BackStory

The following links and documents relate to the BackStory episode “The Good Mother: A History of Motherhood”, originally broadcast in May of 2010. You can listen to the entire episode here.

All Centuries

• View videos of the recent conference, “Motherhood: Reclaiming our past, transforming our future”
• Historian Jill Lepore chronicles the politics & history of breastfeeding
• An excellent overview of mothers and fathers in America
• HEARTH: The home economics archive at Cornell

18th Century

• Read the groundbreaking diary of Martha Ballard, a colonial midwife in Massachusetts
• The fashions of motherhood–quilted pudding cap, anyone?
• Benjamin Rush on female education in 1787
• “On the Equality of the Sexes“: Judith Sargeant Murray on domesticity and the female mind in 1790 (PDF)
• Watch a brief overview of republican motherhood from historian Carol Berkin
• “Rethinking Republican Motherhood,” a scholarly article by Margaret Nash (PDF)

19th Century

• Historian Marie Jenkins Schwartz, author of Birthing a Slave, on survival strategies of slave families
• Mary Lyon, pioneer of women’s education
• “Black Women, Mothering, and Protest in 19th Century American Society,” a scholarly article on the complex nature of black motherhood (PDF)
• “A Woman’s Work is Never Done“: an online exhibition from the American Antiquarian Society
• 19th Century advice literature for mothers

20th Century & Beyond

• Historian Rebecca Jo Plant on the politics of Mother’s Day
• Historian Rob MacDougall recounts the twisted tale of Mother’s Day’s origins
• A collection of columns by parenthood maven Ann Hulbert
• Review article chronicling the long history of parenting expertise
• Mothering becomes mothering2.0 at MotheringDotCommunity
• A hilarious collection of motherly correspondence
• A wealth of multimedia materials on the “modern homemaker” from the CBC archives