Send your breastfeeding photos to me at info (at) mommytoo (dot) com.
Sitting for a Formal Photograph and Breastfeeding
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
In the Library of Congress archives, there are many photographs of Indian women with their babies in papooses. In all of the seated, formal pictures of women and their children I have seen, I have never seen a photo where the mother is freely breastfeeding her child. This photograph is quite interesting because although the woman was white, her husband was an Indian and she lived in an Indian village after being captured in her youth.Her name was Cynthia Ann Parker (ca. 1825-ca. 1871) and in this photo she was nursing her daughter, Prairie Flower (Toposannah). Parker was captured by Native American Comanches as a teenager, later married Chief Peta Nocona and bore children including Quanah Parker, the last Comanche Chief.1860-1870.
Parker's life is very interesting. If you'd like to learn more about her, click here.
Labels: breastfeeding history, breastfeeding in public
posted by Jennifer James @ 4:48 AM,
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Giving Milk Formula to Nurses
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Things rarely change in this world in which we live. Case in point: An interview with Miss Mattie Ingram, a county health nurse in Beaufort, S.C. on January 31, 1939. This was published in the South Carolina Writer's Project.
After Mattie Ingram gave milk to a poor woman to feed her ill husband she said to the writer from the Project:
"Oh, the milk--do I buy it to give away?" She smiled. "If I started that, I'd be spending every cent I make and it wouldn't be a drop in the bucket. No, several manufacturers of canned milk send us samples to advertise their milk formulas for babies. It comes in very handy, I can tell you."
Sound familiar?
Labels: breastfeeding history, formula
posted by Jennifer James @ 6:48 PM,
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Breastfeeding in Public During Social Hour
Although this photo isn't dated, I wager a bet it was taken during the mid to late 1930s. It may potentially be the early 1940s. What is particularly telling about this photograph are the notes on the back of the photo (below) and the fact that once again breastfeeding in public was no big deal before the formula industry changed the perception of infant feeding (almost irreparably) in this country. The men could care less that a woman's exposed breast is in full view of everyone, although the little boy on the right does seem a little enthralled by the baby breastfeeding.
Written Notes on Item
a) Part of Social Hour audience at Shafter Camp (handwritten on reverse); b) Todd's favorite picture of an "Okie Family" in Shafter F.S.A. Camp. Nursing babies was the usual thing at camp "Socials." (typed and attached to reverse)
Labels: breastfeeding history, breastfeeding in public
posted by Jennifer James @ 5:41 PM,
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Ancient Egyptians and Breasts
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Although this blog is about breastfeeding, there is no mistaking that the way in which the West views breasts has a lot to do with the perception of breastfeeding in this country.
Scholars have spent their lives and energies tracing the root of female discrimination around the world. I am no different, although I simply find pictures, post them here, and try to make some sense of this culture we live in that takes such great issue with breasts and breastfeeding.
Today while on the Metropolitan Museum of Art web site I noticed a picture of an ancient Egyptian woman on a coffin. Check it out: Her nipple is exposed! I don't know when people started getting so touchy about breasts. I've even fallen victim to this craziness. At least there is evidence that shows there was a time when breasts weren't so taboo.
Labels: breastfeeding in public
posted by Jennifer James @ 5:04 PM,
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Coal Miner's Wife, Breastfeeding at Home in 1938
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Coal miner's wife and child. Pursglove, West Virginia. 1938 SeptHere's the funny thing about these photos: During this time, it was the poor mothers who stayed fast to the natural art of breastfeeding, whereas metropolitan mothers and those who had better access to doctors who pushed formula opted to feed their babies artificially.
Now in 2008, poor, rural mothers statistically do not want to have anything to do with breastfeeding and mothers who are better off economically breastfeed in higher numbers -- what a flip-flop.
I have spent more than a year trying to put an historic perspective on the legacy that black mothers have with breastfeeding, but it is now dawning on me that poor white women and particularly those who still live in rural areas have a storied history of breastfeeding that has largely been lost as well.
Labels: breastfeeding history
posted by Jennifer James @ 8:38 AM,
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Breastfeeding Under the Trees, June 1939
Sunday, April 6, 2008
I am always amazed by the pictures I find of mothers in the 1930s and 40s who breastfed; I'm obsessed with them, really. Although formula was readily available then, poor farming mothers most always breastfed their babies as opposed to feeding them in a way that was expensive and I hazard to say...unnatural.
Here's a mother breastfeeding her daughter under the trees in Wagoner County, Oklahoma. The picture was taken in June 1939. This is a wife and child of an itinerant cane furniture maker and agricultural day laborer.
Here's a mother breastfeeding her daughter under the trees in Wagoner County, Oklahoma. The picture was taken in June 1939. This is a wife and child of an itinerant cane furniture maker and agricultural day laborer.
One satisfied baby.
Labels: breastfeeding history, breastfeeding in public
posted by Jennifer James @ 8:10 PM,
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