Domestic Vulnerabilities

Abstract

This analysis of wet nurse advertisements from London and Philadelphia newspapers in the period of 1740–1799 is meant to explore the priorities of Anglo-Atlantic families. The ads indicate that the transition to live-in wet nursing relocated contamination fears from the nurse’s home to her body. The language in Philadelphia ads suggests that American wet nurses were operating within a discourse peculiar to a society founded on unfree labor, and one that may have had a greater tolerance for illegitimacy. Ad patterns further suggest that elite families impelled the transition to live-in nursing, perhaps in an attempt to achieve an enlightened familial archetype.