In Bahia, Brazil, the decades following emancipation saw the rise of reformers who sought to reshape the citizenry by educating Bahian women in methods for raising “better babies.” The idealized Brazilian would be better equipped to contribute to the labor and organizational needs of a modern nation. Backed by many physicians, politicians, and intellectuals, the resulting welfare programs for mothers and children mirrored complex debates about Brazilian nationality. Examining the local and national contours of this movement, Progressive Mothers, Better Babies investigates families, medical institutions, state-building, and social stratification to trace the resulting policies, which gathered momentum in the aftermath of abolition (1888) and the declaration of the First Republic (1889), culminating during the administration of President Getúlio Vargas (1930–1945). Exploring the cultural discourses on race, gender, and poverty that permeated medical knowledge and the public health system for almost a century, Okezi T. Otovo draws on extensive archival research to reconstruct the implications for Bahia, where family patronage politics governed poor women’s labor as the mothers who were the focus of medical interventions were often the nannies and nursemaids of society’s wealthier families. The book reveals key transition points as the state of Bahia transformed from being a place where poor families could expect few social services to becoming the home of numerous programs targeting the poorest mothers and their children. Negotiating crucial questions of identity, this history sheds new light on larger debates about Brazil’s past and future.

In Bahia, Brazil, the decades following emancipation saw the rise of reformers who sought to reshape the citizenry by educating Bahian women in methods for raising “better babies.” The idealized Brazilian would be better equipped to contribute to the labor and organizational needs of a modern nation. Backed by many physicians, politicians, and intellectuals, the resulting welfare programs for mothers and children mirrored complex debates about Brazilian nationality. Examining the local and national contours of this movement, Progressive Mothers, Better Babies investigates families, medical institutions, state-building, and social stratification to trace the resulting policies, which gathered momentum in the aftermath of abolition (1888) and the declaration of the First Republic (1889), culminating during the administration of President Getúlio Vargas (1930–1945). Exploring the cultural discourses on race, gender, and poverty that permeated medical knowledge and the public health system for almost a century, Okezi T. Otovo draws on extensive archival research to reconstruct the implications for Bahia, where family patronage politics governed poor women’s labor as the mothers who were the focus of medical interventions were often the nannies and nursemaids of society’s wealthier families. The book reveals key transition points as the state of Bahia transformed from being a place where poor families could expect few social services to becoming the home of numerous programs targeting the poorest mothers and their children. Negotiating crucial questions of identity, this history sheds new light on larger debates about Brazil’s past and future.

Now in paperback, the provocative book that has ignited fiery debate and created a dialogue among women about the state of motherhood today. In THE MOMMY MYTH, Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels turn their 'sharp, funny, and fed-up prose' (San Diego Union Tribune) toward the cult of the new momism, a trend in Western culture that suggests that women can only achieve contentment through the perfection of mothering. Even so, the standards of this ideal remain out of reach, no matter how hard women try to 'have it all'. THE MOMMY MYTH skilfully maps the distance travelled from the days when THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE demanded more for women than keeping house and raising children, to today's not-so-subtle pressure to reverse this trend. A must-read for every woman.

A unique campaign of scientific baby judging spread across the United States in the early years of this century. Beginning at state fairs, it spread to towns and cities of all sizes. By the movement's peak in 1913 and 1914, scientific baby contests were held at 40 state fairs and several hundred county fairs and city contests. The baby health contest identified the healthiest infants in a region, while teaching parents how breeding and environment could produce a superior crop. Then, quietly, the contests slipped into obscurity. This work traces the development of the baby health contests from their rural beginnings at agricultural fairs. Details are provided about the early instruments used for assessing infant development, the organizations and individuals behind the better babies movement, and the methods of promoting prize babies. The controversy generated by the competition for prizes is explored, as are the role of the Children's Bureau in the contests, the business aspect of the contests, and the spin-offs of the health contest idea.

This thesis is about the history of American motherhood between 1910 and 1921 when “scientific motherhood” became the winning strategy for solving the nation’s infant mortality crisis. As scientific and medical discoveries in the late-nineteenth century gradually disproved conventional beliefs about the inevitability of infant death, reform-minded Americans grew increasingly intolerant of the nation’s shamefully high rate of infant mortality. Committed to raising public awareness about the extent of infant death in the United States, the infant welfare movement introduced “baby-saving” campaigns like Baby Week and Children’s Year to establish public responsibility for an otherwise private family tragedy. In a time when progressive reformers regularly lobbied the federal government for protections against the dark side of modernization, the infant welfare movement embraced a different sort of progressive solution: it blamed the moms. How did women in the United States become responsible for a national public health problem? With the help of campaign planning manuals, conference exhibits, Children’s Bureau reports, newspapers, and ladies’ magazines, I argue that the infant welfare movement was as much about reforming the modern ideal of American motherhood as it was about saving babies.

Discusses the issue of breast feeding and whether it is fair to judge parenting on breast vs. bottle as opposed to making the right choice for a family.

Collects stories and essays from the first ten years of the zine Hip mama, including "The other day when I was poor," and "Mothers don't fart."