motherhood

Examining enslaved mothers and antislavery literature on the eve of war.

Claims that mothers lacking formula should just breastfeed repeats a centuries-old mistake.

The female image is ubiquitous on social media, yet when it comes to pictures of parents with their children many moms feel disappeared.

"My job as your mother is to tell you these stories differently, and to tell you other stories that don’t get told at school.”

Characterized throughout American history as symbols of crisis, trauma, and grief, these women reject those narratives through world-making of their own.

How African American women represented Black motherhood in the early nineteenth century.

Martha Saxton dives into the life of the mother of George Washington and how historians have misrepresented her in the past.

A photo archive shows college coeds vacuuming, preparing baby bottles, diapering babies, and generally practicing at motherhood.

Current debates about breastfeeding highlight the political nature of changing cultural norms about motherhood.

Imagining a future that separates women from their biological identity seems so “drastic” as to be unimaginable—in 1962 and today.

A new television miniseries depicts the pursuit of Lincoln’s killer. But the public appetite for tales about the chase began even as it was happening.

Again and again, a fervant British anticommunist's filmstrip of the novel shows images of women in states of distress.

The Exorcist in 1973 and 2023.

Judge the author of the “Feminine Mystique” not by the gains she made, but by her experience.

In 1950, the Sullivinian Institute was created to push the boundaries of psychoanalysis. By 1980, its therapists and patients had become a small paramilitary.

Milk banks, a successor concept to wet nursing, are a little discussed part of the contemporary landscape of infant care.

In the sixties and seventies, the Sullivanian Institute had a winning sales pitch for young New Yorkers: parties, sex, low rent, and affordable therapy.

During the Civil War, women secretly enlisted as men in the Union Army. No one suspected a thing...until they gave birth.

"Women of the Republic," published in 1980, has introduced generations to the role of women in the American Revolution and the possibilities of women’s history.

In the sixties and seventies, fighting for the rights of queer people was considered radical activism. To Jeanne Manford, it was just part of being a parent.