‘[S]he could … spare one ample breast for the profit of her owner’

White mothers and enslaved wet nurses’ invisible labor in American slave markets

Bibliographic Data

ID17547784
AuthorsStephanie E Jones-Rogers (Schlumberger (Ireland), corresponding author), Stephanie Jones-Rogers
Year2017
Volume38
Issue2
Pages337-355
Publication date2017-04-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSlavery and Abolition (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0144-039X • E-ISSN: 1743-9523
PublisherFrank Cass & Co (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1080/0144039x.2017.1317014
OpenAlexW2608231060
LanguageEN
Citations received8

This essay examines the market that white mothers created for enslaved wet nurses, the intimate labor that they performed in southern households, and the ways that this market intersected with slave marketplaces in the antebellum era. It argues that white mothers’ desires and demands for enslaved wet nurses transformed bondwomen’s ability to suckle into a largely invisible, yet skilled form of labor, and created a niche sector of the slave market. In these ways, white mothers were crucial to the commodification of enslaved women’s reproductive bodies, their breast milk, and the nutritive and maternal care they provided to white children

Biology · Business · Commodification · Economics · Labour economics · Market economy · Profit (economics) · Sociology · Spare part · White (mutation) · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Marketing