 15\%.
The Physiological Burden: * Caloric Cost: Breastfeeding a single infant burns approximately 670.00 calories per day. * Nutritional Flow: Nutrients and antibodies are siphoned from the nursing woman to the child, providing disease protection. * Manual Expression: Before electric breast pumps, collecting large quantities of milk by hand was considered nearly impossible, making the physical presence of the woman essential. * Feeding Schedule: Contemporary manuals advised putting a baby to the breast for 10-25 minutes every two hours (6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., plus a night feeding).
Medical Pathologies: The "messy and painful" reality of lactation included cracked nipples, engorged breasts, and mastitis (often leading to mammary abscesses if untreated).
Economic Realities of the Wet-Nursing Profession
The "Second Oldest Profession": Described by historian Valerie Fildes as a commodification of intimate labor.
The Employment Hierarchy: Private wet-nursing commanded the highest wages for female servants. * Wages (1850s): Approximately per month. * Post-Civil War Wages: Wages were noted to have doubled from the 1850s levels.
Boarding Fees: Private wet nurses paid the NCH per month to board their own infants.
NCH Revenue Model: * The "Premium" System: The NCH charged employers a fee to hire a nurse through them. If the first nurse was unsatisfactory, a second could be substituted within 10 days at no extra cost. * Advertising: In April 1857, a advertisement resulted in three placements, earning the hospital .
Race, Ethnicity, and Segregation
The Color Line: The NCH explicitly practiced racial segregation from its inception. * Admissions Policy (Feb 22, 1854): The board agreed to admit "colored" infants only if separate accommodations and a nurse "of their own color" were available. * Foundling Asylum Alternative: Black mothers often had to rely on the New York Foundling Asylum, which used "colored nurses" to board children in private homes because few institutions accepted African American infants.
Ethnic Composition of Wet Nurses: * 1860: Nearly 75\% of NCH wet nurses were Irish. * Diversity: Also included women from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, and Scandinavia. * Early 1900s Shift: Italian women became the predominant wet-nursing group for city charities.
Racialized Perceptions: Physicians and elite managers viewed Irish women similarly to Black women—as "naturally fecund," "lustful," and "impervious to pain," aligning them more with an animalistic status than the "civilized" status of their employers.
Institutional Locations and Physical Maintenance
110 St. Marks Place (1854): The first leased facility. It housed fifteen wet nurses and various infants. Inmates suffered through a cholera epidemic during its first summer.
Sixth Avenue at Fifteenth Street (1855): Relocated to a detached house due to the "miasmic theory" belief that poor ventilation and a damp cellar at the previous location caused illness.
East Fifty-First Street (1857-1859): The cornerstone for a new, impressive building was laid in June 1857 between Lexington and Third Avenues. * Funding: $10,000.00 appropriated by the state, with land lots donated by the city. * Census: By 1859, the NCH serviced 194 women and 510 children.
The Country Branch (Staten Island, 1870): Established to escape the urban environment. It consisted of dispersed cottages but faced its own issues with overcrowding, illiteracy among staff, and high mortality from contagious diseases like diphtheria.
The Conflict of the "Lactating Proletariat"
Defining Motherhood vs. Labor: The NCH officially classified resident women nursing their own babies as "wet nurses" rather than mothers, identifying their nursing as labor rather than a familial bond.
The "Double Nursing" Requirement: To pay for their own food and lodging, poor women were often required to nurse a second infant in addition to their own. * Post-Civil War Maternity Services: Women who couldn't pay the $25.00 delivery fee worked for three months without pay, nursing two babies.
Internal Disputes and Diet: * Strike for Nutrition: Wet nurses successfully advocated for better food, securing meat for breakfast in 1855. * Alcohol Requirements: Despite the managers' Protestant temperance ideals, Irish wet nurses demanded, and the medical board eventually approved, a ration of ale/beer as a "stimulant" for milk production. * Milk Ration: Each wet nurse was eventually furnished with one quart of cow’s milk per day.
Case Study: Eliza Crawford: In March 1857, Crawford (a widow hired as a private wet nurse for jeweler Charles L. Tiffany) struck the NCH matron with "4 violent blows" to the breast during a dispute over the release of her children. DuBois used the dependency of the Tiffany family on Crawford's milk as leverage to manage the situation.
Medical Critique: The Abraham Jacobi Controversy
Jacobi’s Background: A German Jewish émigré and founder of modern pediatrics who had been jailed during the 1848 revolution.
The 1870 Critique: Jacobi attacked the NCH, famously stating: "The younger the children, and the larger the institution—the surer is death." * Anti-Manager Stance: He characterized the "lady managers" as "meddlesome, fidgety, inconsistent," and driven by social ambition rather than expertise. * Proposed Alternative: He advocated for placing infants in private "country homes" rather than congregate institutions. * Defense: The NCH medical board dismissed Jacobi, but his professional star rose as he became president of the American Medical Association.
The Decline of Institutional Wet-Nursing
Scientific Advancement: * Pasteurization (1888): New equipment made bottle-feeding safer. * Milk Labs (1894): The NCH opened a lab and diet kitchen to prepare "artificial food." * Milk Modifiers: Inventions like Mellin’s Food (1866) and the work of Thomas Rotch at the Walker-Gordon lab paved the way for medically approved formulas.
Professionalization: The "moral mother" was replaced by the "scientific mother" and "nursery maids" trained in specific care techniques.
Final Merger and Transition: * 1910: The NCH merged with the New York Infant Asylum to become the New York Nursery and Child’s Hospital. * 1934: The final remnant of the institution was absorbed by New York Hospital.
The Emergence of Milk Banks: In the early 1900s, breast milk became a "medicalized commodity" through the use of milk banks and electric pumps, disembodying the milk from the physical person of the wet nurse.