Includes bibliographical references (pages 251-266) and index.
Contents:
Introduction: Navigating the cult of motherhood in the emerging public sphere -- Speaking for herself: privilege and creating counterpublics. Staging motherhood: Sarah Siddons and Mary Robinson -- Mother-midwife: women's work and the phenomenon of birth -- Spoken for: mediated maternity and the politics of exclusion. Compulsory maternity: gender nonconformity in the military memoirs of Christian Davies and Hannah Snell -- Abortive attempts: forced labor and the impossibility of motherhood in The history of Mary Prince: a West Indian slave -- Spoken about: marginalized maternities -- Street life: picturing mothers practicing itinerant trades -- Mother Magdalen: penitential poverty and the prostitute-mother -- Afterword: The twenty-first-century afterlives of Enlightenment maternity.
Summary:
"Laboring Mothers merges and expands on two feminist dialogues to create a novel transatlantic cultural history of eighteenth-century working motherhood. Addressing both historical women and representations of a "type," the book demonstrates how ideas about the public sphere and maternity interacted to create systems of power and privilege among working mothers"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.