Vida e esperança: o trabalho feminino na criação de bebês no Recife (1789 - 1831)

Abstract

This research investigates the importance of the work of free captive women, single or married, while rearing babies in Recife, between 1789 and 1831. The geografic aspect of this commerce and the criteria to choose wet-nurses are points approached in this study, based, as a source, on Diario de Pernambuco newspaper. These black, mulattas, pardas and white women of different occupations, abilities, experiences and trajectories faced, in their daily labour, the very discrimination of a misogynistic society such as the one at that time, which despised profoundly women in general, mainly those who were dark skinned. Nevertheless, on the streets and in the houses of Recife, they were the ones who fed with life and hope, laughter and pain, work and sweat, the city’s invisible commerce of human milk while bringing up rich family children as well as those abandoned ones.