THE PERFECT MOTHER: MOTHERS AND PHYSICIANS, 1850-2000

University Of Wisconsin Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

Description: The proposed project, a book-length history of "scientific motherhood" from 1850 to the present, will analyze the ideological conflation of "good mothering" and "scientific mothering" and the dynamics of the "physician/mother dyad" through which it was effectuated. Dr. Apple recognizes that the concept of "scientific motherhood" was not unchanging; yet to whatever extent it did evolve, one central contradiction of the medical management of child rearing persisted throughout: it placed mothers in a position of great responsibility but little authority. That conundrum is to be the object of this study.