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Hush Little Baby
GAL VENTURA
Hush Little Baby The Invention of Infant Sleep in Modern France
McGILL-QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY PRESS MONTREAL & KINGSTON • LONDON • CHICAGO
© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2023 ISBN 978-0-2280-1729-5 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-2280-1838-4 (ePDF) Legal deposit third quarter 2023 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% postconsumer recycled), processed chlorine free This book has been published with the support of the Israel Science Foundation (grant no. 1428/16). Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: Hush little baby : the invention of infant sleep in modern France / Gal Ventura. Names: Ventura, Gal, author. Description: Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20230143180 | Canadiana (ebook) 2023014327X | ISBN 9780228017295 (cloth) | ISBN 9780228018384 (ePDF) Subjects: LCSH: Infants—Sleep—France—History—19th century. | LCSH: Sleeping customs—France—History—19th century. | LCSH: Motherhood—France—History— 19th century. | LCSH: Infants—Care—France—History—19th century. | LCSH: Infants’ supplies industry—France—History—19th century. Classification: LCC GT3000.4.F73 V46 2023 | DDC 649/.122094409034—dc23
CO N T E N T S
Acknowledgments vii Introduction: Sleeping Like a Baby? 3
Part One : Physicians 1 Sleep and the Laws of Nature: Liberty and Disarray 27 2 Sleep and the Laws of Habit: Regulation and Control 59
Part Two : Mothers 3 The Institution of Motherhood: Vigilance and Bliss 83 4 Ambivalent Mothering: Tediousness and Depression 119
Part Three : Entrepreneurs 5 The Commodification of Sleep: Space, Clothing, and Toys 149 6 The Cradle of Life: Hygiene and Social Standing 177 Afterword Sleepless Babies Epidemic: Contemporary Trends and Tactics 217 Notes 235 Bibliography 279 Index 325
AC K N O W L E D G M E N T S
According to a German proverb, “Rent and taxes never sleep.” The same can be said of art historians who investigate sleep, only to experience insomnia while trying to convince themselves that life is something that happens when you cannot go to sleep. Thankfully, my wakefulness was shared with several friends and colleagues, to whom I extend my heartfelt gratitude. To Professor Moshe Sluhovsky, who welcomed me to the Hebrew University and has been my mentor and friend for the past eight years, persistently reading all the manuscript’s versions and offering insightful observations, astute commentaries, and, most importantly, moral support. To Professor Vanessa R. Schwartz, who read several versions of this manuscript, repeatedly giving me shrewd advice and valuable suggestions, combining her high academic standards, extreme generosity, indefatigable friendship, and exceptional optimism and humour. To Dr Guy Tal, one of my oldest friends, who regularly read all my essays with sharp criticism amalgamated with extreme generosity and provided insightful comments upon reading earlier versions of this manuscript, as did Professor Richard Cohen, whose encouragement and support motivated me along the way. My profound gratitude is also extended to Kyla Madden, senior editor at McGill-Queen’s University Press, who expressed her interest in this book from the first drafts. In revising, I have relied on several anonymous scholars who read my manuscript, for whom I have great respect, as well as the Israel Science Foundation, for funding this book’s publication. I am particularly pleased to thank my family members, whose support, patience, and affection – tested on numerous occasions during the last three years – are most worthy of recognition. To my beloved and enduring spouse, Lior, and my two siblings, Orit – for her persistent encouragement – and Yonatan – for the wit that enlivened
the process. My deepest gratitude is also extended to my children. To my son, Alon, who inspired the writing of this book, as he never slept until the age of three, and since the age of twelve cannot be woken up. And, finally, to my beloved daughter, Shir, whose expertise in French history and culture provided insightful ideas that helped shape the manuscript from the very first drafts. I could not have wished for a more supportive and wonderful family.
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Hush Little Baby
Fig. 0.1. Berthe Morisot, The Cradle (Le Berceau), 1872, oil on canvas, 56 × 46 cm. Paris, Musée d’Orsay. Photograph © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Michel Urtado.
INTRODUC TION
Sleeping Like a Baby? People who say they sleep like babies usually don’t have one.1 —Dr Leo J. Burke
As a nineteenth-century French art historian, I was continuously intrigued by the vast number of paintings, prints, and lithographs portraying mothers watching their sleeping babies. Since this book’s conception coincided with the birth of my youngest son – who believed that sleeping was a waste of his precious time – their alleged peacefulness fascinated me. One of the most renowned images of this genre, The Cradle, painted in 1872 by Berthe Morisot, depicts a young mother leaning silently over an elevated cradle, attentively watching her sleeping baby (fig. 0.1). The affinity between the mother’s raised left hand, elevated to support her chin and accentuated by the diagonal white drape, and the baby’s similar posture, partially veiled by the transparent curtain, emphasizes the special attachment between the two. Even though the sleeping baby cannot reciprocate the maternal gaze, the mother and child convey a sense of oneness and collaboration, as if jointly generating the infant’s sleep through a harmonious partnership. Although seemingly trivial, pictorial representations of sleeping babies accompanied by a female caregiver gained popularity in French art in the second half of the nineteenth century. Indisputably, visual interest in sleeping babies was by no means new or unfamiliar to French artists, as exemplified by paintings and sculptures of the sleeping Cupid; portrayals of the sleeping Jesus from late-medieval art onward; portraits of eminent sleeping babies from the monarchy or the empire, or Dutch genre paintings, portraying mothers seated next to a cradle.
Fig. 0.2. Benvenuto Tisi Garofalo, Baby Jesus Sleeping, ca. 1550, oil on canvas, 53 × 40 cm. Paris, Musée du Louvre. Photograph © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre) / Michel Urtado.
Fig. 0.3. Honoré Daumier, Woman Carrying a Child in a Cradle (Femme portant un enfant dans un berceau), ca. 1868–70, black pencil and grey ink, 18.9 × 27.3 cm. Paris, Musée d’Orsay. Photograph © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Gérard Blot.
Yet, despite undeniable iconographic and stylistic influences from the past, the diversity of such depictions, produced by leading French academic, juste milieu,2 naturalist, realist, impressionist, and avant-garde artists and printmakers representing all artistic movements and styles, is characterized by several unique attributes. Unlike representations of Eros;3 portraits of Napoleon’s son lying alone outdoors;4 or of Jesus sleeping serenely under his mother’s watchful eye (see, for example, fig. 0.2), the majority of nineteenth-century French representations focus on ordinary babies, whose anonymity is deliberate. Even if the models may be identified, they represent, I argue, regular people engaged in everyday activities. Hence, though Morisot based the figures on her sister Edma Pontillon, who had recently given birth to her second child, Blanche,5 The Cradle is not a portrait, but rather a genre painting. Whereas the emphasis on Blanche’s face differs significantly from comparable Dutch genre scenes that portray cradles to emphasize the tranquility of the adequately managed household,6 Blanche is not the central character of The Cradle. In fact, unlike Eros, the Imperial heir, or Christ, Blanche does not represent a sleeping baby – whether individual or common – but rather a baby’s sleep. Even though the cradle’s prominence draws attention to Blanche’s calm face, allegedly the central point of the composition, it actually promotes the significance of infants’ sleep. Accordingly, I suggest, The Cradle’s main protagonist is not the sleeping baby but rather the actual corporeal activity of sleeping and the female agent who enables it. Functioning as an attribute of modern motherhood, the baby’s tranquility constitutes a maternal achievement, a visual testimony to the caregiver’s capabilities. Their isolation indoors highlights the unification of the mother and her baby, conveying a sense of “homeliness,” privacy, and domesticity associated with the act of sleeping. The most significant object in the room, emphasized by the painting’s title – The Cradle – further accentuates these two axes. Albeit designed for the primary user – the baby – it essentially functions as a “spatial infantile enclave,” to borrow Mary Douglas’s term, describing “a group encapsulated within a wider society.”7 Lacking a space of their own, babies spend most of their time in the only place designated especially for them – the cradle – under the supervision of their caregivers. In fact, although it is designed for a baby, its height and dimensions also reflect the agency of the secondary user – the omnipotent female :5:
INTRODUCTION
caregiver – stressing her active role in inducing and maintaining the infant’s sleep. The significance of the female “sleep agent” is similarly pronounced in a drawing made circa 1868–70 by Honoré Daumier, depicting a woman gently holding a sleeping baby (fig. 0.3). The delicate ink brushstrokes echo the woman’s feline steps, as she cautiously walks toward the cradle, trying to maintain the baby’s elusive sleep, attesting to its importance. The room’s dimness, along with the quiet implied by the woman’s posture, mirrors the senses that are extinguished during sleep, namely light and sound. Reflecting the strategies used by the caregiver, those temporal and sensorial characteristics further accentuate her responsibility to induce and maintain the baby’s sleep. A similar description appears in Doctor Pascal (Le Docteur Pascal), the final novel of the Rougon-Macquart series by naturalist author Émile Zola, published in 1893: “Clotilde rose softly and laid him in the cradle, which stood beside the table. She remained leaning over him for an instant to assure herself that he was asleep; then she let down the curtain in the already darkened room. Then she busied herself with supple and noiseless movements, walking with so light a step that she scarcely touched the floor.”8 Like Morisot and Daumier, Zola, too, signified the baby’s sleep through the mother’s watchfulness. Yet, I argue, there is no connection, biological, linguistic, logical, or otherwise, between the signifier “baby’s sleep” and the maternal gaze. This link is an ideological product of cultural, political, economic, and medical structuring, which have become so familiar that they obliterate all other possible meanings and manners of conduct. Despite the continuous debates among psychologists, neurologists, physicians, and sociologists over the reasons for the significance of sleep,9 it is generally agreed that adequate sleep directly affects a child’s cognitive, behavioural, and emotional abilities, which may be impaired by sleep deprivation.10 In the first months of life, the distinction between waking and sleeping is inconclusive, and infants fall asleep and wake up according to their changing physical needs, with no predefined, adjusted schedule. These irregular patterns require their caregivers to show flexibility and patience, often demanding that they alter their own life patterns following the newborn’s needs. :6:
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This familiar state of affairs, which disrupts domestic life, was described in the short story “Let Me Sleep,” published in 1888 by Russian author Anton Chekhov. Varka, a thirteen-year-old childminder, sits all night long by the cradle, trying desperately not to fall asleep, for she knows she’d be severely punished by her employers. As the sleepless night in the company of a screaming baby draws on and on, the girl, eyes half-open, almost delirious, recognizes the true root of evil in her wretched life: the screaming infant. Greatly relieved at finding a solution, she decides to “kill the baby and then sleep, sleep, sleep.” Indeed, “Laughing and winking and shaking her fingers at the green patch, Varka steals up to the cradle and bends over the baby. When she has strangled him, she quickly lies down on the floor, laughs with delight that she can sleep, and in a minute is sleeping as sound as the dead.”11 While Chekhov’s story does not reflect everyday occurrences, it does reveal the vital link between babies’ wakefulness and adults’ insomnia. Although, according to Chekhov, both can jeopardize other human beings’ welfare, the first inevitably affects the sleeping patterns of the rest of the household. In the eyes of contemporary twenty-first-century spectators, allegedly living amid “a sleep-sick society”12 characterized by an “epidemic of sleep problems,”13 the significance of infants’ sleep seems evident, almost self-explanatory. Moreover, the centrality of the caregiver in maintaining this basic physiological need is taken for granted in today’s Western middle-class societies, as can be inferred from the vast number of books designed to help exhausted parents maintain their children’s sleep. Evidently, the copious number of sleeping guides sold to weary parents reflects the message in Dr Gina Ford’s statement: “We have a serious problem with our children’s excessive night-time waking.”14 Albeit different – sometimes even contradictory – in their approach to infantile insomnia, all of these contemporary sleeping guides offer tips, steps, and instructions designed to help parents support their children’s sleep, as indicated by Dr Richard Ferber’s manual titled Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems.15 The same approach is taken by Dr Harvey Karp, who in his bestseller, The Happiest Baby Guide to Great Sleep, which has sold more than a million copies since its publication in 2002, offers advice regarding “Helping Your Baby Fall Asleep” (chapter 3); “Helping Your Infant Get to Sleep” (chapter 7); and “Helping Your :7:
INTRODUCTION
Infant Stay Asleep” (chapter 8).16 On the back cover of The Sleep Lady’s Good Night, Sleep Tight, published in numerous editions since 2004, Dr David Kessler, dean of the UCSF School of Medicine in California, states that “this book will teach parents to gently start to shape a baby’s sleep in infancy, sparing them the months or even years of sleepdeprivation that so many families endure.”17 Manifestly, child-rearing manuals, contemporary baby sleep clinics, and professional sleep consultants are all for the use of parents. Furthermore, as is well known, when a child is experiencing sleep deprivation, it affects the sleep of all household members. Yet, while we envisage Morisot’s two protagonists – infants’ sleep and the adult agent in charge of its management – we should ask ourselves, when did sleep become a parental responsibility, and why do we feel guilty if our babies fail to achieve it? Unlike activities that necessitate parental help, such as feeding, bathing, dressing, or changing diapers, sleep is, in fact, self-induced, as implied by the lack of an English word for “putting someone to sleep.” The French word endormir is defined in the Larousse dictionary as “putting someone to sleep, make them start to sleep: rocking puts babies to sleep.” The supplementary definitions further stress the mandatory interference of other people in this unique, self-imposed action: “Plunge someone into an artificial sleep through anesthesia, hypnosis, etc. … To bore someone deeply to the point of making them want to sleep.”18 In a similar vein, according to the French-English Cambridge Dictionary, endormir means “to send to sleep, put to sleep, to cause (a person or animal) to become unconscious by means of an anesthetic; to anesthetize.”19 Indeed, while several strategies may help a baby fall asleep – namely, providing dim and quiet surroundings, administering nourishment, gently rocking or humming – it cannot be forced upon any being without the use of medications or drugs, which induce sleep by virtue of their soporific properties. Cannot we simply assume that a tired baby will fall asleep on its own? When did parents become sleeping agents who are expected to train, encourage, assist, and manage their babies’ sleep? Has it always been a parental duty, or did children confront sleep and sleeplessness by themselves before the modern era? Does this “sleeping mania”
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characterize only modern babies born in Western industrialized societies? Is Morisot’s painting a mere reflection of her personal family life? Does it portray specific cultural norms of behaviour that developed during the last decades of the nineteenth century? Why did leading academic and avant-garde artists, among them Daumier, Jean-François Millet, Alfred Stevens, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Eugene Carrière, and Maurice Denis, repeatedly portray infants’ sleep? What historical, social, cultural, and medical dispositions made this quotidian issue a subject of such interest in France during the last decades of the nineteenth century? How did art, visual culture, and commercial artifacts contribute to the promotion of a new notion regarding this ordinary matter? To answer these questions, this book endeavours to explore the multiplicity of images of sleeping babies produced in France throughout the “Long Nineteenth Century,” which began with the siècle des Lumières, “the Age of Enlightenment,” and culminated with the outbreak of the First World War. Infants’ sleep gained recognition, both in art and in medical writings, in the last decades of the eighteenth century, when scientific discourse began to acknowledge the uniqueness of childhood.20 Due to the amalgamation of mass production, mass consumerism, the rise of the middle-class patriarchal family, and the separation between the private and the public sphere, interest in this natural function flourished in the 1840s, reaching its peak in the last decades of the century. In addition to a proliferation of paintings that manifested – but also fashioned – this subject, babies’ sleep became equally popular in children’s books, prints, and lithographs, in posters and advertisements publicizing sleeping garments and bedding, as well as in toys, dolls, and innovative cradles and cribs, all intended to facilitate babies’ sleep. As I will show, the growing consumerism of sleep coincided with medical writings that stressed maternal responsibility for babies’ sleeping routines, thus affecting daily habits, customs, and norms. Such standards, epitomized by Morisot’s painting, led to contemporary outlooks regarding infants’ sleep, which, like other physical activities, is based on varying social, cultural, economic, and religious ideologies. As such, the rising popularity of this subject should not be taken for granted, but instead should be studied and explained.
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INTRODUCTION
The Modernization of Sleep In the twentieth century, sleep, in general, and infants’ sleep in particular, was commonly ignored by historians and sociologists, despite the growing interest in the last decades in the biological, physiological, psychological, and medical aspects of sleep research. Considered a non-social experience characterized by a lack of individual intention, sleep was regarded as a biological issue, an asocial, non-social, or even anti-social behaviour, which did not significantly contribute to societal understanding.21 Yet, sleep has a dense history, as does anything presumed to be natural, and it cannot be analyzed in isolation from its social, cultural, and historical underpinnings.22 Albeit a physiological necessity, a fundamental element of the body’s organic system,23 its meanings, methods, motives, and management vary culturally, socially, and historically.24 The sociologist Simon Williams argues that sleep is, in fact, a complex practice that not only displays a high degree of socio-cultural variability but is a socially institutionalized convention, crucial to society and the well-being of its members. Accordingly, the study of sleep may operate on three primary interrelated levels. The first, individual level, concerns the phenomenological issues related to the dormant, dreaming, or drowsy body, including falling asleep or being asleep. The second, societal level, explores the meanings, methods, motives, and management of sleep, while conferring upon it roles, rituals, gender, social status, and a life course. The third, institutional level of analysis, brings into focus broader sociological issues associated with the social patterning, scheduling, specialization, and organization of sleep, thus relating to questions of surveillance and medicalization.25 Though some researchers investigate the first level, emphasizing the phenomenological exploration of infants’ falling asleep and being asleep,26 visual images of children, which are neither produced nor controlled by them, but imposed upon them by others, typically reflect the social and cultural patterning of infants’ sleep. Whereas babies may determine how much they sleep, in modern Western societies, they cannot control when, where, and with whom they do so. Likewise, their beds, bedding, clothing, and the temporal and sensory aspects of their sleep are established and controlled by adult “sleep agents.” Since babies : 10 :
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generally spend approximately two-thirds of their lives sleeping, it is vital to consider the changing meanings, methods, and management of their sleep. As their sleep involves other members of the household, it also ought to be discussed on a historical level, while distinguishing between the biological and individual notions of “being asleep” and the domestic and communal implications of what sociologist Brian Taylor named “doing sleeping.” The latter represents the social notion of sleep, namely, its techniques, rituals, and regulations, as well as its societal and institutional aspects, which comprised, during the modern era, supervision and medicalization.27 The medicalization of childhood – a process by which non-medical problems become defined and treated as medical problems, usually in terms of illness and disorders28 – was, undeniably, part of a more significant modern French phenomenon. Michel Foucault considered the process of indefinite medicalization to be one of the main features of modern society, while stressing the role of doctors in deciding what was normal and what was pathological.29 Two interlinked developments affected the genesis of modern medicine in post-revolutionary France: the emancipation of medicine from the church and the steady reinforcement of its ties to the state, which took over responsibility for training physicians, midwives, and pharmacists, producing a monopoly over legitimate health practices. 30 Yet, although medical child-care manuals grew in popularity in the West from the mid-eighteenth century onward, when Western society gradually became more child-oriented, babies’ sleep was perceived as a marginalized, natural phenomenon, not worthy of elaborate discussion. In contrast to the extensive medical debate over breastfeeding,31 or the discourse over bathing, which has endured from antiquity to the present,32 sleep gained substantial acclaim only in the second half of the nineteenth century, when sections of virtually all the major child-rearing manuals, as well as of health columns in women’s magazines, were devoted to this matter, perceiving infants’ sleep as a vital part of children’s physical and moral education.33 The changing attitude toward sleep in modernized societies is discussed by historian Roger Ekirch, who challenges contemporary assumptions that adults should sleep eight consecutive hours each night. Based on copious textual evidence, including diaries, court records, : 11 :
INTRODUCTION
medical books, and literature, he claims that until the seventeenth century human beings utilized segmented sleep: after sleeping four hours (the “first sleep”), they would wake up, resume numerous activities – in and out of bed – and then go back to sleep for a second four-hour sleep cycle. This custom was gradually abandoned by the urban upper classes in Europe in the eighteenth century, when the modern sensitivity to efficiency resulted in the consolidation of sleep. This “nocturnal revolution” owed much to the spread of scientific rationalism, technological innovations, artificial lighting, industrialization, and factory work, which turned night into day. The rise of consumerism, which appealed to the growing middle class, made nighttime more profitable, as well-lit shops and coffee houses that popularized caffeinated drinks remained open at night to meet the increasing demand, turning the hours of darkness into a legitimate time for activity. As a result, the idea of segmented sleep disappeared from social consciousness, and sleep came to be considered private, sequential nighttime activity.34 While these new customs enhanced the importance of a good night’s sleep, they also generated a growing awareness of children’s sleeping “disorders,” and parents were expected to acculturate their children by asserting their authority and power over their sleeping habits. Even though such considerations affected other Western, industrialized countries, like England, Germany, Italy, and the United States, the French interest in this common practice was unparalleled. While a few English, German, and Italian pediatricians cited in chapter 1 mentioned infants’ sleep in the late-eighteenth century, their limited remarks on this matter were mainly related to acute diseases.35 This tendency was sustained until the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Apart from a few English pediatricians who addressed children’s sleep from the 1850s onward,36 the majority of their overseas colleagues ignored this common practice until the 1890s, when it gradually gained medical interest in Germany and America.37 It can be presumed that French interest in children’s sleep originated in the growing concern for the declining fertility rates of their mothers, which differed markedly from that of their European neighbours.38 The particular sense of urgency that underlined motherhood was based on a combination of the eighteenth-century concern regarding the regeneration of society through education; the fear of depopulation : 12 :
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from a high infant-mortality rate; and the role of women in a more democratic, post-revolutionary society.39 As babies’ insomnia jeopardized the well-being of their mothers, French pediatricians, who were the principal innovators in the study and practice of hygiene, repeatedly addressed sleep and sleeplessness from the 1840s onward, offering young mothers ample advice and guidance on that matter. Ahead of their time, their advice helped shape an essentially state-based approach to the implementation of preventive medicine and children’s health programs that served as the model for all of Europe, England, and America.40 According to art historian Petra Ten-Doesschate Chu, the growing scientific attentiveness to sleep influenced artists, who replaced models pretending to be sleeping with real sleepers, while investigating the changes going through their immobile bodies, including muscle relaxation and facial expressions or a lack thereof.41 Given the novel medical, societal, and personal interest in children’s sleep, it is not surprising that infants’ sleep was illustrated in the second half of the nineteenth century in hundreds of paintings and drawings, which inundated the art market. Nonetheless, aside from a limited amount of research, mainly dedicated to sleeping adolescents and adults,42 babies’ sleep – vastly represented in French visual culture and medical writings in the second half of the nineteenth century – was generally overlooked by historians. While several artworks – like The Cradle – received some scholarly attention, representations of sleeping babies were not discussed as a group. Their sleep was seen as no more than natural physical behaviour, even though, as I argue, this activity, and how it was considered, coped with, and managed, irrefutably constitutes a historical and cultural phenomenon. Taking this into account, the premise of this book is that the social, cultural, and medical changes around this issue, manifested in written, visual, and material data produced in the second half of the nineteenth century, represent the very hallmark of modernity. While indicating progressive and all-encompassing medical knowledge, the interest in sleep reflected the growing influence of the hygienic movement that turned “natural” bodily functions into “conditions” that had to be managed and controlled. In most of the current research, the term “modernity” refers to the epistemological shift and the changes that took place in the social : 13 :
INTRODUCTION
and private spheres during the second half of the nineteenth century. A result of broader political and economic processes, those changes included the proclamation of the Second Empire in 1852, Haussmann’s renovation of Paris, the establishment of the bourgeois classes and their moral codes, the emergence of new social “types,” and the rise of new professions and fashions. Meanwhile, the Industrial Revolution gained momentum, leading to the establishment of factories and mass production, as well as to urbanization and the spurred development of new means of transportation. This yielded waves of migration from the countryside to the city, bringing with them significant economic and social changes and laying the groundwork for the modern metropolis. During the Third Republic, France transitioned from an empire to a republic based on a discourse of democracy, liberalism, and nationalism, inspired by the values of the French Revolution. It also witnessed a transition from inherent inequality between the rich and the poor and between men and women to a struggle for greater equality, an organized working class, and the rise of feminism. In the last decades of the century, modernity was manifested through the expanding realm of consumerism and leisure, the rise of subjectivity and social marginality, the growing struggle for women’s education and civil rights, and the separation of church and state. All these changes were acknowledged by contemporary artists – painters, poets, and writers alike – who gave visual and textual manifestation to modern life and modernity.43 Yet, the discourse of modernité was self-contradictory as, in addition to the new, the diverse, the fluid, and the ever-changing, manifestly acclaimed by Charles Baudelaire,44 it also underlined the organized, the normative, and the standardized.45 This amalgamation was expressed, amongst others ways, in the process of “nocturnalization,” manifested by Haussmann’s street-light venture, which aimed to popularize nocturnal entertainment by expanding the legitimate social and symbolic uses of the night.46 However, while turning the night into a period of prodigious activity, the increased use of artificial light also resulted in the rise of a “lighting of order,” giving the ruling authorities greater ability to bring public space under control at nighttime. The street-lights project strove to tame the unproductive time of illegitimate pleasures and aggression that destabilized societal norms.47 : 14 :
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Accordingly, the use of artificial lighting in the home, which became a centre for formal family socializing, increased the need for the regulation and control of sleeping patterns. Whereas, before the modern era, the absence of light reduced nighttime stimulation and facilitated sleep, the growing use of artificial lighting – especially significant for city dwellers – contributed to the emergence of sleep as a problem.48 As the need for order was imperative in an industrialized and capitalist society governed by a world of work, progress, and productivity, unruly sleep patterns were marginalized, paving the way for fixed sleeping routines aimed at achieving regularity and orderliness.49 Consequently, whereas modernity was manifested through countless artworks portraying men and women who spent their nights in Parisian cabarets, numerous others depicted individuals who remained in their beds, complying with the modern notion of a single, compressed period of nightly slumber, for adults and children alike.50
Genre Paintings, History, and Cultural Memory To decipher the changing socio-historical, cultural, and medical attitudes toward infants’ sleep, Hush Little Baby: The Invention of Infant Sleep in Modern France is based on diverse primary visual, material, and textual sources, which, combined, transmit individual and collective ideas, narratives, knowledge, and emotions by means of everyday occurrences. In addition to state legislation, theoretical and philosophical writings, children’s literature, art criticism, industrial exhibitions, lists of patents, shop catalogues, child-rearing manuals, and advice columns composed by French physicians and midwives, this book is chiefly concerned with visual and material manifestations. While considering the difference in their cultural status, modes of production, materiality, and audiences, this book encompasses “high” art, printed lithographs, commercial advertisements, fashion plates, and newspaper illustrations produced by dozens of contemporary artists. Based on such variety, I wish to restore the meaning of these works – meaning that would have been understood either explicitly or implicitly by contemporary audiences – while indicating the deep entanglement of medical and scientific knowledge-making with the concept of modernity. : 15 :
INTRODUCTION
Even though various images and medical illustrations – much like medical-advice columns – offer a record of the ideal rather than the actual lived experience, countless others mirror diverse, even contradictory, positions toward sleep, reflecting a counter-discourse to the doctors’ prevalent point of view. Given their proliferation and variety, images of sleeping babies function as “pieces of history,”51 allowing an investigation of the history of sleep through art, rather than the history of art. Since images represent the life of a period and its needs, as argued by cultural art historian Aby Warburg, scholars of visual culture must reconstruct the connection between artistic representations and the social experiences, tastes, and mentality of a specific society.52 Accordingly, by juxtaposing texts, images, and objects, I have sought to analyze a cultural discourse that not only reflected new social and medical norms but also generated the deeply rooted conception of the caregivers’ responsibility and control over babies’ sleep. Although we might relate visual representations of sleeping babies to their creators’ personal relations and psychological makeup – evident in The Cradle, based on Morisot’s family members – I will not concentrate on the “unconscious” of these artists. Instead, following Hubert Damisch, I wish to explore the “unconscious” created by them, “the emphasis being less on the possessive relation than on the agent,”53 thus examining the psycho-historical component of such images as a mirror of the general mindset of society in the given period. This premise was already mentioned by Baudelaire, who claimed that artists’ unconscious is governed by “hereditary symbols” (“signes héréditaires”) that accumulated through the generations.54 By the same token, his contemporary, the French art critic Jules-Antoine Castagnary, argued in 1863 that painting “is part of social consciousness, a fragment of the mirror in which the generations each look at themselves.”55 Maurice Halbwachs’s sociological theory of memory reveals a varying approach. By shifting collective knowledge out of a biological framework and into a cultural one, he claimed that “the memory of the group realizes and manifests itself in individual memories.”56 As individual memories are socially mediated and relate to a group, collective memory alludes to society’s innate ability to implement or intertwine impersonal historical events with our personal memories. Like Warburg, who dedicated his large-scale project Mnemosyne to : 16 :
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the reconstruction of the pictorial memory of western civilization,57 Halbwachs asserted that group-based memories are designed, among other mechanisms, by visual art.58 Based on such postulations, art historian Keith Moxey maintains that images “return us to times and places that are impossible to revisit,” serving “as monuments of collective memory, as indices of cultural value, and as foci for the observation of ritual.”59 Nonetheless, he argues that, rather than simply constructing accurate simulacra of visual experiences, images have the power to produce new arrangements and perceptions of the world by forming “a social collective that has a parallel existence to the social life of their human hosts, and to the world of objects that they represent.”60 As aesthetic capsules of information that conjointly reflect society and fashion it, images serve as both sources and records for the writing of history, enriching historical research by covering both presentations of history and reflections on history.61 The tension between the reliability or inaccessibility of the visualized past comes to the fore when dealing with naturalistic genre paintings, which became la peinture à la mode in mid-nineteenth-century France.62 After several decades of withdrawal in favour of history painting,63 “anecdotal subjects, small subjects,” portraying “what we have seen in life,”64 prevailed in art exhibitions and circulated among a broad audience through printed reproductions. Produced by dozens of naturalist and juste milieu artists, who were well-known in their period but overshadowed by the scholarly focus on the avant-garde, genre paintings consistently challenged the academic demand for elevated truths, idealization, beauty, and ethics.65 Acknowledged by critics as painters of “modern life”66 or “interpreters of the bourgeoisie,”67 genre painters portrayed a “familiar, anecdotal, intimate art addressing itself to individuals,” to the great dismay of the conservative art critic and historian Charles Blanc.68 Following Baudelaire’s call for contemporaneity in art, from the 1860s onward, progressive art critics insisted upon the relativity of beauty and the necessity for turning to all aspects of the visual world. “The object of painting,” declared Castagnary in this respect, “is to express, according to the nature of the means at its disposal, the society which produced it.”69 Similar statements were made by the painters themselves. In a book titled Impressions on Painting, published in 1886, : 17 :
INTRODUCTION
Alfred Stevens, one of the leading genre painters of the period, declared that “One must be of your own time, be influenced by the sun and the country where you live […] paint what he sees.” “Painters recounting their time,” he concluded, “become historians.”70 Unlike historical, mythological, or biblical “pictures to see,” produced by academic conservative artists, juste milieu “pictures to sell” constituted the majority at every Salon exhibition.71 By combining “all the requirements of modern art with commercial necessities,” prints and photographic reproductions of modern genre paintings were regularly exhibited in Goupil & Cie’s commercial galleries, attracting local and foreign clients alike.72 Contemporary French critics attributed their popularity to their present-day subject matter, small dimensions, and low prices. “Genre painting is much more widespread today than history painting because it is within reach and in the taste of everyone,” they determined. “It sells better [… since it] suits our customs, our purses, and the size of our apartments.”73 By documenting what Baudelaire termed “trivial life,”74 such images portrayed commingled beliefs, practices, passions, and conceptions, generating “an intimate history of common people.”75 “It is quite simply French life, in its variety and diversity,” wrote the critic Charles Rigot after visiting the Salon in 1876. “Familiar, picturesque, cheerful, amusing, minor scenes; those little incidents which feature individual traits and exalt all feelings … a small corner of contemporary life.” As he believed that “Art, like literature, is everywhere the expression of society,” he urged painters to compose genre scenes, which he regarded as “truly French art.”76 From the 1870s, genre painting was repeatedly praised for its “French spirit” and patriotic features,77 “for in no other kind can our elegance and temperate qualities show themselves better.”78 In this vein, Rigot maintained in 1887 that in France, “the country of laughter and gaiety,” genre painting “is at home more than anywhere else. Under the Second Empire, in particular genre painting … was almost alone in favour of the public … it is in everyday life that our painters of the modern genre … seek their subject matters … They are preoccupied with simple, frank images, taken on the spot from ordinary life, whether in the city or in the countryside and across all classes of society.”79
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Similar assertions were made by the English artist and art critic Philip Gilbert Hamerton in 1895. In a book dealing with French painting, published in America, he maintained that genre painters provide “illustration of the life of humanity.” “In a certain sense, the painters of genre, by their strict attention to truth in accessories, have thrown a light upon the life of former ages and have done more to make us familiar with them than the more pretentious peintres d’histoire.”80 Though avant-garde painters differed significantly from their juste milieu contemporaries due to their non-idealistic style and hasty brushstrokes, Impressionists and Post-Impressionist, too, profited from the collapse of the restrictive old categories of genre and the ensuing triumph of genre painting. Rather than representing the death of history painting, their artworks emphasized its dissolution into genre painting.81 Wishing to present the modern sentiment, artists like Morisot, Monet, and Degas conveyed cultural ideologies through everyday domestic events, as evident in The Cradle, portraying one of the most commercially esteemed genre topics – mothers and children. “The intimate scenes between mother and child meet at every step,” wrote Charles Gueullette after visiting the Salon of 1863. “Here the First Smile, there The Luncheon, further on Order and Disorder, The Baby, The Two Mothers, etc.; in almost all a true sentiment, nice details.”82 The sanctification of motherhood, represented in numerous paintings, prints, and photographic reproductions – academic and avant-garde alike – both mirrored and strengthened the consolidation of the bourgeois family, which drew clear distinctions between male and female roles, emphasizing the obligations of mothers toward their children. This maternal love and devotion was manifested in countless paintings and prints from the mid-nineteenth century portraying mothers watching their sleeping babies. Such images encapsulated both a microcosm and a macrocosm: a private, individual activity, which also constitutes a significant juncture in the representation of social, political, medical, and economic changes over the century. The power of such depictions, evident both in their tackling of social and medical issues and their ability to shape public consciousness, lies precisely in the perception of sleep as an elemental, habitual activity. On the one hand, this everyday imagery certainly drew viewers who recognized
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INTRODUCTION
elements from their own lives or who aspired to attain comparable desirable results. On the other hand, the subject’s charm blurred the works’ medical aspects, thus enabling artists to transmit socio-political constructs more subtly. On that premise, this book analyzes images of infants’ sleep by considering the four major components of a visual artifact: the maker, the object, the spectators, and the socio-historical environment. The last component, which entails historical and sociological data concerning economics, medicine, religion, gender relations, political culture, consumerism, and industrialization, is designed to decipher why a visual artifact was produced in a particular manner at a precise historical time. To explain the wide-ranging phenomenon of infants’ sleep, I sought conjoint social and cultural explanations while expanding the research beyond the limits of the image and its immediate surroundings, thus seeking to capture additional points of view other than the doctors’, including the medicalization of knowledge, the undermining of maternal expertise, the history of maternal watchfulness, and the capitalist production of clothes and devices that occasionally reinforced the doctors and at other times undermined their advice. With this end in view, the interpretation of the images is based on various theories, chosen according to the images’ own agency, including theories of design and consumerism, feminist critique, and psychoanalysis. By addressing visual and material culture, gender history, childhood history, art history, history of medicine, and consumption history, this book attests to the importance of infants’ sleep in one of the most eventful periods in modern French history, which has paved the way for contemporary Western outlooks regarding sleep.
Book Outline To analyze the multi-faceted history of children’s sleep, Hush Little Baby: The Invention of Infant Sleep in Modern France is divided into six chapters dedicated to the different agents involved in babies’ sleep: doctors, mothers, and entrepreneurs, who generated a variety of babies’ products designed to facilitate their sleep. Even though it can be presumed that fathers were involved in child care, they rarely appear in sleeping scenes, much like hired nurses, who were often the only ones : 20 :
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responsible for dealing with nighttime awakenings among families from the middle and upper classes.83 Socio-economic differences, too, hardly affected the portrayals of children’s sleep, which repeatedly involved three central populations, regardless of the sleeping baby’s status: pediatricians – who prescribed sleeping norms; mothers – who were in charge of enforcing them; and babies – who were expected, through commercialization, to heed to the new rules of hygiene. Pediatricians, who replaced the père de famille, and shaped the world of infants’ sleep, are the focus of the first two chapters. The opening chapter is dedicated to emerging medical and artistic awareness of infants’ sleep in the eighteenth century. Through a detailed analysis of early child-care manuals and contemporary artworks, made, among others, by Jean-Baptiste Greuze and François Boucher, I argue that, until the early decades of the nineteenth century, physicians perceived babies’ sleep as a natural phenomenon that should hardly be governed, as babies sleep per their physical needs. Alarmed by the high rate of child mortality,84 contemporary physicians marginalized their debates over infants’ sleep in favour of extended deliberations over life-threatening diseases and malnutrition. Accordingly, although several artists represented infantile sleep, they emphasized its spontaneity and naturalness, taking place outside of the babies’ designated cradles and in keeping with their immediate needs and desires. However, during the second half of the nineteenth century, infants’ sleeplessness, as represented in Daumier’s caricatures, gained significant visual interest due to the changing attitudes toward nature, human sleep, and medical knowledge. Accordingly, chapter 2 is dedicated to works by a vast number of hygienists who took control of babies’ well-being by instructing mothers on new medical views on sleep. In light of the growing control over nature brought about by the strengthening of the scientific discourse, the medicalization of society, urbanism, industrialization, and a new work ethos, mid-nineteenth century pediatricians believed that sleep should be controlled and governed by the baby’s mother by applying strict rules of behaviour. Encouraged by the physicians’ support, mothers became “sleeping agents” in charge of the domestication of their children’s chaotic sleeping habits. Even though the femininity of the “sleeping agent” is not a necessary biological requirement, it was nevertheless replicated in numerous : 21 :
INTRODUCTION
artworks, linking the maternal gaze to the world of sleep. Chapter 3 analyzes visual images by juste-milieu and naturalist artists, such as Bouguereau and Millet, who illustrated ideal Marian mothers happily watching over their sleeping babies. Even though the division into classes was zealously maintained throughout the century, maternal watchfulness encompassed all classes – peasants, the urban proletariat, and bourgeois mothers alike – thus marginalizing their economic status in favour of their gender. By amalgamating “maternity” and “motherliness,” these images represented the institution of motherhood, enticing art collectors with a reflection of the idea of “professional motherhood” in an era of political and national instability. While many genre painters mirrored the medicalization of sleep, others portrayed mothers watching their babies sleeping amid nature. In light of the “woman question,” which instigated a heated debate with regard to the proper place of women in French society, such ideal Marian mothers appealed to contemporary customers through their semi-religious image, conveying a sense of conservative, unalterable pastorality and social prosperity. During the last decades of the century, however, women’s greater access to education and various forms of employment threatened to overturn traditional gender roles by emphasizing independence from conjugal and maternal obligations. Accordingly, chapter 4 analyzes the tension between the archetypal happy mother and the subjective experience of mothering, manifested by several avant-garde artists, such as Morisot, Degas, and Vincent van Gogh, who portrayed motherhood as a personal, equivocal experience. Based on nineteenth-century medical writings dealing with postpartum depression, this chapter focuses on the potentially stressful psychological implications of the idealized institution of motherhood. Through a detailed comparison between melancholy and severe depression, it reconsiders the institution of wet nursing, offering a potential solution to the sense of maternal tediousness induced by mandatory watchfulness among women from the middle and upper classes. Since maternal ambivalence was fostered by the world of commerce, the child-oriented industry is at the centre of chapter 5, which examines clothing and products that enabled the application of the new strict medical rules and enhanced the temporal, sensorial, physical, and mental aspects of infants’ sleep in an era in which modern : 22 :
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consumerism coincided with the medicalization of childhood. Based on late-nineteenth-century medical literature and commercial catalogues, this chapter investigates sleeping locations, postures, and bedding in comparison with contemporary medical endorsements. Concurrently, it also explores the introduction of fashion into the nursery as an indication of the baby’s gender and social class. As France set the tone for the period’s fashion industry, department stores offered children’s bedding and clothing at every price range for different target markets. In addition to fashion magazines and advertisements, several World’s Fairs held in Paris from 1855 to 1900 served as international public showcases of progress and hygiene, which further expanded the children’s commodity market among all classes of society, enabling mothers to express their unique preferences, albeit occasionally diverging from medical endorsements. Such innovations are also examined in chapter 6, which analyzes the materials, measurements, mobility, structure, and configuration of babies’ beds. Following Bruno Latour’s “material-semiotic,” claiming that objects, too, have agency,85 this chapter examines how cradle and crib designs not only activate their users, influencing their daily interactions, but also encompass socio-economic data by emphasizing the considerable gaps between the wealthy urban bourgeoisie and the lower classes of meagre means. Notwithstanding, despite the growing tendency for hyper-medicalization, several artists challenged medical orders by portraying co-sleeping, namely, babies sharing a bed with their mother, which was strictly forbidden by all nineteenth-century pediatricians. As medicalization is, in fact, a bi-directional process,86 such images, made during the last decades of the century, not only mirrored everyday occurrences but also reflected a counter-discourse when the medicalization of babies’ sleep was hard to ignore. Shared sleep, however, gained acclaim in the twenty-first century among parents who advocate “natural parenting,” as discussed in the book’s afterword. Nonetheless, such contemporary tendencies no longer denote demedicalization but rather the opposite. As the medicalization of babies’ sleep became a consumer product, twentieth-century pediatricians and psychologists promoted various, even contradictory, methods of endormir to insomniac parents. Fuelled by current research reporting that infants who do not learn to self-regulate their sleep encounter : 23 :
INTRODUCTION
psychological and physical problems, while generating parental depression, stress, health problems, and feelings of inadequacy,87 exhausted twenty-first-century parents keep hoping that the next child-care manual will restore their formerly peaceful nights. Bombarded with images that offer tempting marketing promises, they are led to believe that sleeping through the night is within reach. Much as nineteenth-century images of angelic babies sleeping soundly shaped reality rather than representing daily life, contemporary guidebooks, CDs, in-bed sleepers, sophisticated cradles, and self-rocking bassinets offer unattainable fantasies. Promoted by sleep experts who offer salvation to exhausted parents, a billion-dollar sleep industry sells the promise of magical solutions.88 Unquestioningly accepting modern, Western sleeping norms, which developed during the second half of the nineteenth century to reinforce cultural values about parental authority, regulation of biology, and the control of children, their parental competence as sleeping agents is being routinely criticized by medical experts, sleep consultants, curious neighbours, friends, and family members. Sleep-hungry and flooded with unsolicited advice, many new mothers, adhering to cultural norms regarding infant sleeping arrangements, report self-critical thoughts, anxiety, and depression.89 Nevertheless, as argued by Ekirch, the experience of unbroken sleep is an anomaly for adults and children alike. Some babies sleep while others stay awake, condemning their family members to months, sometimes years, of sleeplessness. As a mother of two, I can fully sympathize, suggesting some advice in the book’s afterword. As a historian, I believe that the best way to handle babies’ sleep is to lower our expectations, follow the lead of pre-modern parents, and simply wait for them to grow up.
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Fig. 0.1. Berthe Morisot, The Cradle (Le Berceau), 1872, oil on canvas, 56 × 46 cm. Paris, Musée d’Orsay. Photograph © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Michel Urtado.
Fig. 1.1. Jean-Baptiste Greuze, The Rest (Le Repos), 1759, oil on canvas, 62.2 × 50.5 cm. London, Buckingham Palace, The Royal Collection Trust.
Fig. 1.4. Pieter de Hooch, Woman Lacing Her Bodice Beside a Cradle, 1660, 92 × 100 cm. Berlin, Gemäldegalerie. © Berlin, Gemäldegalerie.
Fig. 2.3. Adrien Marie (illustrations) and André-Théodore Brochard, M.D. (text), Jeu de la poupée (Paris: Charles Gillot, 1881), 2. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France (photograph provided by gallica. bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France).
Fig. 3.5. Auguste Toulmouche, The New Arrival (Le Nouveau-né), 1861 (Salon of 1861), oil on canvas, 56.8 × 44.8 cm. Private collection.
Fig. 3.6. Fanny Fleury, Baby Sleeps (Bébé dort), 1884 (Salon of 1884, cat. 946), oil on canvas, 208 × 143 cm. Private collection.
Fig. 3.7. William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Maternal Admiration (Affection maternelle), 1869, oil on canvas, 116 × 89 cm. Private collection.
Fig. 3.11. William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Sleep (Le sommeil), 1864, oil on canvas, 153.7 × 119 cm. Private collection. Fig. 3.13. Léon Basile Perrault, Young Mother and Her Sleeping Baby (Jeune mère et enfant endormie), 1897, oil on canvas, 97 × 142 cm. Private collection.
Fig. 4.2. Alfred Stevens, Mother and Her Children (Mère et ses enfants), 1883, oil on canvas, 67.3 × 97.8 cm. Private collection.
Fig. 4.3. Alfred Stevens, Complete Happiness (Tous les bonheurs), 1861 (Salon 1861, Exposition Universelle 1867), oil on canvas, 116.5 × 89.5 cm. Brussels, Royal Museums of Fine Art of Belgium, inv. 3645 (photograph provided by Photo d’Art Speltdoorn & Fils).
Fig. 4.6. Edgar Degas, At the Races in the Countryside (Aux courses en province), ca. 1869, oil on canvas, 36.5 × 55.9 cm. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.
Fig. 4.8. Berthe Morisot, Baby in a Cradle, Juile (Bébé au berceau, Julie), 1879, watercolour, 18.5 × 18.4 cm. Private collection. Fig. 4.9. Berthe Morisot, Wet Nurse and Baby (Nourrice et bébé), 1879, oil on canvas, 50 × 61 cm. Washington, DC. Private collection.
Fig. 5.1. Claude Monet, The Cradle, Camille with the Artist’s Son Jean (Le berceau, Camille avec le fils de l’artiste, Jean), 1867–68, oil on canvas, 116.2 × 88.8 cm. Washington, National Gallery of Art, Collection of Mr and Mrs Paul Mellon 1983.1.25 (photograph provided by the National Gallery of Art, Washington).
Fig. 5.2. Claude Monet, Jean Monet Sleeping (Jean Monet endormi), 1869, oil on canvas, 42 × 50 cm. Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Gliptotek (photograph published under fair dealing). Fig. 5.3. Gustave Leonard de Jonghe, The First-born (Le premier-né), 1863, oil on panel, 52.5 × 66 cm. Private collection.
Fig. 5.6. Ferdinand Roybet, Girl with a Doll (Fillette à la poupée), 1865, oil on canvas, 40.5 × 32.5 cm. Photograph © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski.
Fig. 6.3. Louis-Eugene Leroux, The Newborn, Breton Interior (Le Nouveau-né, intérieur bas-breton), ca. 1864 (Salon 1864), oil on canvas, 106 × 130 cm. Photograph © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Patrice Schmidt. Fig. 6.4. Marie Caire, Family in the Fields (La famille aux champs), 1890 (Salon de la Société des Artistes français, 1890), oil on canvas, 89.5 × 116.5 cm. Barcelonnette, Musée de la Vallée.
Part One Physicians
Fig. 1.1. Jean-Baptiste Greuze, The Rest (Le Repos), 1759, oil on canvas, 62.2 × 50.5 cm. London, Buckingham Palace, The Royal Collection Trust.
CHAPTER 1
Sleep and the Laws of Nature: Liberty and Disarray Man … is the one who sleeps the most in his childhood ... and will only be awakened ... by the need to be nourished.1 —Dr Alphonse Louis Leroy, 1772
The Rest of 1759, exhibited by Jean-Baptiste Greuze with great success at the Paris Salon, was described by the Parisian journalist Pierre Rousseau as “a painting representing rest, characterized by a woman who obliges her son to be silent by pointing to her other sleeping children” (fig. 1.1).2 Located in a cluttered room, the familiar scene represents a young mother imploring her dishevelled four-year-old child to stop blowing his toy trumpet while her other two children are sleeping. Her newborn son is calmly napping on her lap after nursing from her exposed breast, whereas a young toddler, who has just finished eating his porridge, sleeps in his chair. Although both children have their own designated sleeping environments, comprising a basket positioned on the ground and a wooden cradle located on the table, they are both sleeping elsewhere. Their postures, which suggest that their sleep was not deliberate, allude to the arbitrariness of infants’ sleep, which occurs sporadically, often after meals, in compliance with children’s instantaneous physical needs. The mother’s gesture, which implies that their older sibling can readily waken them, stresses the temporality of infants’ sleep and its preciousness for children and mothers alike.
Fig. 1.2. François Boucher, A Sleeping Baby (Un bébé endormi), ca. 1760, chalk and watercolour on paper. Private collection. Fig. 1.3. Pierre Paul Prud’hon, The King of Rome Sleeping (Le roi de Rome endormi), 1811 (Salon 1812, no. 743), oil on canvas, 46 × 55.8 cm. Photograph © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre) / Daniel Arnaudet.
During the 1750s, Greuze painted several people who had fallen asleep outside their beds, including a boy who had dozed off on his book while reading and a young girl – exhibited at the Salon of 1759 subsequent to The Rest – who had fallen asleep in her chair while knitting.3 Although the majority of these genre paintings represent adolescents and young women, François Boucher, among others, depicted babies sleeping serenely outdoors at midday (see, for example, fig. 1.2).4 The interest in children sleeping in the midst of nature continued into the nineteenth century, as manifested in a dozen portraits of Napoleon’s son, the king of Rome, exhibited in 1812 at the Salon.5 Even though the new heir had several cradles, designed especially for his own use,6 Pierre-Paul Prud’hon portrayed him partly naked, unswaddled, and napping outdoors (fig. 1.3). An archway of imperial crown fritillaries – a reference to his maternal bloodline – floats above his head, as palm leaves, which allude to his father’s successes overseas, appear in the background, near an abundance of laurel. The blue drapes, white cushion, and crimson cover that form the tricolour constitute the only artificial elements in this scene of benevolent nature. Like baby Jesus, asleep under the watchful eye of a paternal divine providence, or like Romulus, son of Mars and Rea Silvia and future founder of Rome – abandoned but soon to be taken in by a suckling she-wolf – the future king’s serene sleep symbolizes the arrival of a new golden age.7 Rather than representing babies sleeping at home, Boucher and Prud’hon emphasized the unrestricted nature of sleep, taking place outdoors, in accordance with physical needs. Whereas Greuze placed his sleeping children at home, the same traits are emphasized in The Rest, representing young children sleeping during the daytime, outside their beds. Even though sleep after nursing was acknowledged by late-eighteenth-century obstetricians,8 it cannot clarify the older toddler’s location in his chair and his mother’s reluctance to wake him or transfer him to his cradle. Is the location and timing of sleep a “normal” common human practice, or is it a changing cultural norm? How was it governed and managed in the past in a household that included young children, which by its very definition – as clearly denoted by Greuze – exhibited fragmented sleeping patterns? In the interest of addressing these questions, this chapter examines the emerging medical, philosophical, and artistic awareness of : 29 :
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infants’ sleep in the second half of the eighteenth century. Michael Fried postulates that the interest in sleep, manifested in Greuze’s paintings, was part of a growing tendency throughout the Enlightenment to produce forms of absorption that are inseparable from distraction. Accordingly, a vast number of artworks emphasize the modern subjects’ ability and difficulty in cutting off their minds from the outside world to fully engage in specific activities.9 Even though Fried does not address the historical, social, and cultural factors that intensified the interest in sleep, it can be postulated that the emerging medical interest in babies’ sleep was one of the outcomes of the new glorification of childhood that developed in Western Europe in the modern era. Although Philippe Ariès’s main arguments regarding the sudden shift in attitude toward children have generally been rejected,10 most scholars agree that, from the mid-eighteenth century onward, Western parents gradually became child-oriented, recognizing the uniqueness of children and rearing them with a permissive mode of child care. Along with a longing for domestic tranquility in an era of capitalist competitiveness, the attitude toward marriage, childhood, and family life changed, as did the structure of the bourgeois family; many parents chose to bear fewer children and devote themselves to the prosperity of the nuclear family.11 The best-known philosopher on the subject of the new model nuclear family was Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who considered child-rearing to be a foundational element in the advancement of society, which comprised a significant component in the intellectual discourse of the period. Enlightenment philosophy infused eighteenth-century Europe with the belief in the possibility of individual happiness. In this context, Rousseau emphasized the importance of heeding the child’s needs and the great significance of parents raising children by themselves. In a time of high child mortality, parents were called upon to give up their social amusements and find happiness in child care. “Let women once again become mothers,” he wrote in his 1762 treatise Émile, or On Education, and “men will soon become fathers and husbands again.”12 The emerging awareness of child care was further stressed by Rousseau’s widespread ideal of children’s innocence and the continuous need for care and surveillance, which gained popularity among an urban bourgeoisie that no longer regarded children as necessary for the economic viability of the family.13 : 30 :
PHYSICIANS
These outlooks intensified in France in the last decades of the eighteenth century due to the national concern over the demographic decline of the French population, in contrast to Germany and England. Since the French transition to a low birthrate preceded fertility decline in other modernizing nations by a century,14 children came increasingly under the gaze of the practitioners of education, welfare, law, and medicine. Throughout the nineteenth century, child care became a medical matter, and the medicalization of the family, motherhood, and childhood became a central aspect of everyday life through pediatric campaigns.15 Accordingly, although until the seventeenth century only seventeen medical treatises addressed infants, between 1775 and 1832, approximately 6,800 manuals were dedicated to children, a number that rose swiftly during the second half of the nineteenth century.16 Nonetheless, even though several doctors addressed children’s sleep, they perceived it as a natural occurrence that scarcely necessitated discussion or advice. This belief was reflected in the physicians’ constant comparison between animals and human beings and the absence of differentiation between children and adults.17 Even though women, according to Denis Diderot and M. d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie, were expected to protect their family “from passions and need,” while supplying maternal affection, order, internal peace, health, and “sweet sleep,”18 doctors rarely addressed the ways of procuring this desirable outcome, which, by all accounts, happened naturally.
The Awakening of Sleep Despite the importance of the term “nature” in eighteenth-century thought, its definition is, in fact, not clear.19 While in the Encyclopédie Diderot and d’Alembert distinguished numerous senses of this term, they nevertheless argued that the word nature is used “to signify the order and the natural course of things, following its secondary causes, or the laws of motion.” In medical terms, they also used the word “nature” to describe “the resources or the faculties of a body, especially of a living body.” As the encyclopédistes believed that the particular natures of individuals are entwined in the general laws of the universe, they argued that the laws of nature are “general rules of movement and rest observed by natural bodies in the action they exert on each other.”20 : 31 :
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Based on Aristotle’s De Somno (On Sleep), which maintained that sleep “occurs of necessity … and is for the sake of the animal’s preservation,”21 the authors of the Encyclopédie described sleep as a state of inactivity of the organs, the senses, and deliberate movements, which is essential for animals and humans to “sustain, repair and reassemble its machine.”22 Notwithstanding, whereas animals tend to sleep more during the winter, “in the human species sleep is, like the four-legged animals, naturally linked to night-time.”23 Albeit natural, Diderot and d’Alembert maintained that human sleep could be threatened by physical disorders (such as hunger, indigestion, melancholy, pain, or fever); external circumstances (such as the cold, bright light, or noise); or the consumption of certain items of sustenance or beverage (mainly coffee or tea). As certain brews can jeopardize sleep, others can induce it artificially, such as wine, camphor, or opium, which “act uniformly on men and animals, even on insects.”24 While they mention a long list of illnesses that can cause sleep deprivation, however,25 they do not discuss babies – one of the foremost reasons for wakefulness in a household. In fact, the only mention of children in the entire entry is the assertion that children – whose brain tissues are softer and need more extended rest to recuperate – sleep more than adults.26 A similar disregard is apparent in a book devoted to methods of promoting a healthy life, published in 1786 by Dr Jean Baptiste Pressavin, who contends that “acting, eating, and sleeping are the three most essential functions of animal health,” recommending seven hours of daily sleep.27 Yet, he ignored infants’ sleep and sleeplessness, focusing instead on proper nutrition.28 In the book On Sleep, published by Dr Philibert Chabert in 1796, similar suggestions were made. Comparing nature to “a skilled architect [who] establishes the building before furnishing it,”29 the doctor maintained that when humans defy the laws of nature by opposing what “nature took care to organize,” they destroy the conservation and regeneration capacities of the corporal “machine,” which needs tranquil sleep to endure.30 While Chabert emphasized the naturalness of sleep through a comparison between humans’ and animals’ sleeping postures, “similar to that of a fetus,” he nevertheless argued that the duration of sleep varies between animals and humans and between humans of diverse ages, “namely, childhood, puberty, adolescence, virile middle-age, and old age.”31 Since infants’ organs, : 32 :
PHYSICIANS
muscles, and brains need additional repose to recuperate their vigour, they sleep twelve hours a day, while adults sleep eight hours, and older people sleep merely six hours a day.32 Based on the assumption that sleep is a common bodily practice, shared by all living beings, Chabert stressed the necessity of sleep. Yet, he did not mention sleeplessness, and apart from the claim that “sleep is much longer when the subject is younger,”33 he completely disregarded children. The indifference to infants’ sleep was correspondingly evident in child-care manuals written by Western physicians – French and foreign alike – at the end of the seventeenth century and in the first decades of the eighteenth century.34 One of the main reasons for this neglect stemmed from the medical disregard for childhood in general. Samuel Kotek argues that the main problem inhibiting doctors from tending to infants throughout history was communication, as, etymologically, the word “infants” (infans in Latin) denotes “not able to speak.”35 This obstacle was acknowledged in a child-care manual published in 1689 by the English physician Walter Harris.36 “I know very well in how unbeaten and almost unknown a path I am treading,” he wrote, as “several physicians of the first rank have openly declared to me that they go very unwillingly to take care of the diseases of children, especially of such as the newly born, as if they were to unravel some strange mystery or cure some incurable distemper.”37 While stressing the significance of this innovative mission, Harris undermined its complexity by stating that most infantile illnesses are similar to those of adults, “and moreover, that their recovery is easier than that of men and women of advanced age.”38 Nonetheless, even though Harris – like other late-seventeenth-century doctors who dedicated their books to the art of midwifery – propagated the belief that a professional male physician was preferable to a female midwife during birthing,39 their manuals were not addressed to women, but to their esteemed colleagues. The nature of this designated readership is essential for understanding the lack of medical interest in sleep before the mid-eighteenth century. Since physicians were preoccupied with infantile nutrition and acute diseases, sleep – perceived as a natural practice – was generally ignored. Nonetheless, infants’ sleep was crucial, not just for the children’s well-being but also for their mothers, as chaotic infantile sleeping habits and unexpected wakefulness during the night : 33 :
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affected the caregiver’s disposition and health. Consequently, only when doctors and midwives started writing for mothers instead of writing about maternity and childhood, sleep increasingly gained professional attention and gave rise to medical deliberations. As a result, while nearly all the seventeenth-century and early-eighteenth-century child-care manuals were addressed to other doctors in the interest of identifying children’s diseases, from the last decades of the century onward, numerous treatises targeted the babies’ parents. Unlike professional treatises, these popular texts were written in the vernacular and were aimed at a public of curious individuals and seekers of knowledge. Composed by obstetricians and midwives, they were the primary source for the transmission of medical information to the public.40 The combination of the target readers and the neglect of sleep is evident in Harris’s health-care manual. Written in Latin, the book is dedicated to “persons of great genius, who are well versed in the art of physic,” in the hope that it “may be of great use and universal benefit to mankind.”41 Besides the cumbersome writing, clearly designated for professionals, Harris’s intended readership is apparent throughout the book. Among a long list of acute illnesses that can afflict babies, mostly related to indigestion and ill nutrition, sleep is completely overlooked. Although he acknowledged that sleep is beneficial for “the sick,” Harris strongly opposed the administration of opiates, arguing that most medicines are, in fact, “hurtful, and quite contrary to the nature of children.”42 The only association between opiates and sleep is cited as a method of handling labour pains by administrating “narcotics to hysterical women, in order to procure sleep.”43 Like Harris, the renowned Parisian obstetrician François Mauriceau dedicated his manual, published in 1668, to “all my dear brethren, the sworn master surgeons of the city of Paris.” All through the preface, he repeatedly addressed his fellow “gentlemen,” stressing that he would not follow the custom of those who dedicate their works for the most part to “persons wholly ignorant of the matter treated on, from no other inducement but a mercenary recompense.”44 Nonetheless, unlike Harris, he wrote his book in French, in a comprehensible vernacular. Furthermore, he also addressed midwives, expressing his hope that his treatise may “enlighten the young surgeons and midwives in the difficulties they often meet with at labours.”45 : 34 :
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These modifications may explain why, unlike his English colleague, Mauriceau briefly discussed the two associates involved in infants’ sleep: the baby and its female caregiver. By maintaining that “by moderate sleep, all-natural functions of a woman are fortified,” he advised young mothers to sleep at least nine or ten hours during the night, but no more than twelve. As he was aware that, during his era, “persons of quality are accustomed, who frequenting the court, ordinarily turn night into day,” he added: “they who have gotten this ill habit, had better continue it than change too suddenly, because this custom has become natural to them.”46 While the significance of babies’ sleep, so beneficial for their well-being and digestion, was similarly underlined, Mauriceau did not restrict it to nighttime. “There needs no limited time for his rest,” he argued, “for he may sleep at any time, night and day, when he hath a mind to it.”47 Even though it seems that the good doctor ignored the manifestations of infantile insomnia and its consequences, he was aware of babies experiencing “very immoderate” excessive sleep, unlike those babies whose sleep “may be a little broken.”48 Nonetheless, Mauriceau’s scarce recommendations vis-à-vis babies’ wakefulness can be explained by his supposition that most mothers were being assisted by “gardes” – women hired to take care of newborns after childbirth.49 From the seventeenth century, the employment of night nurses intensified in Western Europe and was particularly prevalent in France among the middle and upper classes.50 As gardes were paid to take care of young infants at night, Mauriceau may have assumed that sleep deprivation was not worth a lengthy discussion, as mothers who had the means and the ability to read his book could allegedly sleep as much as they wanted. Relying on the tolerance of the tireless nurses, he recommended: “Let his nurse carry him in her arms to the light, singing with a soft and sweet voice, showing him some glittering thing to please his sight, and dancing him a little to wake him out of his drowsiness … by means of which all the body, and chiefly the brain, is so cooled, that the infant’s senses are thereby quite dull, and their functions languishing and stupefied.” While recommending soft sounds and gentle movements to calm babies to sleep, Mauriceau nevertheless added: “Let his sleep come naturally of itself,” arguing that “ordinarily the better he is, the more he sleeps.”51 : 35 :
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Sleep, Wet Nurses, and Indigestion Although Mauriceau’s counsels concerning sleep were not repeated by his contemporaries, during the second half of the eighteenth century, sleep was slowly, albeit steadily, introduced into medical manuals. Indeed, by the mid-century, the equivalence between children and adults and other living beings had dissolved. Nonetheless, as doctors insisted that children, by nature, experience tranquil sleep unless suffering from illness, they argued that their sleep should not be disturbed or induced through recurrent movements or the administration of medications.52 These ideas were part of a more significant ideology concerning child care that encompassed doctors, moralists, and philosophers alike. In the name of nature, during the last decades of the eighteenth century, many physicians across Western Europe altered their recommendations for the care of newborns, stressing frequent bathing, open-air promenades, and light clothing or partial nudity.53 Reflecting the neo-Hippocratic revival that swept Europe from the late-seventeenth century, peaking in the mid-eighteenth century, doctors promoted the benefits of nature by focusing on diet, exercise, and hygiene. Based on the ancient Greek tradition, introduced by Hippocrates and adapted by Galen, they believed that a person’s health depended on fresh air, physical training, sleep, and good nutrition.54 While all components were equally stressed for babies, the last was repeatedly associated with breastfeeding, which was highly revered from antiquity by physicians, theologians, and moralists alike, based on medical, emotional, and moral arguments. Maintaining that it was required by the laws of nature, they claimed that it was every mother’s obligation, to demonstrate her humanity and fulfill the Lord’s commandment.55 In this vein, the French physician Laurent Joubert, father of eleven children, all of whom suckled at their mother’s breast, wrote in 1641: “If only women knew the pleasures of breastfeeding, they would not content themselves with nursing their own children – they would hire themselves out to others.”56 “The first and principal of all qualities in a good nurse,” wrote Mauriceau in this respect, “is that she be the own mother of a child, as well because of the mutual agreement of their tempers, as that having much more love for it, she will be much more careful than a hired nurse.”57 : 36 :
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Such views gained acclaim in the mid-eighteenth century. By proclaiming that “Nature never deceives us, it is we who deceive ourselves,”58 Rousseau contended in Émile that maternal breastfeeding forges an intimate bond between mother and child and that it is in her power to establish the foundation for social renewal and to influence the structure of the family as a whole. In his opinion, a mother who refuses to take upon herself her primary obligation of nursing her baby and hands him over to a strange wet nurse is the source of all of the baby’s problems. He went so far as to draw a connection between the mother’s refusal to nurse her children and the cultural demise of France as a whole, writing: “not satisfied with having given up nursing their children, women give up wanting to have them. The result is natural … This practice, added to the other causes of depopulation, presages the impending fate of Europe. The sciences, the arts, the philosophy, and the morals this practice engenders will not be long in making a desert of it. It will be peopled with ferocious beasts.”59 Similar concerns were expressed by contemporary physicians, who argued that mercenary nurses could infect babies with their inferior physical and moral traits, while introducing negligence, mistreatment, and poor hygiene, which may endanger their lives.60 Some maintained that sending the infant to the wet nurse’s remote home may cause the baby to become attached to the wet nurse, instead of to its biological mother. Others have argued, to the contrary, that wet nurses cannot truly love the babies in their charge and would, therefore, not afford them the maternal affection they need. Many physicians underlined the dangers inherent in wet nursing, arguing that, since a woman’s milk transmits the moral and corporal properties of the nursing woman, the children suckled by wet nurses may suffer from a coarse personality, faulty intelligence, corrupt habits, a flawed character, and an incurable temperament.61 Such allegations were propagated during the eighteenth century through one of the most influential texts dealing with child care, written by the prominent London physician William Cadogan, an honorary medical attendant of the London Foundling Hospital. His popular treatise, published in 1748, was translated into seven languages, including French, and circulated in ten editions throughout Europe over the century.62 Advocating simplicity, Cadogan argued that “if we : 37 :
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follow nature, instead of leading or driving it, we cannot err.”63 As an avid advocate of breastfeeding, his insistence on maternal nursing shaped his scarce recommendations vis-à-vis sleep, only mentioned twice throughout his wide-ranging treatise: “By night I would not have them fed or suckled at all, that they might at least be hungry in the morning. It is this night feeding that makes them so over-fat and bloated … in a week’s time, they will get into a habit of sleeping all, or most of the night very quietly … The child would soon be quite easy and satisfied in the habit; much more so than when taught to expect food at all times and at every little fit of crying and uneasiness.”64 Unlike Mauriceau, who encouraged night nurses to lull restless babies to sleep, Cadogan suggested breaking a child of bad sleeping habits by setting up strict feeding schedules. He maintained that sleeplessness is essentially caused by bad habits inflicted by the caregivers – generally, corrupt wet nurses – claiming that, apart from brief wakeups when their diapers need changing, children should be able to sleep without interruption. A baby, Cadogan contended, “never cries but from pain.”65 Since he assumed that healthy babies sleep through the night, he condemned the wet nurses’ tendency to “lull and rock them to sleep, or to continue their sleep too long; which is only done to save their own time and trouble, to the great detriment of the children’s health, spirit, and understanding.” Consequently, “Orders should be given to these nurses to keep the children awake by day, as long as they are disposed to be so, and to amuse and keep them in good humour all they can.”66 Cadogan’s awareness of night-awakenings was repeated in the eighth edition of his manual, published in 1764. Nonetheless, even though the doctor mentioned a child having “disturbed sleep, restlessness, terrifying dreams … kicking and tumbling about,” he considered sleeplessness as a direct result of a disease that should be identified and treated, since healthy children “would lie quiet as a log all night.”67 A similar approach is exemplified in a child-care manual published in 1760 and reprinted in 1799 by the French physician Jean-Charles Desessartz. Even though he believed that children spend most of their time sleeping, due to the “perfect tranquility of their souls,” he acknowledged that it is challenging to attain the perpetual needs of a baby, “who doesn’t let her a moment of tranquility neither in the day : 38 :
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nor in the night; whose piercing screams rob her from a necessary sleep, a mother already exhausted from the tiredness of the day!” Despite such considerable nuisances, Desessartz maintained that sleep should not be forced upon babies, since “going against nature’s intentions converts sustenance into poison.”68 As he believed that it could only be impaired by ill-advised wet nurses who prevent children from sleeping during the day, dreading that they might be awakened at night, he simply advised replacing the nurse with maternal nursing, defined as mandatory “by the laws of nature, and by religion.” Concurrently, however, he declared that restlessness during the night is not correlated with excessive sleep but is instead a reaction to hunger, cold, extensive warmth, illness, or pain.69 When a child is simply not tired, “there are only violent means which can procure sleep,” namely, the administration of opiates or “stunning” (étourdir) him to sleep in a cradle. Yet, since these methods “are unnatural, and the sleep they provoke has never been as salutary as that which comes naturally,” mothers and nurses alike should attend to children’s needs and let nature determine the amount of sleep they require. “Having all he asks for, he will fall asleep in the fields without being rocked.”70 Even though Alphonse Louis Leroy, the French surgeon from the faculty of medicine in Paris, cited above, maintained in 1772 that rocking the baby before nursing would facilitate its digestion, making it “fall asleep immediately,” he, too, was convinced that the poor quality of the milk of the wet nurses caused sleeplessness. By claiming that a child who breastfeeds from its mother and enjoys her warmth “only wakes up to defecate, fidget, and eat,” he argued that it would suffice to nurse it three or four times a day “and once a night.”71 “If, despite all this care, you hear the cries of the child,” he wrote, “they will be the sign of pain caused by diseases.”72 Similar claims were repeated in a treatise dedicated to newborns, issued in 1775 by the French physician Pierre-François Nicolas, who warned his readers against selfish mothers, who “only worry about being interrupted at night, when they sleep,” and avoid breastfeeding due to their “love of pleasures” and their concern with their husband’s comfort. As he maintained that maternal nursing requires merely two nighttime awakenings, he pondered: “is this pain, if it is one, capable of balancing the inconceivable joy that a good mother feels when she hugs her child against the breast that gives him life?”73 : 39 :
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It can be presumed that the medical preoccupation with nutrition – reflected in the subordination of sleep to relentless deliberations about breastfeeding – was a reaction to food shortages experienced in France during the 1780s and 1790s as a result of sharp fluctuations in grain prices, which were aggravated by several harsh winters.74 In the face of recurring food crises, a group of French political economists and reformers promoted the rationed use of resources and the elimination of waste, targeting personal habits and public policy. At the end of the eighteenth century, industrial food producers and public authorities sought cheaper and more efficiently produced foods that would simultaneously feed the population and assure political stability. Consequently, the manufacture and sale of what was promoted as “health foods” was overseen by Parisian police officers, who sought advice from various medical institutions, including the Société Royale de Médecine, which became authoritative in everyday life. Emma Spray argues that the growing critique of courtly life toward the end of the eighteenth century led to a fashion for natural, preservative-free, “healthy” nutrition, which was frequently juxtaposed with the “artificial” lifestyle that dominated urban high society.75 Concurrently, the medical preference for a natural and therapeutic dietary régime reinforced the tendency to maternal nursing, forcefully advocated by contemporary moralists, philosophers, and physicians, as opposed to the wet nurses’ faulty milk that provided “bad nourishment,” endangering children’s sleep and well-being.76 Indeed, in contrast to Mauriceau’s tolerance for the employment of wet nurses, the disdain toward this common practice, as expressed by Cadogan and Desessartz, rose dramatically during the last decades of the eighteenth century. Like his contemporaries in France, the Italian physician Filippo Baldini, whose manual was translated into French in 1786, believed that young mothers, “animated by the purest diligence,” take care of their babies day and night with no complaints.77 Nevertheless, children who spend their early childhood under the supervision of remote wet nurses do not enjoy the same treatment. Irritated by the wakefulness of their demanding charges, the nurses are accustomed to sedating them with opiates, regardless of their harmful nature. “This is, without doubt, the cause of madness, of dizziness, that we can see every day amid the children of the rich, or the well-off.”78 Apparently, : 40 :
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the doctor was well aware of infantile insomnia; yet, since he supposed that loving mothers are untouched by their infants’ sleeplessness, he avoided any discussion of the subject, aside from forcefully forbidding the use of medicines. Comparable grievances against neglectful nurses, who compromised infants’ sleep, were repeated in An Essay on the Diseases Most Fatal to Infancy, published in 1767 by Dr George Armstrong, an English physician who established the first pediatric hospital in England in 1769.79 In a short treatise dedicated to sleep, the doctor claimed that the younger the children, “the more they are inclined to sleep,” and that “in general, the more he sleeps at first, the better.”80 However, while stressing children’s sleeping capacities, like Desessartz, he was aware of infantile wakefulness at night, as well as its effect on the caregiver. “Some infants are more wakeful in the night than in the day,” he claimed, “which is hurtful to themselves and irksome to those about them; and therefore, they ought to be broken of it as soon as possible.” Indeed, some nurses, “either through laziness or want of skill,” did not take care to arouse children during the day and keep them awake at proper intervals. Nonetheless, Armstrong argued that this problem is easy to solve, as “the fastest and most natural way” to prevent excessive infants’ sleep “is by keeping them awake as much as you can throughout the day and feeding them pretty plentifully about ten or eleven at night.” The most accessible alternative – the administration of opiates – he considered hazardous, since careless nurses used them too freely day and night “in order to keep them quiet, and prevent their disturbing them in their business.” In light of these hazards, the doctor urged mothers to “rouse the child by degrees, out of this sleepy habit.”81 In the third edition of his manual, published in 1778, Armstrong expanded his recommendations for dealing with wakefulness during the night, adding advice directed at sleepless babies nourished by a feeding bottle. “If the infant is not suckled at all, it must be used from [the] birth to feed chiefly in the day so that its sleep may not be disturbed at night.”82 He maintained that, although this method “may appear strange at first,” it is highly beneficial, not just for the baby, but also for the nurse, who can sleep through the night. If babies nurse at ten or eleven o’clock at night, “they seldom want anything till about five, six, or sometimes seven o’clock in the morning.” 83 Albeit highly recommended by Armstrong, : 41 :
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the last piece of advice seems intriguing, since feeding bottles were uncommon before the nineteenth century, and artificial feeding was highly disparaged by nearly all doctors who venerated maternal nursing. Yet, since wet nursing was considered to be a pathology that endangered babies’ lives, bottles – which were the medical establishment’s answer for those who could not breastfeed – enjoyed a positive status vis-à-vis the alternative.84 Scrutiny of the wet nurses’ negligence and ignorance was repeated in one of the bestselling child-care manuals of the period, published by Dr Michael Underwood in 1784 and translated into French in 1786. Over the next sixty years, his book, which is regarded as one of the essential works associated with the development of modern pediatrics, went through twenty-five editions, gaining acclaim in England, France, Germany, and America. A member of the Royal College of Physicians in London and an expert on midwifery, he was known for giving the first acknowledged description of several childhood diseases, including infantile paralysis.85 While the first edition of his 288-page book, was dedicated to the queen and addressed to medical professionals,86 the two-volume second edition of 1789 addressed “intelligent parents,”87 to the frustration of his British colleagues. A critique published in 1790 in The Monthly Review stated that “Dr Underwood tells us that his book is written as well to intelligent parents, as for medical readers. We are far from being convinced of the propriety of this … as neither Dr Underwood’s book, nor, indeed, all the books that have ever been written, can make a physician, they consequently may become hurtful, whenever they induce unskillful persons to assume that character.”88 Apparently, this condemnation did not disturb the good doctor, who added to his three-volume third edition, issued in 1795, the statement “Adapted to Domestic Use.”89 Yet, despite his intended readership, Underwood devoted fewer than ten pages to matters of sleep. In a short chapter dedicated to “Sleep and Watching,” he argued that healthy children sleep in accordance with their needs.90 Like his predecessors, he associated insomnia with indigestion and malnutrition, claiming that wet nurses treat sleeplessness – that they themselves inflict through their inferior milk – by the administration of opiates that “act always as a poison.” As Underwood maintained that “insomnia is merely a symptom, not a disease,” he contended that, instead of using harmless : 42 :
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drugs, nurses should alter their own regimen.91 Additionally, however, he added a short paragraph on sleep training, recommending keeping children awake during the day “by playing with them or handling on the knee, and other ways to amuse them” to avoid nighttime wakefulness.92 Comparable advice was repeated in a guidebook issued from 1768 onward in several editions, including French, by the English physician Hugh Smith. In the short discussion dedicated to sleep, the doctor maintained that, not only is it “essentially necessary to live, to mother and child equally,” but it is a vital part of children’s nutrition, as only when the two fall “into a sweet refreshing sleep” is maternal milk being produced.93 Even though he believed that children’s sleep is a natural practice, he argued that it may be jeopardized by the administration of “bad quality of food,” as well as perpetual feedings that happen when nurses “keep a child at the breast all night.” Accordingly, he maintained that mothers could help nature follow its course by applying regular breastfeeding schedules. Assuming that four or five feedings in twentyfour hours are deemed sufficient, he instructed mothers to nurse their babies for the first time at six or seven in the morning, “after which the child may be allowed an hour or two’s sleep,” and lastly between ten and eleven, just before the mother goes to sleep. Being aware of his readers’ possible reactions to his recommendations, he added: “I know it will be urged by some that it is impossible to keep children quiet and at rest during the night and that they cry for food.” Baring in mind that “There is a wide difference between knowing what is right, and doing it,” Smith reassured his readers by saying: “I do not expect the foregoing rules to be invariably adopted from birth … a certain time is necessary, even under the most prudent management, to accustom them to our wished-for habits … often times … difficulties will unexpectedly arise in the first attempts. Let me, therefore, desire you to aim at the above regulations, which by perseverance will soon become practicable; and then, determine for yourself how greatly they will contribute to your own ease and comfort, as well as to the advantages of your children.” Since Smith reckoned that “The method is plain and easy – only follow nature,” he stated that breastfeeding during the night “counteracts the operations of nature” by depriving the child of its much-needed rest. He concluded his instructions by saying that, if mothers follow his advice, “few people will complain of their being tiresome.”94 : 43 :
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Cradles, Clothing, and the Paragon of Nature Smith’s objection to maternal indulgence was forcefully manifested by Rousseau, who described a child who, once left alone unattended, “finally made the decision to sleep himself and to be in good health.”95 In this vein, although he recommended putting the baby “in a large, wellpadded cradle,” he added in a footnote: “I say a ‘cradle’ to use a current word, for want of another.” To underline his instructions, Rousseau declared that the ancient Peruvians used to set their children free in a hole in the ground lined with cloth, where they could stay peacefully “without falling and without getting hurt.”96 “It is important in the first instance to get used to being ill-bedded,” he explained. “This is the way never again to find an uncomfortable bed. In general, the hard life, once turned into a habit, multiplies agreeable sensations; the soft life prepares for an infinity of unpleasant ones … People accustomed to sleeping on boards find it everywhere.”97 “What a good sleep one has in a bad bed!” he concluded. 98 This so-called “Spartan method”99 was repeatedly recommended in the last decades of the century by several French doctors, who argued that “A hard bed strengthens a child; the soft bed weakens it and should be reserved only for old men.” Leroy, who claimed that the Greeks and the Romans raised their children “by the severity of Sparta, which made them robust and full-bodied,” added that he himself raised three children by this method, and “they walked before the ordinary term: they got up alone, fell without being injured.”100 Such recommendations were given visual manifestation in Boucher’s portrayals of infants napping outdoors, on the ground (see, for example, fig. 1.2). The sleeping baby’s partial nudity represents the strong opposition to the “unnatural” practice of swaddling (i.e., wrapping infants in clothes that restrict their movement), which obstructs the baby’s blood flow by preventing it from moving its limbs.101 “At the slightest trouble that arises,” wrote Rousseau in this respect, “he is hung from a nail like a sack of clothes, and while the nurse looks after her business without hurrying, the unfortunate stay thus crucified … The sufferer was believed to be quite tranquil because he did not have the strength to cry.”102 : 44 :
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Admittedly, swaddling served two purposes: one practical and the other symbolic. As in the previous centuries, most homes were insufficiently heated and were often cold and damp, even in summer, so this practice preserved the baby’s body heat. In addition, it eased the mother’s burden by preventing the infants from moving about the house at will. Symbolically, however, the swaddling prevented the baby from crawling, animal-like on all fours, thus keeping it within the realm of civilization, far removed from nature and animality.103 Nonetheless, since removing the swaddling clothes fostered a new emotional bond between mother and child, making it easier to embrace and caress them, late-eighteenth-century physicians all over Europe opposed this custom. One of the first doctors to frown upon swaddling was Cadogan, who, already in 1748, declared that: “Children, in general, are overclothed and over-fed, and fed and clothed improperly,” as if nature, which produced humans “so carelessly unfinished, as to want those idle aids to make it perfect.” He argued that, since many parents mistakenly assumed that newborns could not be kept too warm, they bind their baby “with flannels, wrappers, swathes, stays, commonly called cloths; which altogether are almost equal to his own weight.”104 Nonetheless, without such constraints, children “would find themselves perfectly easy and happy, enjoying the free use of their limbs and faculties, which they would very soon begin to employ when they are thus left at liberty.”105 This reputed Rousseauian ideal, represented in numerous genre scenes, was equally manifested in portraits, exemplified by a dozen representations of the King of Rome napping in the open air (see, for example, fig. 1.3). In the same vein, Baron François Gérard’s portrait of Caroline Murat, younger sister of Napoleon I, represents her son, born in 1801, standing nude on the left, while her daughter, who was just a few months old when the painting was made, sleeps serenely in her cradle, unswaddled and uncovered.106 Comparable attitudes were represented in Greuze’s The Rest (fig. 1.1), depicting a half-naked baby sleeping on his mother’s lap; “As free as he can be, in light clothes and a thin blanket, to stretch out and move its small limbs at will, he will be fortified at ease and without danger.”107 The mother’s exposed breast reflects the reverence toward maternal nursing, exalted by Rousseau and his contemporaries and represented in countless artworks in the last decades of the eighteenth century.108 By the same token, the good mother : 45 :
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Fig. 1.4. Pieter de Hooch, Woman Lacing Her Bodice Beside a Cradle, 1660, 92 × 100 cm. Berlin, Gemäldegalerie. © Berlin, Gemäldegalerie.
allows her children to fall asleep when tired, following their natural needs, thus procuring a “sweet sleep,” as specified in the Encyclopédie. This unexpected location is further accentuated in comparison to seventeenth-century Dutch interiors, which influenced Greuze in the 1750s and were generally sought after by eighteenth-century French collectors.109 Woman Lacing Her Bodice beside a Cradle, painted in 1660 by Pieter de Hooch, represents a young mother playfully holding the loose lace of her bodice out to the baby lying in its cradle (fig. 1.4). Whether she is lacing or rather unlacing her bodice, her gesture alludes to breastfeeding, regarded in the seventeenth century as a civic duty, contributing to the general welfare of the individual family and the community at large. As children were perceived as divine gifts, which must be raised in an environment conducive to religious devotion and social stability, the home was regarded as the primary site in their formation, under their mother’s virtuous supervision.110 Accordingly, as a human substitute to “Maria Lactans,” the nursing Madonna, de : 46 :
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Hooch’s mother represents piousness, morality, good citizenship, and maternal love, while the cradle, which shields the baby from the viewer, advocates a domestic paradise of repose and security.111 The tranquility of the adequately managed household is further epitomized by the separation between the cradle and the mother’s bed, depicted in the background. As moralists and physicians opposed the practice of sharing a bed with a baby, fearing that it might suffocate during the night,112 the distinct sleeping environments convey orderliness, prudence, and virtuous housekeeping abilities. Although Greuze also portrayed maternal devotion, he focused on people rather than on the domestic setting. Far from being tidy, Greuze’s household is not the centre of the painting, but merely a background, stressing the prominence of the young mother, manifesting her devotion through her exposed breast and the gentleness with which she tries to protect her baby’s sleep. Like the religious undertones in de Hooch’s painting, her gesture may be based on popular engravings representing the Madonna silencing Saint John the Baptist lest he wakes her son.113 Yet, while the Virgin cautions John not to awaken Christ to his Passion before his time, the eighteenth-century mother is simply trying to maintain her baby’s elusive sleep, so significant for its well-being. Unlike the well-kept Dutch cradle, hiding the baby from the viewer while maintaining the orderliness of the household, the French veneration of infants’ sleep emphasizes the freedom of childhood. At once physical, emotional, and moral, progressive contemporary infants’ sleep occurs outside the cradle rather than inside it. Based on these understandings, rather than reflecting a lack of organization and management, Greuze’s sleeping children epitomize contemporary moral and medical accounts. Even though they are sleeping during the day, their slumber – immediately after having eaten – is destined to be short-lived, due to their positions and location. Their sleep, clearly not orchestrated by their mother, represents freedom as per the physicians’ endorsements, who suggested daytime activities and healthy nutrition while refuting any attempts to induce sleep through medicating, lulling, swinging, or, most commonly, rocking.114 The opposition to the use of a cradle, condemned on the grounds of its unnaturalness, was customary among physicians until the end of the nineteenth century.115 Following Galen’s example,116 already in : 47 :
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Fig. 1.5. Hubert Robert, Young Women Handing a Bottle to a Baby (Jeune femme tendant un biberon à un bébé), ca. 1773, oil on panel, 22 × 27 cm. Valence, Musée des Beaux-Arts. Photograph © RMN-Grand Palais / Michèle Bellot.
1668, Mauriceau cautioned against wild rocking, resembling what “happens to many women only by riding in a coach.”117 Opposing this “altogether absurd” custom, Smith declared: “I never permitted a cradle to disgrace my nursery. Infants, if well, sleep without this lullaby-labour, and such forced dosings generally render them peevish and watchful in the night, which is the most proper time both for them and their nurses to enjoy their rest.”118 In the same vein, Desessartz argued in 1799 that “Sleep, which is provided by rocking it, cannot be good … after this violent agitation, the child’s sleep is not a genuine sleep but rather a dizziness resembling that of a rotated chicken, after having put its head under its wing.” A child, he claimed, who is accustomed to being cradled to sleep, will not be able to sleep without it, requiring increased speed in order to fall asleep. Consequently, the nurse will “shake the cradle with so much violence and precipitation that you cannot see it without fearing that it will be turned upside down.” “Now,” he concluded, “we ask the advocates of cradling if they would : 48 :
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agree to be shaken in this manner in their bed and if they would not soon be stunned by such a movement.”119 “Remove the cradle,” wrote the lawyer and academic Guillaume Grivel in the same spirit in his three-volume treatise on education, published in 1775. In its place, he advised using a deep wicker basket padded with a cushion, thus allowing babies to move freely and to sleep per their own needs, without being rocked.120 Dr Jean-Marie Caillau, who advised using “a stuffed basket, called bercelonette” (i.e., a small newborn’s bed), reiterated such views in 1797. As the child “must enjoy full freedom,” mothers should choose “a large enough basket so that the child can move around at ease, without the need to use crossed ribbons to prevent him from getting out while stirring.”121 Such a large basket appears in the centre of Hubert Robert’s painting of circa 1773, portraying a young woman presenting a bottle to a baby (fig. 1.5). Unrockable, it is positioned on a wooden chair, protecting the baby from the cold, while also facilitating the mother’s access. The large straps on the baby’s blanket are loosened, and while the baby is fully covered, its right hand indicates that it is not swaddled, reflecting contemporary beliefs. In a similar vein, Woman with a Cradle, painted in 1801 by Henri-Pierre Danloux, portrays Jeanne de l’Horme, a young woman of aristocratic descent, with her son Jean-Louis Ernest, born in 1800 (fig. 1.6). The baby sits on his mother’s lap, looking at the viewer as he pulls down her décolletage, as though trying to breastfeed. Donning a light-weight white morning frock, his mother sits in a chair with her left leg on a low footrest to facilitate breastfeeding. She reaches out to pull a lightly coloured curtain across the large window, thus subduing the bright light penetrating the room and protecting her baby’s vision. The cradle, illustrated on the right, attests to the family’s privileged situation: unlike Robert’s simple wicker basket, it consists of an elegant bassinet, enveloped in a piece of white fabric, elevated on wooden legs, and covered in a golden satin blanket. Yet, though it is portable, due to its size and its lightness, it cannot be rocked. These features were not only common among the cradles of the lower and upper classes, but also among the uppermost aristocracy.122 In comparison, the bassinet designated for Marie-Antoinette’s fourth baby, Sophie Beatrix, who died prematurely when she was a year old, which is portrayed in 1789 by Louise-Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, is on a small scale. It is wrapped : 49 :
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Fig. 1.6. Henri-Pierre Danloux, Woman with a Cradle (La Dame au berceau, portrait de Jeanne de l’Horme et de son fils Jean-Louis Ernest de l’Horme), 1801, oil on canvas, 103 × 88 cm. Private collection.
in a lavish green taffeta fabric and a matching blanket, yet it is erected on wooden legs and has no inner mobility.123 Nonetheless, while the simple basket depicted in The Rest exemplifies, according to Grivel, the best sleeping environment, the rockable wooden cradle painted on the right of Greuze’s painting suggests that many parents disregarded the physicians’ sanctions against rocking. Even though both children are sleeping outside their designated beds, Household Peace of 1766 portrays a baby sleeping in its cradle (fig. 1.7). While this etching meticulously represents contemporary Rousseauian ideals, as the baby is peacefully slumbering during the day, unswaddled : 50 :
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Fig. 1.7. Jean Michel Moreau the Younger, after JeanBaptiste Greuze, Household Peace (La Paix du ménage), 1766, engraving, 51.6 × 37.8 cm. Photo © Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum (PCIngouf AB 3.8).
and unrestrained, it nevertheless lies in a wooden cradle meant to generate movement. As the very repetition of the risks of rocking a child to sleep is in itself an indication of the commonness of this practice, the popularity of rockable bassinets is not surprising. Based on numerous paintings and several remaining artifacts, some cradles were rounded in shape, as exemplified by the wooden bassinet of Marie-Laetitia, daughter of Caroline Murat.124 However, even though rigid pieces of wood could be rendered pliant by heating, steaming, or boiling, such bending techniques were much more expensive than other types of carpentry,125 : 51 :
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and thus generally signified superior social status. Consequently, like the rectangular infant beds represented by Greuze, most cradles had skate feet, thus incorporating rounded platforms that could easily generate movement.126 Other sleeping devices were often composed of simple wicker bassinets placed on a separate rounded wooden base, as exemplified by de Hooch (fig. 1.4). Nonetheless, late-eighteenth-century doctors strongly opposed methods that could generate sleep.127 Whereas Mauriceau recommended hiring a night nurse to rock the baby in her arms while singing softly,128 several pioneering obstetricians advised applying breastfeeding schedules and keeping children awake during the day to avoid nighttime wakefulness.129 Yet the majority simply instructed mothers to attend to their children’s needs and let nature determine the amount of sleep they required.130 “When one has complied with the wishes of nature ... the child is quiet, sleeps almost continuously,” wrote Leroy in 1803, “especially if he enjoys the strengthening warmth of his mother.”131 The good mother, represented in The Rest, was expected to nurse her children herself, dress them in unrestrictive clothing, and enable them to sleep during the day, after meals, without interference. Given the welter of advice, it is not surprising that mothers embraced one accessible and sensible manual, published by the Parisian midwife Marie-Angélique Le Rebours from 1767 onward in numerous editions. Unlike other authors and their relative negligence of the potential hazards of infants’ sleep to the well-being of their caregivers, Le Rebours addressed her book to exhausted young mothers in an era when the term “maternal love” flourished, and the importance of motherhood was acknowledged.
From Theory to Practice: Physicians versus Midwives During the eighteenth century, writing and publishing in France remained the privilege of only a very small group of women, who commonly wrote about marriage, maternity, and children’s education. Most of them lived in Paris and came from prosperous backgrounds, which enabled them to mingle with literary publics, writers, and scholars. Correspondingly, Madame Le Rebours was well acquainted : 52 :
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with D’Alembert, and, most importantly, Rousseau, who encouraged her to publish her views on breastfeeding.132 Significantly, her personal experience as a wife and a mother had an equally relevant influence on her writings. After seeing a number of her children die under the care of nurses, Le Rebours decided to feed her subsequent children herself. As they survived, she became a fervent crusader on behalf of maternal nursing and decided to write a book to share her personal experience with other mothers.133 The modest preface of the short first edition declares that the author does not wish to address the public, as “it would bother them. If it determines more women to nurse their children, and if it is useful to some of them, I will not waste my time.”134 Since, seven years earlier, Desessartz’s newly published manual opened with overt scrutiny of ill-advised women, who, out of ignorance, repeated their mother’s instructions,135 she must have been aware of possible criticism from the medical establishment. Indeed, the preface to the 1799 edition is not dedicated to doctors, fathers, or men in general, as was customary, but rather to nursing mothers. “In dedicating this fifth edition of my book,” she stated, “receive, tender mothers, the testimonies of my esteem, and enjoy the pleasure of owning that of the public.”136 The distinctiveness of her book in relation to other contemporary medical manuals was also epitomized by her heavy reliance on Rousseau, who was known for his criticisms of the medical establishment.137 Her description of a fictional philosopher, who calls upon women to be true mothers and to breastfeed according to the laws of nature, testifies to the influence of Émile on Le Rebours’s own writings.138 “It is so natural and so easy a thing,” she wrote, “that if the mothers were left to themselves, only to the indications of nature, and especially without advice and without systems, they would succeed without difficulty and without pain.”139 Likewise, her recommendations for caring for newborns, which include frequent bathing, open-air promenades, and loose clothing, all bear a striking resemblance to Rousseau’s suggestions, as does her disdain for wet nursing.140 Yet, as her book was designated for mothers and based on her own experience and common sense, her instructions vis-à-vis sleep – which did not appear until the third edition of her book – are unique and differ significantly from the philosopher’s primitivistic notion of sleeping outdoors amid nature.141 : 53 :
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Unlike contemporary moralists and doctors, who generally dismissed maternal sleep deprivation, Le Rebours addressed this issue by referring to the physical, spatial, and emotional aspects of sleep. In the extended third edition of her guidebook, issued in 1775, she referred to the baby as well as its mother. “The sleep of newborns for three or four hours in succession would give the mothers plenty of time to rest,” she argued. “Since newborns sleep a great deal, nursing mothers must also find time to sleep.”142 During this period, receiving visits after birth was a common practice, as women were expected to spend nearly a month in bed to recover from the agonies of labour and to supervise the newborns in the first and most dangerous month of life.143 Knowing her intended readers, Le Rebours added: “If the visits disturb all this, it is not the fault of nature. Whenever the child sleeps, in the first weeks of his life, no one should stay in the mother’s room except the child itself.”144 Her acquaintance with her targeted female readers is evident throughout the manual, reflecting her deep understanding of maternal and infantile conduct. While she explains that, during the first two months of life, babies usually sleep continuously, she urges mothers not to rouse them since, when awakened, “they move, they shout; we believe that they have trenches [stomache aches]; they are given drugs that cause them, and thus greatly harm them.”145 Albeit reminiscent of Cadogan’s advice on the matter,146 these instructions attest to a profound understanding of young mothers, who might awaken their children to make sure they are well and then use any means to put them back to sleep. Ostensibly, Le Rebours’s assertions reflect her deep conviction about the naturalness of sleep, typical to all eighteenth-century writers. However, against the sweeping medical negation of drugs, causing “folly and vertigo, which one sees every day in the children of the rich,”147 Le Rebours embraced a different approach. As she was well aware of the physical and emotional effects of infantile awakenings on the well-being of young mothers, she recommended using a healthy, natural alternative, namely water mixed with honey or chicory syrup, which, unlike the prevalent Godfrey’s Cordial, did not contain hazardous substances.148 Her innovative outlook was also exemplified by her instructions regarding the environmental aspects of babies’ sleep, namely, their cradle, room, and surroundings. Commonly, eighteenth-century doctors rarely mentioned the physical aspects of sleep, concentrating instead on the : 54 :
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scheduling of sleep and its relation to nutrition and sickness. Nevertheless, in the face of their overall repudiation of rocking, Le Rebours argued in favour of the cradle, as “it makes them sleep, and does not give them trenches.” In addition, she suggested covering the cradle “with gauze to protect them from insects, and to expose them to fresh air,”149 thus ensuring the baby’s well-being. A similar challenge of medical authorities is evident in her discussion of the common practice of co-sleeping with the mother. Since the Middle Ages, moralists, priests, and medical professionals had opposed the practice of sharing a bed with a baby, as “overlaying” – a condition in which a child is taken to its caregiver’s bed to breastfeed or sleep and then suffocates – was the most common cause of infantile death and intentional infanticide. The problem became so widespread during the fourteenth century that various ecclesiastical decrees stipulated that mothers and wet nurses were not to sleep in the same bed as children under the age of one.150 Consequently, Mauriceau argued that, when a baby falls asleep after nursing in its nurse’s bed, she might suffocate him to death, “whether wickedly to be freed from it, or innocently, she alone knows.” To avoid this mischief, “let her lay it in a cradle close to the bedside.”151 As co-sleeping became a common way of eliminating unwanted babies while escaping any claim of culpability, some late-eighteenth-century physicians followed in Mauriceau’s footsteps, suggesting placing the baby in a small, portable bassinet located next to the mother’s bed.152 Le Rebours, however, conveyed other ideas on this matter in the fifth, elaborated, edition of her book, issued in 1799. Since babies tend to constantly suckle during the first months of their lives, she argued that “it is not as inconvenient as can be imagined to breastfeed at night. Everything is a matter of habit; we go back to sleep very easily after nursing, and we sleep better.” Acknowledging that some mothers do not have a garde to help them through the night, she consoled the tired mothers by stating that “the safest way to prevent him from screaming while being able to sleep well yourselves, is to keep him at the breast in a posture that is convenient for you and safe for the child. One quickly gets used to going back to sleep while breastfeeding; whereas when one wants to go back to bed when it appears that he suckled sufficiently, he cries because he wants to feel the heat of his mother during the first months of his life.”153 : 55 :
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Unlike her male colleagues, Le Rebours emphasized the psychological aspects of sleep for both the infant and its mother. Aware of babies’ need to feel human warmth, she described the exact position in which the mother could safely lie in bed while breastfeeding, to the mutual benefit of both mother and child. For this purpose, she elucidated, the baby must be put in its mother’s bed immediately after delivery, since after giving birth, "a woman who would be left to fend for herself, to the natural feelings she senses, would have her child near her.” Any other routine is bound to reflect “the advice we listen to, the systems we adopt, the different opinions that we take,”154 rather than the unaffected voice of nature. Despite the growing demand for her book, issued in French in five editions and translated into German in 1780,155 it took a few decades before her ideas were acknowledged by the medical establishment. In a bestselling child-care manual published by the Scottish physician William Buchan in 1804 in France, England, and the United States, infants’ sleeplessness was ignored. Other than urging mothers to avoid dining too late at night, as it can jeopardize their own sleep,156 his only advice concerning children is a quotation in the appendix from Cadogan’s famous manual, dedicated to his memory, arguing that wet nurses should keep the children awake by day, and avoid lulling and rocking them to sleep.157 Although André Mallet, a Parisian physician at the Hôtel Dieu, added a few additional remarks to the French translation, his instructions merely echoed the warnings against wet nurses, the use of opiates, and the habit of rocking.158 As he claimed that children are usually placed in crowded, overheated rooms, he urged parents to expose their babies to fresh air that is advantageous to their health. “I wish that they [mothers and wet nurses] understand the danger of small or closed rooms, and the pernicious folly of covering the face of the baby sleeping in bed, or else the summit of his cradle; which forces him to continually breathe the same air during his sleep.”159 Yet, his short reflections on the sleeping environment mirror the overall neglect of this matter. As doctors believed that infants’ sleep occurred effortlessly, “no matter if it is a soft bed or a floorboard,”160 they were satisfied with the rejection of the cradle, disregarding other possibilities. A similar approach was manifested in the ninth edition of Underwood’s manual, published in 1835, after his death. Although it : 56 :
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generally repeats earlier arguments, Dr Marshal Hall, who compiled the later revisions, argued in favour of the moderate use of the cradle, since “what is there of more importance to children than sleep?”161 Nonetheless, like some of his predecessors,162 he urged parents to wean their babies from sleeping during the day and accustom them to sleeping through the night, “which is mutually beneficial to the child and the mother.”163 The conviction in the so-called naturalness of nocturnal sleep mirrors the modern process of the consolidation of sleep discussed by Ekirch, which became accepted and naturalized in the eighteenth century. This common belief led doctors to assert that wakefulness reveals health problems that must be identified and treated. Since they assumed that infants’ sleep merely reflected “nature’s intention,”164 most physicians dismissed sleeplessness as a symptom of ill nutrition, indigestion, or maternal indulgence, manifested in prolonged breastfeeding during the night. Perceiving insomnia as unnatural, they continuously blamed wet nurses for adjusting babies’ sleep for their own advantage through the use of substances (medicines) and devices (cradles),165 offering very little guidance for such problems. Rousseau’s resourceful advice on the matter suggested: “talk so much that he is forced to keep quiet, and soon he will sleep.”166 Like Underwood, Armstrong, and Smith, Dr Pierre Daunou offered sleep training, contending in his 1786 manual that if mothers nurse their babies at fixed times, they will procure “a quieter sleep; their milk will not be spoiled by insomnia, they will not be exposed to the cold of the night, uncovered to accidents and diseases which are the consequences.”167 Finally, Dr Guillaume-René Lefébure maintained that “nothing helps to make them sleep better than an air of serinette” (a musical instrument), due to its popularity and reasonable price.168 In a similar vein, Leroy recommended putting children to bed in the evening “by a soft melody and tender and prolonged sounds and to awaken them in the morning by a more or less sharp harmony.”169 Although rare, this theme was depicted in 1788 in a painting by Marguerite Gérard.170 After her mother died in 1775, Gérard moved to her sister’s house and began studying painting under the tutelage of her brother-in-law, the renowned French Rococo artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Following the birth of her nephew in 1780, she focused on depictions of happy mothers in the spirit of Rousseau, presenting : 57 :
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the home as a site of significant cultural activity and social reform. Reflecting her awareness of the changes regarding motherhood, she became a full participant in the Enlightenment thinking concerning family and maternity, portraying zealous maternal care and attention.171 Accordingly, Sleep, My Child depicts a mother playing the guitar to her sleeping baby. Although the baby is not situated in a basket, its modest wicker bassinet cannot be rocked in accordance with medical endorsements. Likewise, the palms of its hands allude to the fact that it is not swaddled. The eating utensils on the classicist stand imply that it has just finished eating before enjoying a midday slumber to the soothing sounds of music, as Leroy suggested. Nonetheless, while most physicians refrained from such advice, simply suggesting that mothers examine their children’s physical condition, as healthy children “sleep most of the time” without any trouble,172 Gérard’s painting indicates that caregivers may have used music to facilitate children’s sleep. Like the rockable bassinets portrayed by Greuze and Baron Gérard, Sleep, My Child denotes a counter-narrative to the doctors’ perspective, offering multiple, even contradictory, positions that coexisted in late-eighteenth-century French society, despite the expanding authority of the medical establishment.
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CHAPTER 2
Sleep and the Laws of Habit: Regulation and Control At seven o’clock, till the age of three or four years, and at eight o’clock, till the age of six or seven years, children ought to be put to bed.1 — Dr Alfred Donné, 1842
In a caricature published by Honoré Daumier in the satirical newspaper Le charivari on 22 November 1840, as part of the series Married Life, a couple of parents are lying motionless on their backs in bed, sound asleep, while their cat lies quietly at their feet (fig. 2.1). Wrapped in a blanket in a small wicker cradle, its head slightly elevated on a pillow, their baby, too, is sleeping. Raised on wooden legs, the cradle – especially designed to contain the little body – protects the baby from the coldness of the floor, while keeping it within maternal reach. Unlike The Rest of 1759 (fig. 1.1), depicting infants’ sleep as a chaotic, unpredictable occurrence, Daumier’s caricature ostensibly conveys the ordinariness of human sleep, which, according to the French pediatrician cited above, takes place during the night, in separate beds, using particular attire and bedding. However, the subtitle – “Behold the Moment (after Midnight) When Calm and Peace Truly Reign in Happy Homes, Better Late Than Never” – questions the commonness of this scene, hinting at the couple’s struggle to get their child to bed. Indeed, in a caricature published on 28 February 1838, as part of the series Sketches of Expressions, a comparable couple is sitting up exhausted in their bed in night frocks, wearing nightcaps (fig. 2.2). The smiling, affectionate mother holds her child, saying: “Last night he was a very naughty one, mammmmma’s little darling!” By contrasting the couple’s exhaustion with their devoted smiles, Daumier questions the relations between parents and their offspring whenever sleep is involved.
Fig. 2.1. Honoré Daumier, Behold the moment (after midnight) when calm and peace truly reign in happy homes. Better late than never (Crie donc, Voilà le moment [passé minuit], où le calme et la paix règnent véritablement dans les heureux ménages. Vaut mieux tard que jamais), from the series Married Life (Mœurs conjugales), pl. 29, lithography, 23 × 25.2 cm, published in Le charivari 9, no. 528 (22 November 1840). Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cabinet des Estampes et de la Photographie (photograph provided by gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France).
Fig. 2.2. Honoré Daumier, Last night he has been a very naughty one, mammmmma’s little darling! (Il a donc été bien méchant cette nuit le petit amour à sa me-mère), from the series Sketches of expressions (Croquis d’expressions), pl. 5, lithography, 27.2 × 20.5 cm, published in Le Charivari (28 February 1838). Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cabinet des Estampes et de la Photographie (photograph provided by gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France).
The growing awareness of babies’ sleeping disorders, resulting in the medicalization of children’s sleep, is the focus of this chapter. The medicalization of sleep, I argue, stemmed from several changes that transpired in the 1830s, when the attitude toward nature, human sleep, and medical knowledge was dramatically modified. The rising control over nature affected the scientific discourse regarding sleep, which was now conceived of as less natural than previously thought, as the process of urbanization entailed routine behaviours of the inhabitants, requiring the organization of a fixed everyday schedule to achieve regularity for : 61 :
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adults and children alike. Since Western societies became characterized by long work hours that accentuated the importance of a good night’s sleep, they generated a growing awareness of night wakefulness, which negated the modern idea of consolidated sleep.2 Given the social, psychological, and economic consequences of infantile insomnia, pediatricians took on the task of regulating and controlling it, targeting mothers, who, given the growing appreciation of the medical profession in general, were more prone to accept their advice. After decades of limited social recognition, during the 1830s, the medical establishment began to achieve notable successes in France, which resulted in the rise of the prestige of the Académie nationale de médecine, the central honorary body tied to the state.3 Two separate occurrences contributed to their growing eminence. The first development was the rise of psychiatry.4 The second was the Parisian hygienists’ success in controlling the 1832 outbreak of cholera due to a growing awareness of the concept of hygiene and the causes of infectious diseases.5 The cholera epidemic became a significant threshold between older and modern conceptions and practices of disease, proving that disease was not related only to topographic or climatic conditions, but rather to social conditions.6 Both of these fields, I propose, directly influenced the medical subjugation of human sleep. Psychiatry – dedicated to mental disorders – opened up new avenues for the medical establishment to treat ambiguous, equivocal human conditions, thus paving the way for the medicalization of human sleep. Hygienists – dedicated to the science of health – took control of human beings’ well-being, by instructing medical edification vis-à-vis “natural” bodily practices, such as sleep, and striving to domesticate them. Such understandings altered medical recommendations vis-à-vis infants’ sleep. Unlike Rousseau and his contemporaries, who believed that education and nature should be intertwined, nineteenth-century physicians considered nature to be in opposition to education. Rather than arguing that sleep “follows the laws of nature,”7 they now claimed that “sleep obeys the laws of habit.”8 Consequently, this formerly “natural” phenomenon became “de-naturalized” through medical guidance, which offered a long list of disciplinary rules that were eventually destined to “re-naturalize” infants’ sleep through hygienic instructions. Instead of embracing the former ideal of babies sleeping when and where they : 62 :
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desired, children’s sleep became medicalized, and babies were now required to follow specific rules and sleep at home, in their own cradle, at specified times, and in particular positions, as illustrated by Daumier. This process reached its peak in the second half of the nineteenth century, when pediatricians forged an alliance with mothers of all classes to shape a medical specialty that served professional interests, humanitarian needs, personal welfare, and social ideologies.9 In an era of growing prestige for the medical profession, doctors were eager to promote new problems to which they could offer solutions, thus strengthening their position and social influence. Given the notable improvements in children’s health, parents – who became more involved in their children’s lives – readily accepted pediatricians’ advice, striving to provide the future generation with physical and mental stability and comfort.10
The De-naturalization of Sleep During the nineteenth century, belief in the naturalness of sleep diminished, paving the way for a new understanding of the complexity of this standard practice and the ways to regulate it. These changes were part of the growing control of humankind over nature that was cultivated in the first decades of the century, when industrialization confirmed humanity’s ability to tame and conquer nature.11 Nicholas Green argues that modern urbanization, which crystallized in Paris in the 1830s and 1840s, created a new “spectacle of nature” that played a significant role in securing and maintaining bourgeois hegemony.12 These new conceptions were revealed, among other things, in the growing scientific management of gardens, as contemporary horticulturists did not perceive nature as simply given, but always ready for transformation and improvement. The challenge to the common understandings of the natural and the artificial blurred the aesthetic and ontological boundaries separating the God-given from the man-made.13 The changing discourse on nature and the pursuit of artificial substitutes, as manifested by various medical innovations regarding the human body,14 also affected the perception of sleep. During the first decades of the nineteenth century, the scientific debate over mesmerism, somnambulism, magnetism, and hypnosis defied the assumption that sleep is a natural occurrence. Physicians slowly realized that sleep, : 63 :
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conjointly a physical, mental, and emotional condition, is in fact not a phase nor a transitional state but a unique liminal position that lies between life and death, doing and being, unification and separation, voluntary and involuntary, universal and specific, biological and social, sickness and health, consciousness and unconsciousness.15 Such views gained much attention among medical professionals during the second half of the nineteenth century. In a book published in 1859, the psychiatrist Jacques-Joseph Moreau distinguished between the first sleep, profound but dreamless, and the second, mild sleep, which includes dreams.16 Concurrently, however, he discussed other cases, such as “somniatio”: a unique state when the individual is “split between waking and sleeping, between reality and the illusions that make up the dream.”17 The ambiguity of sleep was further developed in Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault’s treatise On Sleep and Similar States, published in 1866, dedicated to “artificial sleepers” and “states analogous to the state of sleep,”18 namely, dreams, somnambulism, magnetism, and hypnosis. Based on his observations of his patients, he claimed that artificial sleepers do not differ from ordinary sleepers. Unlike his eighteenth-century predecessors, he argued that sleep is a complex practice, as “it varies according to the age, sex, temperament, and even within the same individual, according to the degree of fatigue, temperature, habits, etc.”19 Such theories were embraced by hygienists who wished to improve social health. Led by French physicians who rejected the orthodox medical practice, the hygienic movement was dedicated to teaching people how to live disease-free lives. This innovative notion reflected the development of what Dr Jules Guèrin, editor of the Gazette Médicale de Paris, called “médicine sociale” (“social medicine”), which sought to implement social care through lifestyle education and behavioural interventions.20 This field gradually developed in the 1840s as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution and the subsequent increase in poverty and disease among workers. Consequently, it emphasized medical education and health care through the implementation of a holistic perspective in the interest of fostering a healthier society.21 Wishing to discover the systemic causes of disease, hygienists concluded that the primary place for studying pathology was not the hospital or clinic but society itself. “In society, what we know best about the doctor is the mandate he fulfills at the bedside of diseases,” wrote Dr : 64 :
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Louis Rampal in this respect. Hygienists, on the other hand, “touch on almost all difficulties of the social economy.”22 Using socio-economic insights, hygienists hoped to discover the natural laws governing individual and collective health, emphasizing sanitary, moral, and social reform, while striving to lower mortality rates and improve the quality of life.23 “The hygienist,” argued Dr Louis Cyprien Descieux in 1869, must familiarize all people – “superior men as well as the masses” – with their bodies, “everything that has to do with food, dwellings, clothes, care of the body would be done with intelligence, and consequently, a certain number of infirmities and diseases would be prevented.” By stressing the hardship of modern times, ruled by “immense industrial developments and commerce” that jeopardize people’s health and morality, “the hygienist does even more: he teaches us to enjoy ourselves.”24 The growing medical interest in people’s living standards and life quality affected the realm of sleep. From the 1870s onward, doctors developed a profound interest in its modus operandi, discussing sleep’s anatomical, physiological, biological, hygienic, pathological, mental, and psychological aspects.25 “At the present time,” wrote Edward Pepper, a member of the Parisian faculty of medicine, in 1877, “a number of scientists and diligent researchers deal with these problems, study sleep, try to understand it, try to explain it.”26 As physicians understood the vital importance of sleep for the well-being of humankind, they also investigated sleeplessness, concentrating on “febrile, nervous, and mental illness,” which can induce wakefulness. “Insomnia,” Pepper stated, “is depressing, it weakens our vital forces, tires our intelligence, makes us recognize all our fragility; it causes a kind of nervous erythrism, which produces headaches, dizziness, exhaustion, neurosis, madness.”27 In an era of urbanism, industrialization, and a growing appreciation of efficiency, sleep was no less appreciated than other physical activities, which were often encouraged for ameliorating the quality of sleep.28 Hygienists repeatedly argued that sleep is beneficial “not only to health but also to the mood and spirit,”29 as it “maintains natural gaiety” and protects people from melancholy.30 Since the need for order was imperative in an industrialized capitalist society governed by a world of work, progress, and productivity, insomnia – like other unruly behaviours – had to be marginalized and controlled. As hygiene was correlated with new conceptions of normalcy, which provided a basis for the practice : 65 :
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of medicine and social formations, physicians insisted that adults sleep between six to eight continuous hours every night in a quiet, ventilated room. “The bed should be firm rather than soft, raised towards the head,” they argued, “and the blankets should be suitably thick.”31 Such ideas quickly penetrated the realm of childhood, as numerous moral reformers, politicians, doctors, demographers, and hygienists dedicated their efforts to reducing rates of child mortality, understanding that “these frail creatures were surrounded by dangers, against which they had to be protected.”32 Accordingly, in addition to an elaborate discussion of the physiology, pathology, hygiene, and psychology of adults’ sleep, Marie de Manacéïne, a pioneer in the field of somnology (the study of sleep or sleep science), addressed infants’ sleep, which, according to Pepper, “has not been sufficiently observed.”33 “Sleep, as everyone knows, lasts longer in children,” she wrote, “and they fall asleep much more quickly and easily than adults.” Nonetheless, she maintained that, even though selfish nurses and servants “like young children to sleep for as long as possible,” it is necessary to remember that prolonged sleep may be harmful, “since consciousness requires exercise for its development and, thus, the newborn infant must not be allowed to pass all its hours in sleep.” While condemning artificial methods of putting children to sleep, De Manacéïne stated that: “Between the ages of one and two years, children need 16 to 18 hours of sleep out of 24; between two and three years of age, 16 to 17 hours; between three and four years of age, 15 to 17 hours … only after the completion of growth, at the age of nineteen or twenty, can it be safely brought as low as 6 to 8 hours a day.”34 Since municipal administrators believed that “enlightening mothers sometimes means saving babies’ lives,”35 physicians provided mothers with written information used to create a “profession” of motherhood. As mothers were expected to devote themselves entirely to their children, infantile insomnia turned from a family problem to an exclusive maternal responsibility. The growing cultural importance of the role of motherhood, reinforced in France during the Third Republic, further stirred medical interest in the effects of infants’ sleep and sleeplessness on the physical and psychological state of their mothers.36 Accordingly, even though the early medical treatises – designated for specialists – argued that proper nutrition and maternal affection were enough to : 66 :
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guarantee a good night’s sleep, nineteenth-century pediatricians, who targeted mothers, offered specific advice with regard to this matter. The growing medical interest in mundane occurrences such as sleep was a result of the increasing literacy among women of the middle and upper classes, which stimulated the publication of child-care manuals, as well as influencing their content.37 To supplement the work of private and public Catholic primary schools,38 the French government took additional measures to enhance female education. This tendency increased in the last decades of the century through secularizing education reform. Following the disastrous Franco-Prussian War, which led to the fall of the Second French Empire in 1870, many in the republic called for a massive reform in women’s education, since one of the prime factors of the war’s outcome was attributed to Prussia’s superior schooling system. The Camille Sée Law, introduced in October 1878 and passed in December 1880, guaranteed free secular education for all children, regardless of gender. In addition to lessons in arithmetic, history, geography, and elements of the natural sciences, young girls were expected to learn home economics and the basic rules of hygiene as a means of preparing them for their future role as mothers.39 Due to the emphasis on home skills and hygiene, during the last decades of the nineteenth century, nearly every child-rearing manual conceived of sleep as a vital part of children’s physical and moral education, offering strict rules about its location and schedule. Instead of treating potential fatal dangers caused by external circumstances, pediatricians underlined risks – namely, disorders brought on by personal choice – while advancing the concept of “healthicization” through lifestyle education and behavioural interventions.40 “Thanks to all these little details of education, our baby is, therefore, already, a baby of good company,” wrote the pediatrician Georges d’Albrays in a journal column dedicated to the “Moral Hygiene of Childhood.” “His habits become so inherent in his nature, that he practises them unconsciously.”41 Concurrently, hygienic instructions appeared in children’s books, designed to educate young girls and prepare them for their impending maternal duties. Such was the popular picture book Doll Game, written by the Parisian pediatrician André-Théodore Brochard in 1881 and illustrated by the Parisian painter Marie Adrien Lavieille.42 Each coloured : 67 :
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Fig. 2.3. Adrien Marie (illustrations) and André-Théodore Brochard, M.D. (text), Jeu de la poupée (Paris: Charles Gillot, 1881), 2. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France (photograph provided by gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France).
print, representing a young girl taking care of her beloved doll, was accompanied by a text written by the good doctor (see, for example, fig. 2.3). In the spirit of moral hygiene, Brochard’s short, easily comprehensible texts described the proper and medically approved manner of feeding, bathing, strolling, vaccinating, and playing with dolls – and, correspondingly, also with young babies. Whereas children’s books, like most journals and manuals, targeted bourgeois readers, several guidebooks were exclusively written for working-class mothers,43 who could also benefit from medical advice through hospitals, crèches (i.e., day-care centres for babies under two years of age), and clinics, such as the Drop of Milk (Goutte de lait), founded in 1892 for the welfare of France’s children.44 The medicalization of infants’ sleep occurred on different levels, including the interactional level (i.e., face-to-face doctor-patient relations), the conceptual level (i.e., when medical vocabulary is used to describe a “problem”), and the institutional level (i.e., when organizations use a medical approach to manage or control a particular problem). Even though pediatricians may be seen as the loudest contributors, in fact, they merely responded to the emergent public demand. As health became a commodity in the last decades of the century, consumers – mainly young mothers – became a significant part of the “engines of medicalization,”45 regularly seeking medical advice about their babies’ sleeping habits. “There is not a week, a day even, when I am not consulted with regard to children who do not sleep,” wrote Brochard in 1880. “I am being constantly questioned, in my clinic, in my correspondences, what can be done to make these little beings sleep, so rebellious according to mothers, during sleep.”46
Alfred Donné and the Rules of Hygiene One of the first Parisian physicians to advance the new medicalization of sleep was the pre-eminent pediatrician Alfred Donné, cited above. His child-care manual, published in France in 1842, was circulated in three editions and four reprints throughout the century and was still published in 1905. Having been translated into Spanish in 1847 and into English in 1859, his treatise influenced countless Western
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pediatricians from the second half of the century onward, throughout Western Europe and in the United States alike.47 As one of the most articulate proponents of the medicalization of child care, Donné introduced a new “scientific,” orderly form of child care based on rules prescribed by medical experts.48 These ideologies were laid out in Donné’s preface, where he argued that former manuals presented “only vague principles” and “ridiculous declamations upon the laws of nature … not one of them lays down rules drawn from observation of the facts and ideas of science.”49 As he assumed that the origins of many of life’s evils went back to infancy,50 he believed in “preserving undisputed authority over children.” “How shall an infant be made to submit to medical prescriptions which displease him but on which his cure depends,” he pondered, “if he is not accustomed to obeying at an early age?”51 Unlike that of eighteenth-century obstetricians, who mainly dealt with life-threatening diseases, Donné’s advice replaced the clinical with the social. By amplifying Dr Smith’s humble suggestions, he aimed to assist parents in educating their children by offering guidelines for everyday occurrences. “What our age wants,” he argued, “is neither zeal, goodwill, nor maternal devotion, but a good direction.”52 In light of such goals, Donné maintained that a pediatrician should replace remedies with regimens to “popularize and render common the principles of hygiene.” Accordingly, he claimed that, although a mother “should often ask for nothing better than to sacrifice herself,” she must teach her children “to sleep continuously, for a fixed time, and without waking at too short intervals.”53 Through a detailed list of dos and don’ts,54 Donné achieved the medicalization of infants’ sleep, which, according to sociologist Peter Conrad, is indicative of a problem that has been defined, described, understood, or treated by medical intervention.55 Through an elaborate discussion of babies’ insomnia, he de-normalized what was previously conceived of as “natural,” redefined it as “a condition,” and then went on to suggest ways of treating it. By describing mothers who “can no longer leave them alone an instant without their waking up, so light does their sleep become,” Donné established that it is “an invariable rule that the child must sleep in his own bed, and be made to lie awake in it until sleep comes.”56 While arguing that children “adapt themselves to everything which a firm will imposes on them,” he assured his female readers that their children’s : 70 :
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“resistance is, most frequently, neither very long nor very obstinate.”57 Decades before the contemporary “cry-it-out” method, which involves “baby-training” children to self-soothe by allowing them to cry for a predetermined length of time before offering external comfort,58 Donné suggested similar ideas. “It is enough to be determined upon it,” he sustained, “and to proceed in a clear and precise manner.” By citing several cases, which could easily have been written by exhausted twenty-first-century parents, he described babies who “never enjoyed a peaceful sleep nor complete repose” until their father decided “to put an end to this injurious habit,” placing the baby in its cradle wide awake while ignoring its cries. “The same practice repeated for several days was enough to bring matters right,” he established. To further convince his readers, Donné claimed that one of his own children grew accustomed to sleeping in his nurse’s arms. When he reached the age of six months, the good doctor applied his new method, and, indeed, the child “became very angry, yelled, cried, tossed himself about, and appeared really in despair.” Nonetheless, “never since has he made the least difficulty at being put to bed wide awake,” sleeping serenely through the night.59 Donné’s book received enthusiastic responses, as he himself modestly acknowledged in the preface of the second edition, issued in 1846, stating that it was purchased by so many mothers that it was sold out, making the second edition necessary.60 His book was equally praised by his colleagues, who maintained that, speaking “only from experience,” he “leaves aside the theory to deal only with the practice. Instead of confining himself to general principles of application, he is trying to give useful advice.” Accordingly, “The instructions he presents to mothers on how to organize either the sleep or the nourishment of their children are all the more precious as their actions are not limited to physical education alone.”61
The Time to Sleep Following Donné’s example, nearly all his successors published elaborate rules with regard to babies’ sleep, citing a long list of factors required for restful slumber, related both to the caregiver (feeding, bathing, sleeping rituals), the baby (physical alterations during sleep, recommended : 71 :
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postures, clothing, sanitation, hygiene, and sleep duration, dreams, and the inner world), and the surroundings (cradle design, measurements, and height, clothing, bedclothes, mattress, pillow, room temperature, recommended ratios of air, light, and noise).62 As sleep became the ultimate measure of children’s health and vigour, pediatricians reputedly addressed its quality, quantity, timing, duration, and setting. By stressing the complete necessity of educating young children to learn to fall asleep independently on their own, they sought to epitomize the strict application of the laws of hygiene. “Far from raising children in a greenhouse, they must be raised a little harshly,” wrote Brochard in 1874. “We must protect them from gluttony, jealousy, anxiety, fear of obscurity, these childhood passions which can later have serious consequences for their health.”63 In the same vein, Eugène Bouchut, a renowned Parisian pediatrician from the Hôpital des Enfants Malades, the children’s hospital in Paris, argued concisely: “Nothing is more dangerous than letting young children get into a bad habit of hygiene.”64 Being aware of the importance of sleep for children’s physical, moral, and psychological state, physicians distinguished between good sleep, namely, “calm, deep, and sufficiently prolonged,” and “an imperfect sleep,” which “inevitably and rapidly” brings on a loss of strength, for both mother and baby.65 “If we compare the children who sleep much with those who sleep little,” stated De Manacéïne in 1896, “it is easy to see that the first are better nourished and fatter,” although they may exhibit “a delay in intellectual development.” The latter, however, “are for the most part nervous and precocious.” When parents strive to achieve a “normal development of the intellectual powers,” they must make sure “that there should neither be excess nor deficiency of sleep, but correspondence to the real needs of the organism.”66 Consequently, she maintained that, during the first four to six weeks of life, “there ought to be two waking hours during the day.” This duration should gradually increase as the baby grows older, at which time sleep should take place exclusively at night.67 Already during the last decades of the eighteenth century, physicians and moralists repeatedly argued that “the time of rest is at night,” thus advising mothers to minimalize sleep during the day.68 During the nineteenth century, such rules of behaviour were likewise recommended, not in the name of nature, but precisely because it was : 72 :
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conceived of as unnatural for babies. Indeed, even though Daumier represented infants’ sleep during the night (see, for example, fig. 2.2), nearly all images illustrated this occurrence in plain daylight (see, for example, fig. 0.1). Such portrayals manifested the uniqueness of babies’ sleep in comparison with that of adults, who were expected to implement a consolidated “eight-hour sleep per night.”69 Accordingly, though pediatricians stressed the importance of allowing newborn babies to sleep in accordance with their own needs,70 a routine application of their hygienic rules would gradually accustom them to sleep mainly during the night. To this end, doctors addressed the baby’s sleeping environment, urging parents to let their babies sleep during the day “in the midst of the moderate noise of the household, and in the light.”71 Donné’s opposition to silenced, obscure sleeping environments stemmed from his conviction that children who are accustomed to such conditions may coerce the entire household to “maintain the greatest stillness around them while they sleep … daring not to speak nor walk, for fear of interrupting their sleep.” By sustaining the natural differentiation between day and night, babies were expected to learn to distinguish between the two and, in due course, to sleep exclusively at night.72 Though seemingly challenging, “it is, however, not difficult to regulate children,” wrote the Parisian pediatrician Stéphane Courgey. “You simply must let them cry, patiently and without weakness.” Otherwise, “everything goes from bad to worse. With willpower and firmness, it is very easy to get children to adopt good habits.”73 The importance of sleep training was similarly stressed in a book devoted to children’s illnesses issued from 1859 in several editions by Édouard Le Barillier, head of the children’s hospital (Hôpital des Enfants) in Bordeaux: The child should not sleep on the lap of his mother or nurse; he must be placed in his cradle whenever sleep arrives. An excellent thing would be to put him in the cradle wide-awake; it is inevitable that if, immediately after birth, one took this habit, one would no longer be in the necessity of lulling him to sleep by caresses or by songs that often last endless hours … persistence and maternal willingness will soon overcome the slight resistance which the child will first oppose; but if : 73 :
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once we let ourselves be bowed by cries, we will quickly lose all the fruits of our efforts; and it will be necessary to surrender to his whims.74 Children who were reluctant to obey the rules of hygiene were immediately brought to the doctor, as constant crying after three or four months was perceived as a manifestation of an educational problem that needed to be resolved. In an article published in the monthly journal La jeune mère; ou, l’éducation du premier âge: journal illustré de l’enfance, Carron de la Carrière, a physician from the Hôpital des Enfants Malades, described a child who was brought to him for medical examination, since, according to his parents, “he has no sleep, waking up at the slightest noise.”75 As a newborn’s uninterrupted sleep was no longer perceived as natural, manifestations of babies’ insomnia became a medical problem. This viewpoint was ingeniously described in a baby’s fictitious diary, published in La jeune mère by Courgey between 1897 and 1898. This so-called memoir, based on the author’s own experiences as a father to a newborn son, vividly illustrated the first year of life of a French baby boy belonging to the bourgeoisie, born on 25 September 1896.76 “The facts told are taken from life, seen, heard, and exposed as simply as possible – sometimes discussed,” he wrote. “We wanted to paint a picture of a family raising a child at home,” thinking that “the precepts of hygiene would perhaps be more likely to be understood in the course of a kind of novel on hygiene.”77 In the sixteenth chapter, after being examined by his doctor,78 the alleged baby describes his sleep: “I hear them say here and there that I inverse the day and the night and that the opposite would be better for everyone. But what do you want? I sleep when I’m sleepy, that’s all! Sometimes I happen to sleep fifteen or twenty hours during the day and keep myself awake all night. When I sleep a lot at night and very little during the day, I still hear complaints about myself! I have my sleep account, and I don’t care at all whether one should sleep regularly – before or after sunset – at noon or midnight. I am absolutely indifferent to it, although they try to teach me that it is better to sleep at night.”79 Even though doctors perceived these chaotic sleeping patterns as natural during the first weeks of the baby’s life, they were determined to educate babies to : 74 :
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sleep in conformity with the up-to-date, consolidated manner “from the start! … Yes, really, from the start!”80 It can be assumed that many parents refrained from adopting such sweeping recommendations, as clearly demonstrated by Daumier’s exhausted mother, walking on tiptoes after managing to rock her baby to sleep in her arms (fig. 0.3). In fact, the physicians’ recurrent insistence on the matter clearly reveals its ongoing popularity. “Many women … by a thousand more or less ingenious means, favour in their infants, the too great tendency that they have to sleep,” claimed Dr Casimir Degoix. “That, to have peace [avoir la paix], like they say. It is still, unfortunately, the most widely spread method used in the countryside today – where babies are rocked to sleep. If the rocking does not succeed, quickly they are packed with milk.”81 Even though rocking was previously criticized as causing dizziness,82 Le Barillier maintained that, in fact, its harmfulness lies elsewhere, as not only is it “by no means necessary,” but “it is a bad habit that becomes hard to break.”83 Comparable accusations were repeated in one of Dr François Barjon’s articles in La jeune mère from 1896. After stating that, instead of taking care of the baby’s troubles, mothers simply lay them in their own beds, he added: “When a child cries, you have to look for the cause.” Some babies cry because they are hungry, too hot, or too cold. Yet, many others shout because they have acquired the habit of falling asleep in the arms of their caregivers instead of in their cradle. “I repeat,” he wrote, “do not accustom him to being rocked and fall asleep only with songs or in the midst of the silence of those present. The baby must fall asleep alone.”84 Similar advice was repeated by Bouchut, who argued “it is still fairly generally believed that children need to be put to sleep [endormir], either by caressing them when they are in bed or by holding them on the knees until sleep has weighed down their eyelids.” As a result, when the baby wakes up at night, his caregivers are forced to repeat the same manoeuvres. “It is a bad children’s habit,” he concluded. “They can be raised quite differently, and their sleep is no less profitable. You just have to place them wide awake in their cradle, and they soon get into the habit of falling asleep.”85 Brochard’s Doll Game further advances these instructions, striving to implement the laws of hygiene by acculturating young girls. Accordingly, unlike Céline, the protagonist of the doll novel published : 75 :
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Fig. 2.4. Amédée Bédelet, Celine Rocks Her Doll (Céline berce sa poupée), in Les jeux de la poupée: conversations d’une petite fille avec sa poupée, mêlées de contes, fables et historiettes (Paris: Amédée Bédelet, 1865), n.p. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France (photograph provided by gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France).
in 1865, who rocks her doll Lili to sleep (fig. 2.4), Brochard’s heroine is simply standing, attentively watching her doll as it lies in its cradle (fig. 2.3). “The little girl admires her doll who is profoundly asleep,” wrote the doctor underneath the image. “A doll must always sleep in its cradle and not in the arms or on the knees of its mommy. It tires them both. We must not give it this bad habit. The doll must never sleep with its mother.”86 By strictly applying the rules of “moral education,” the physicians aimed to fashion the “good child” (l’enfant sage),87 that is, the future virtuous citizen. “When we were little, and we had to swallow a slightly bitter medicine,” wrote d’Albrays in La jeune mère, “our dissatisfaction often resulted in screams or crying.” Today, however, “the vast majority of babies demonstrate, in these serious events of childhood, a stoic calm. We see three-year-olds swallowing cod liver oil – once our terror! – without batting an eyelid … This is, certainly, remarkable progress which we must be congratulated for,” he concluded.88 Such views were echoed by the 1898 fictitious baby’s journal mentioned earlier. “I suckle regularly, my nights are calm,” he states, mirroring the outcomes of his stern education. “I look like a good little child, it seems, and of good composition.”89 At the age of three months, he writes: “My health remains well. I sleep beautifully at night and sometimes sleep seven hours in a row.”90 At five months, he describes: “I sleep seven consecutive hours without breastfeeding, and continue to chat in the morning and laugh out loud.”91 These issues gained acclaim in popular advice editorials (“causerie du docteur”) and Q & A columns (“correspondence”) featured in nearly every copy of La jeune mère, published from 1873 to 1905.92 “It is there, in this correspondence that I maintain with my readers from all parts of France, that one can find proof that there is still delicacy, kindness, and maternal devotion among French women!” wrote Dr Théophile Caradec with enthusiasm.93 Edited by Brochard, La jeune mère was sold all over France under the patronage of the Sociétés protectrices de l’enfance de Lyon, which aimed to reduce child mortality rates by “teaching mothers the hygiene of childhood, which they nearly all disregard.”94 As Brochard had observed that, among all the women’s newspapers dedicated to fashion, home decoration, and embroidery, not one was dedicated to motherhood, his journal was committed “to : 77 :
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tell young mothers each month how they should raise their newborns.” “La jeune mère will not be a medical journal,” he elucidated, “but a childhood hygiene journal,” dedicated to “the physical and moral education of the child.”95 Accordingly, in addition to insisting in the magazine’s first issue that “the young mother must comply as strictly as possible with the advice given to her by her doctor,”96 Brochard offered strict rules regarding the physical aspects of sleep, its location, and scheduling. “First and foremost,” he wrote in 1880, “when a child who is not sick, does not sleep, it is always the fault of his mother or his nurse” (emphasis in the original). “From the first day, from the first hour, we must, as I keep repeating, put the child in his cradle as soon as he suckled. If he screams, we let him scream; he will quickly fall asleep. Acting in this manner during the first days, the child converts this habit without difficulties … For twenty years, I heard nurses say to me: ‘Ah! Sir, this poor child does not sleep, he cries so much, all night long, that he goes through the roof.’ Need I say that I have never seen infants on the roof and that I have always seen these children sleep.”97 Such recommendations, which assumed parental responsibility over their babies’ sleeping habits, coincided with the growing commodification of babies’ sleep. Some popular merchandise, like newly composed lullabies (berceuses), circulated via prints and publicized in mothers’ journals,98 contradicted medicinal orders. Yet many others, including comfortable bedding, special nighttime garments, and hygienic beds designed especially for children, followed the medical endorsement, as we shall see in chapters five and six. Lastly, the growing importance of babies’ sleep was manifested – as well as fashioned – by the rising popularity of artistic portrayals of mothers lovingly watching over their sleeping babies (see, for example, fig. 0.1). Their diversity, among conservative and avant-garde artists alike, attests to the growing interest in babies’ sleep, revealing the complex affiliation between medicine, society, and visual culture. Yet, while such images reflected the dominance of pediatricians’ advice vis-à-vis sleep, they simultaneously affected the doctors, as is evident from the growing number of medical illustrations portraying babies’ sleep. The interchange between the art world and the medical establishment is demonstrated by Hygiène de la première enfance (Early Childhood Hygiene), : 78 :
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Fig. 2.5. Eugène Bouchut, Hygiène de la première enfance: guide des mères pour l’allaitement le sevrage et le choix de la nourrice chez les nouveau-nés, sixth edition (Paris: Baillière, 1874), title page. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France (photograph provided by gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France).
one of the most influential manuals, written by Bouchut, published in numerous editions from 1845 to the end of the century, and translated into several languages.99 The fifth edition of nearly six hundred pages, issued in 1866, included for the first time, as inscribed on the title page, forty-nine illustrations. Most of them related to breastfeeding and artificial nursing, including breast pumps, artificial nipples, and bottles.100 While all these plates were reprinted in the sixth edition, issued in 1874, the doctor added three new drawings, all related to infants’ sleep. Two of them represent a “berceau pèse-bébé du Docteur Groussin” (a baby-weighing cradle ), designated to combine sleep and the weighing of babies,101 as shall be discussed in chapter six. This novel instrument reflected the rise of the new discipline of “Puericulture” (the science of child care), which adopted innovative scientific ways of treatment, including methodical charts describing the exact amount of nourishment babies need, while taking into account their age and weight.102 The third image – printed in the middle of the title page in the following editions – bears a striking resemblance to The Cradle of 1872 (fig. 0.1) by representing a fashionable young mother sitting on a chair, watching her baby sleeping serenely in its modern crib (fig. 2.5).103 Bouchut’s decision to start his prodigious manual with an image of a sleeping baby testifies to the wide-ranging prevalence of infants’ sleep in French culture. In modern, urban French society of the time, sleep had transformed into a potential problem that could jeopardize the well-being of the entire family, children and parents alike. The widespread use of vaccination, combined with improved nutrition, enabled pediatricians to develop an interest in aspects of medicine other than diseases, transitioning from an essentially clinical to a social focus.104 Instead of focusing primarily on curative remedies, they concentrated on prevention, striving to assist mothers in maintaining their children’s sleep through the laws of hygiene. As doctors believed that “the origin of many evils in life goes back to infancy,”105 their advice generated undisputed authority over children, helping shape “normal,” vigorous, and law-abiding future citizens.
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Part two Mothers
Fig. 3.1. Léon Emile Caille, Her Pride and Joy (Sa fierté et sa joie), 1866, oil on panel, 24.5 × 32.7 cm. Private collection.
CHAPTER 3
The Institution of Motherhood: Vigilance and Bliss Maternal love is, without a doubt, the best guardian of the child.1 —Dr André-Théodore Brochard, 1877
In Her Pride and Joy, painted by the academic artist Léon Emile Caille in 1866, a mother is kneeling at the foot of a cradle, looking at her baby (fig. 3.1). Unlike in The Rest, painted nearly a century earlier and portraying a baby sleeping on his mother’s lap (fig. 1.1), the child is situated in a wicker cradle, its head against a large cushion, and its body is covered with a white sheet and thin, decorated blankets, in compliance with contemporary medical instructions. Judging by the modest furniture and the small scale of her chamber, the young woman belongs to the rural bourgeoisie. Yet, instead of attending to her household chores, picking up the small child’s rattle from the floor, or else arranging her own bed, depicted in the background, she is completely absorbed in the act of watching. Much like Edma Pontillon in Morisot’s painting (fig. 0.1), or the attentive mother in Bouchut’s child-care manual (fig. 2.5), she is not engaged in any labour. Instead, she gently places her hand on her baby, inspecting its serene face with love and admiration. Albeit humorously, similar maternal devotion was manifested by Daumier. In Is He Pretty! This Cherub! a mother holds a candle and looks proudly at her vexed-looking baby, who is sleeping in a peculiar position in its cradle, as her husband stands behind her (fig. 3.2). The baby’s ugliness ridicules the newfangled ideal of infants’ sleep by focusing on the parents, who instead of sleeping, are staring at their sleeping infant. The father’s visible fatigue, conveyed by his weary facial
Fig. 3.2. Honoré Daumier, Is he pretty! This cherub! (Est-il joli! ... ce chérubin!), from the series Croquis d’expressions, pl. 45, published in Le charivari 8, no. 48 (17 February 1839), lithography, 26.8 × 20.5 cm. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cabinet des Estampes et de la Photographie (photograph provided by gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France).
expression, indicates that he does not share his wife’s enthusiasm. In contrast to the delighted maternal gaze, or Greuze’s affectionate father (fig. 1.7), her husband is standing with slumped shoulders, hands in his pockets, wondering when he will ever get some sleep. While she is entirely focused on her baby, it seems that he is fantasizing about his own bed, wondering if he will ever be so lucky as to sleep in it again. During the Renaissance, maternal watchfulness was widely represented in religious art, which portrayed the Virgin Mary supervising her sleeping son (see, for example, fig. 0.2). A similar theme, albeit secularized, appeared in Dutch genre scenes (fig. 1.4), which gained popularity in France in the late-eighteenth century,2 as well as in a small number of early-nineteenth-century portraits.3 From the 1860s onward, however, their number grew significantly, and dozens of images, exhibited in the Salon, repeatedly portrayed young women of various : 84 :
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Fig. 3.3. Henri BouchetDoumenq, Young Mother from Arles (Jeune mère arlésienne), 1883, oil on canvas, 70 × 100 cm. Limoux, Musée Petiet.
social classes watching their sleeping babies. Not surprisingly, Young Mother from Arles, painted in 1883 by the Parisian genre artist Henri Bouchet-Doumenq, was bought by the state after being praised by the critics, who complimented its gracefulness and remarkable honesty (fig. 3.3).4 Sitting in a wooden chair, a dark-haired woman, holding her knitting, looks at her sleeping baby. Her features are based on those of the Arles-born painter Madeleine Bouchet-Doumenq, the artist’s wife and art student, even though their first son, Pierre Charles, was born four years later. Despite moving to Paris after their marriage in 1880,5 Madeleine is clad in traditional regional attire, including the trimmed white shawl and the lace hairpiece.6 The baby is situated in a wooden cradle, and its body is covered with an embroidered white blanket. The quality of the bedding, the delicate porcelain vessels on the shelves, the peacock feathers, and the gold-framed painting hanging on the wall all attest to the family’s affluence and material comfort. Yet, instead of : 85 :
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knitting, the arlésienne is zealously watching her baby, delicately touching its cradle to generate movement to maintain its sleep. Unlike Greuze’s sleeping knitter, mentioned in chapter 1,7 she is not signifying boredom, lassitude, or passivity. Rather than inactivity, her gaze denotes vigilance and maternal devotion. Given the abundance of such visual representations in the second half of the nineteenth century, this chapter focuses on maternal Vigilance, arguing that it epitomizes the hallmark of modern maternity. In the recent decades, the female gaze has gained significant attention in research, stressing feminine agency. While refuting the “ideology of separate spheres,” initially conceived by Jürgen Habermas with regard to the eighteenth century,8 various scholars have argued that such assumptions obscure the participation of nineteenth-century women in the public sphere.9 Undeniably, during the second half of the nineteenth century, opportunities for women to participate in public culture multiplied in conjunction with the opening of department stores, cafés, theatres, Salons, shops, and the streets. Accordingly, instead of being confined to their domestic duties, they took an active part in the renewed Paris, intrinsically entwined in the shaping of modernity.10 Such shifts effectuated the “woman question,” creating a heated debate regarding the proper place of women in French society.11 In the course of the nineteenth century, the composition and size of the bourgeois family changed, as many parents chose to bear only a few children and focus on the welfare of the immediate nuclear family. The resulting intimacy between mothers and children drastically transformed the face of the family and had a direct impact on the concept of the bourgeois mother as a figure who devotes herself entirely to her children.12 The growing national awareness of the decline of the French population, caused by the overall decrease in birth rates, was intensified during the Third Republic. Since the Commune of 1870 clearly demonstrated the results of the collapse of boundaries between the male political sphere and the female domestic sphere, many believed that, to re-establish social order, they must impose a return to family values and gender hierarchy. Following the biomedical custom of assigning women responsibility for reproduction, politicians and scientists blamed women for the low birth rates, insisting that mothers needed instruction in “maternal science.”13 : 86 :
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Some of the most vocal supporters of this idea belonged to the medical establishment, which gained considerable political power after the Franco-Prussian War. Second only to lawyers among the liberal professions in parliament, doctors exercised a vast influence over the political life of France that was out of proportion with their numbers in society, holding leadership positions and many seats on parliamentary committees dealing with public health and population issues.14 In response to the rising empowerment of women, some physicians tried to preserve male control over society. Accordingly, by instructing mothers to watch their children at all times, even when they sleep, pediatricians reduced maternal freedom, binding women to the domestic sphere.15 Nonetheless, one cannot ignore the fact that the physicians’ belief that motherhood was a woman’s supreme mission contributed to its growing prestige over the course of the nineteenth century. After centuries in which women were judged to have little worth and authority, mothers who devoted their lives to their families now gained honour and power by virtue of their centrality in the development of the family. While relatively powerless in terms of the legal framework of marriage, they held unprecedented power behind closed doors.16 Accordingly, although relentless maternal watchfulness undeniably does restrict mothers, it simultaneously shaped and reflected authority and control. Turning a blind eye to maternal omnipotence in the household reinforces Simone de Beauvoir’s argument that a mother is “more a servant than an associate” and that exclusive motherhood inevitably leads to depression, dependence, and confinement.17 True as this claim may be – as will be discussed in the next chapter, dedicated to maternal subjectivity – contempt of the private sphere essentially acclimatizes the Habermasian definition, which attributes power solely to the political public sphere. Consequently, while revising women’s social status by examining their presence in the public sphere, scholars of the present should not disregard the vast power held by nineteenth-century women in the household. Evidently, women’s gazes can be tracked in the streets, department stores, cafés, or theatres. However, this chapter concentrates on numerous artworks illustrating maternal watchfulness. Following Griselda Pollock, who maintained that the interior scenes painted by Morisot were just as modern as the boulevards and the cafés painted : 87 :
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by Degas,18 I will argue that the portrayal of maternal vigilance shaped the modern and contemporary Western cultural approach to children’s health in general and infants’ sleep in particular. Even though such images mirrored the collision between the escalation of women’s rights and the traditional prerogatives of family and state, they nevertheless reflected new social and medical norms that stressed women’s supremacy and power within the household. Such power, however, generated two different types of visual imagery of infants’ sleep. Whereas both emphasized maternal watchfulness, the first, discussed in this chapter, includes academic and naturalistic genre paintings that focus on maternal happiness and contentment. The second, discussed in the next chapter, encompasses several genre and avant-garde artists who emphasized the dark side of homeliness, by portraying maternal melancholy, and the tediousness and isolation of child care. Even though both, I argue, reflected the vast impact of the medicalization of sleep on mothers, the first mirrored – but also shaped – social and cultural ideals. In contrast, the second defied the dominant discourse by dismantling its underlying assumptions and re-presenting subjective maternal experiences.
From Parents to Parent As discussed in the previous chapter, from the end of the eighteenth century, a growing number of doctors explicitly targeted mothers, as demonstrated by Johann Frank’s 1798 manual, “designated for parents, especially mothers who care about their health and that of their children.”19 Following Le Rebours’s example,20 this tendency flourished rapidly, and, throughout the nineteenth century, physicians addressed their instructions specifically to mothers.21 “Called by nature to fulfill the painful, but gentle, duties of motherhood,” wrote Dr Alexis Clerc in 1824, “many young women become wives and mothers without knowing the sacred obligations that the last title imposes on them.” Accordingly, whether “education, religion, and virtue teach them those of being wives, medicine must dictate those of being mothers.”22 As the interest in sleep increased, pediatricians gradually added specific instructions concerning this phenomenon. “How many things claim our attention in relation to sleep in infancy!” wrote Hall in 1835. : 88 :
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“In the first place, it is during sleep that the physiognomy of infants is most expressive of the milder morbid sensations.” Whereas in their waking hours, infants are attracted to external objects, such as loud noises or brilliant lights, during sleep, their countenance and gestures are exclusively impressed by internal sensations. “Watch the infant’s countenance, then, during its sleep,” he commanded, arguing that the baby’s expressions and gestures reveal uneasiness or pain, which may escape the mother’s attention during waking hours.23 Following this pattern, in 1874, Brochard stressed in La jeune mère that mothers must supervise their babies at all times. After citing one of his colleagues, who argued that gardes could replace mothers during the night for them to obtain some sleep, he expressed his opposition to such ideas on account of all the accidents and faults he witnessed as a practitioner. Due to the nurses’ repeated negligence, he stated: “a mother, in my opinion, must never separate, even at night, from her newborn baby. When a child has acquired good habits, when he is well nurtured, he sleeps, without waking up, from eleven to five or six in the morning. This repose is enough for the mother.”24 Based on letters sent to Brochard by concerned readers who witnessed disturbing behaviours during their babies’ sleep, many mothers followed his advice.25 The need to observe the baby’s sleep was stressed in the baby’s fictitious diary, cited in the previous chapter, published in 1898 in La jeune mère: It seems that my parents are delighted with my sleep. They slowly advance, on tiptoe, near my cradle, and there, in enduring ecstasy, contemplate me with tender eyes, occasionally filled with tears of happiness. The tranquility of the bedroom … the unrestricted posture of the little body … the adorable flushed lips and cheeks, the fleeting smiles fluttering on my lips, wandering in the golden dreams which I do not remember … The charming and divine nature of this incomparable picture of purity, the Child’s Sleep, so well rendered, it seems, by the great artists of the Italian school, this blissful atmosphere, of an elated dream, of poetry, of ideals … this entity constitutes the true and supreme happiness.26
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This written description encompasses several crucial issues that testify to the importance of babies’ sleep at the end of the nineteenth century: the caregivers’ relentless supervision, the tranquility of the sleeping baby, and the noiseless corporal and sensual space in which it sleeps, undisturbed. The baby’s beauty and peaceful appearance, which is compared in the text to portrayals of Jesus as an infant in Italian art, is described in a spiritual, almost religious, manner, thus magnifying the baby’s prominence by accentuating his holiness. Although the emphasis on both parents may seem to recall eighteenthcentury domestic images, such as Greuze’s engraving of 1766, which was renowned in the mid-nineteenth century (fig. 1.7),27 the 1898 text essentially underlines the profound changes concerning infants’ sleep. While Greuze’s print, portraying a married couple sitting peacefully next to their baby’s cradle, primarily stresses the joy of marriage and the novel idea of conjugal love,28 the baby’s journal focuses on infants’ sleep. The marital affection conveyed in Greuze’s engraving through the young mother’s affectionate gaze – concentrated on her husband – is entirely omitted from the 1898 account, which does not focus on the parents as a couple, but on their mutual parental gaze. Unlike the couple’s embrace in Greuze’s print, enabled, perhaps, as a result of their baby’s sleep, the 1898 parents are not exploiting its slumber to spend time together. Instead, they walk silently on tiptoe, watching their sleeping baby. Their affectionate eyes are not the result of their feelings for each other but rather reflect their shared love for their offspring, manifested through their relentless watchfulness. Instead of illustrating a couple and a child, the 1898 text depicts a child and its two parents, as represented by Daumier. Their tears of joy stem from its peaceful sleep, signifying physical and emotional well-being, brought about by their care and continual attention. While loving fathers appeared in the last decades of the eighteenth century in art and literature, replacing the earlier tyrannical fathers with a new model of fatherhood that relied on affection and concern,29 French physicians recurrently praised mothers for their unique compassion and benevolence.30 Even though some nineteenth-century pediatricians, like Donné and Courgey, described their own avid involvement in child-rearing,31 contradictory outlooks were manifested through the common assumption – held by a vast number of physicians, : 90 :
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politicians, and moralists – that fathers cannot, and should not, take care of young infants.32 “The mother’s instinct is just and true,” argued the republican French historian Jules Michelet in 1845, “and deserves to be respected.” The opposite, however, was virtually inconceivable: “Who will believe, some future day, that men have thus undertaken to nurse and feed these sucklings? Ah! Leave them alone to women! A lovely sight to see a child rocked in the arms of a man! Take care, awkward idiot! It is fragile; handling it in your clownish hand, you may break it … The mother alone is patient enough to develop the young creature by taking proper care of its liberty.”33 This approach was strengthened over the course of the nineteenth century. Whereas civil laws issued in 1790 sought to restrict the Old Regime’s support of absolute parental power, and fathers’ punitive authority over their wives and children was diminished, the Code civil des français of 1804 essentially restored fathers’ previous correctional authority.34 Although the Napoleonic Code stressed every child’s duty to display honour and respect toward both its parents, it narrowed control over children to the father alone. Men were designated as the heads of the nuclear family (pères de famille), bearing the duty to support and discipline their children in receipt of their reverence.35 As a result, after a short upsurge in demand for women’s liberation, many thinkers once again championed Napoleon’s conservative approach, claiming that motherhood constitutes women’s exclusive role. Even though French law acknowledged the supremacy of both parents over their children, it nevertheless emphasized “the inequality between father and mother” and the husband’s “superiority in conjugal society.”36 As opposed to some peasants, who stayed in their native villages and worked the fields alongside their wives and children, the urban work/ home divide created a chasm between the public sphere, governed chiefly by men, and the private sphere reserved for women. The upsurge of the Industrial Revolution further enhanced the status of paternal authority, as the closure of numerous family businesses led to the departure of men to work outside the family home. In contrast to masculine work, the feminine tasks were considered a direct expression of women’s nature. In addition to household work, bourgeois women were expected to love their children, give them attention, discipline them, and concern themselves with their future integration into society.37 It is in that spirit : 91 :
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that the French republican politician and writer Jules Simon argued in The Twentieth-Century Woman that a mother is not simply in charge of bodily functions, as “she is a schoolmistress at the same time as a nurse.” Teaching her children to read and write, she gives them “the first lesson in morality … in terms of education, they are everything.”38 Judith Surkis describes the Third Republic’s “sexing of the citizen” – that became the foundation of the republican order – in which citizenship and masculinity mutually defined each other. The establishment of the family unit protected society as a whole; marriage reconciled individual and social interests and became a social ideal, while the family served as a metaphor for social integration. For republican thinkers, the solidarity of marriage was premised on the belief in both the fundamental sexual differences between men and women and on their complementary natures and desires.39 Whereas men were expected to be “good citizens,” women’s vocation – according to Simon – was manifested through their devotion to their husbands and children. “Good wives, as well as bad ones, exist; but there are only good mothers,” he argued. “A bad mother, if present, is against nature … What is a woman? It is a mother.”40 It can be presumed that, in real life, fathers were most likely involved in child care, and were as much affected by nighttime awakenings as their wives, as already indicated by Donné, who stressed the fathers’ involvement in sleep training.41 The 1898 text, too, as well as Daumier’s caricatures, similarly confirm paternal involvement in sleeping rituals (figs. 2.1, 2.2, 3.2). Concurrently, several artists repeatedly portrayed their sleeping children, hence amalgamating their professional position with their paternal responsibilities.42 Nonetheless, the sporadic artworks that incorporated fathers into sleeping scenes underemphasize their social status in favour of their gender identity, while rejecting behaviours that involve nurturing and caring for another – commonly associated with femininity – in favour of other, more “masculine” deportments.43 Such understandings materialized in visual culture throughout the nineteenth century, as manifested in the print Hope and Prosperity, issued in 1811, after the birth of Napoleon’s heir, the king of Rome.44 Situated in his cradle, the young prince sleeps under his mother’s supervision. Although Marie-Louise is not looking at the newborn, but is instead talking to her husband, she is sitting in an armchair next to the cradle, : 92 :
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pointing at the sleeping baby. His father, however, stands to the right in a vigorous, imperial posture, dominating the room with his stern gaze. Comparable gender differences are apparent in a lithograph dedicated to the Sense of Hearing published by Daumier in 1843, portraying an exhausted father who tries in vain to wake his wife, saying: “Wake up Nini! ... I have been calling her for more than an hour, and she always replies: yes, Adolphe. But neither the child’s name nor mine is Adolphe!”45 Notwithstanding the sexual insinuations entailed by the caption, the mother is evidently expected to take care of the baby, while the father seems powerless to heed the baby’s needs. A similar generalization of family roles was also evident in a medically oriented illustration published in the first issue of La jeune mère, portraying a father supervising his wife, who is sitting next to the cradle, watching the sleeping baby.46 Such images, published in child-care manuals and mothers’ journals, strove to encourage and generate men’s involvement in parenting resolutions.47 “If you wish your family to resist the foreign influence which dissolves it,” argued Michelet in this respect, “Let the mother bring it [the child] up under the father’s direction … The true idea of a family will here be realized, which is that the child is initiated by the mother and the wife by the husband.”48 Nonetheless, as many urban fathers spent most of their days outside the house, they could not regularly take care of their offspring during the day. Due to the novel implementation of the strict rules of hygiene discussed in the previous chapter, children under the age of four were expected, according to Donné, to go to sleep at seven o’clock in the evening, whereas older children went to bed no later than eight. “No reason,” Donné stressed, “neither the duties of society nor family meetings and festivals, permit us to fail in this rule when we are fully determined to consult only the well-being of the child.” Accordingly, “Great care must be taken not to animate them by excessive play, nor by keeping them awake too long in the midst of noisy meetings.”49 Consequently, fathers mainly saw their children in bed, asleep, or else, as indicated by Daumier, when screaming in the middle of the night. Mothers, on the other hand, were expected to watch their children at all times, reflecting contemporary expectations vis-à-vis proper womanly conduct, as stressed by Madame Louise d’Alq, the pseudonymous author of numerous popular conduct manuals for : 93 :
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Fig. 3.4. Honoré Daumier, Just keep on screaming you mastiff, go on bawling until you are hoarse and let it be over with .... wasn’t able to close an eye all night because of this brat. May the devil take these children ... that’s it for me! (Crie donc, mâtin! gueule donc!… égosille toi donc et que ça finisse … ne pas fermer l’œil pour un méchant moutard!. le diabe emporte les enfans! je n’en veux plus…), 1838, lithography, 16.8 × 25 cm, published in Le Charivari (6 February 1838). In Jules Platier, Ces amours d’enfants: joies et douceurs de la paternité (Paris: Aubert & Cie, ca.1850), pl. 2 (photograph provided by gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France).
women: “The woman is destined, without leaving her home, to be a nurse. Within her family, it is a mission that has been entrusted to her … Mother, who will replace her near the cradle of her child, later near the adolescent’s bed? … The woman who is not a nurse is an anomaly; it means that she has no family!”50 It may be presumed that women were not always inclined to assume these so-called feminine responsibilities, as implied by a lithograph : 94 :
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Fig. 3.5. Auguste Toulmouche, The New Arrival (Le Nouveau-né), 1861 (Salon of 1861), oil on canvas, 56.8 × 44.8 cm. Private collection.
published by Daumier in 1838 in Le charivari (fig. 3.4). It depicts a mother yawning in bed after being awakened by the ear-piercing cries of her baby, thinking: “Just keep on screaming, you mastiff. Go on bawling until you are hoarse and let it be over with ... wasn’t able to close an eye all night because of this brat. May the devil take these children ... that’s it for me!” Nonetheless, the resemblance between the mother’s and child’s open mouths highlights their deep affinity while stressing the father’s alienation from the domestic scene, signified through his discouraged, perplexed facial expression. During the second half of the century, the unequivocal amalgamation of femininity and maternity, stressed by moralists and doctors alike, was manifested in several paintings, which duplicated the maternal gaze, portraying the watchful mother in the company of her older daughter. Such a theme is represented in The New Arrival, exhibited in the Salon of 1861 by the academic genre artist Auguste Toulmouche (fig. 3.5). After inspecting the painting, the critic Léon Lagrange wrote that “Mr Toulmouche draws with precision,” praising the sentimentality of the : 95 :
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bourgeois intimate subject. Still, the “delicious model with blond hair” unfortunately has “only one arm,” whereas the young girl “would be entitled to claim feet more in keeping with her age.”51 Her feet, however, are far from being the focal point of the painting, which highlights her delighted gaze in the presence of her newborn sibling. Unlike Peter de Hooch, who removed the baby’s sister from the intimate maternal scene (fig. 1.4), or the bothersome older child holding a trumpet in The Rest (fig. 1.1), the young girl sits on her mother’s lap on an armchair placed next to the baby’s cradle, gently pulling away the cradle’s curtain while looking silently at her new sibling. A similar scenario was described in the fictitious diary cited earlier when the four-month-old baby described his daily routine. “My older sister is a second mother for me,” he writes. “She has tender words for me, charming expressions … She invents melodies in a soft and caressing voice, manages to make me sleep, and then gently places me on my temporary cradle in the dining room.”52 Such activities were commonly encouraged through popular doll novels, designated to educate young girls and prepare them for their impending responsibilities (see, for example, figs. 2.3 and 2.4).53 In 1880, Brochard wrote in La jeune mère that young girls often consult him with regard to their dolls. As he believed that the frequency of such requests reveals “the maternal instinct innate in all little girls,” he urged mothers to use the doll as “the means to initiate, from childhood, young women to the knowledge they need when they become mothers.”54 Those popular cultural views were reflected in art; instead of portraying both parents – as represented by Greuze in 1766 – Toulmouche’s maternal gaze is passed on to her daughter. Even though such images – extensively reproduced and circulated all over Europe – epitomized social ideologies, they concurrently shaped public opinion, bolstering the acculturation process that prepared young girls for their anticipated role in adulthood.
Motherhood, Mothering, Maternity, and Motherliness In the revolutionary book Of Woman Born, published in 1976, poet Adrienne Rich distinguished between two meanings of motherhood, one superimposed on the other: the potential relationship of any woman to her children and the institution, which aims to ensure this feminine : 96 :
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potential remains under male control. “Institutionalized motherhood,” she argued, “demands of women maternal ‘instinct’ rather than intelligence, selflessness rather than self-realization, relation to others rather than the creation of self.”55 Based on these proclamations, Andrea O’Reilly, the founder of the Association for Research on Mothering, distinguishes between the patriarchal institution of “motherhood” and the subjective experiences and daily practices of “mothering.”56 When inspecting nineteenth-century visual depictions of sleep, it appears that both motherhood and mothering were represented in images of mothers watching their sleeping babies. Some artists, such as Morisot, represented the personal practice of mothering through her sister’s experience as well as her own, as we shall see in the next chapter. Caricaturists such as Daumier, on the other hand, illustrated the novel notion of maternal watchfulness humorously in an era of political censorship that expanded the preoccupation with mundane, quotidian occurrences. Yet, most genre painters, such as Caille and Bouchet-Doumen, focused on institutionalized motherhood, represented by the mothers’ satisfaction. In so doing, they combined “maternity” and “motherliness,” which were conflated over the nineteenth century. According to the psychoanalyst Emilia Perroni, while “maternity” refers to being a mother, in conjunction with the physical, sociological, and emotional relations between her and her children, “motherliness” is an attribute that expresses an emotional attitude toward others, regardless of biology. Since maternity is a condition and a role that results from giving birth to a child, it is directly related to reproductive biology and is further shaped by the society and culture in which it exists. Motherliness, on the other hand, is a term that refers to acquired traits that are ideally used by the mother in her parental role, comprising empathy, acceptance, recognition, attention, nurturing, and apprehension. Whereas, in the past, maternity could not be realized in a man, motherliness can be presented in any human being, man or woman, parent and non-parent alike.57 Nonetheless, the amalgamation of motherhood and motherliness was repeated in the last third of the nineteenth century as part of French feminism, which regarded selfless and exclusive motherhood as the fulfillment of an essential feminine-civic duty promoting the state’s development. These views differed significantly from those of : 97 :
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feminists of the 1840s, who argued for women’s rights and equality, giving expression to the female voice in the realms of literature and politics.58 Within mid-nineteenth-century traditional, patriarchal French society, female authors, such as Flora Tristan or George Sand, detached maternity from motherliness, showing that women can lead an independent, professional existence. Their personal lives clearly illustrated their world view, overtly defying the social conventions that demanded that women of their status function as devoted wives and mothers.59 However, even though the feminist movement was split in the second half of the century between those who argued for women’s equality and those who believed that women had a distinctive feminine nature, by the turn of the century, the latter came to dominate as a strategic response to the nationalist political climate. Influenced by the rhetoric about depopulation, French feminists strove to attract social support by stressing women’s position as mothers and wives rather than as individuals seeking equal rights.60 In calling their vocation “professional motherhood” or “scientific motherhood,” such women made use of the rhetoric and prestige of an increasingly specialized economy.61 Consequently, even though at the end of the century a group of controversial radical feminists advocated sexual freedom and birth control, perceiving motherhood as “a source of misery, impotence, and humiliation,”62 during the Third Republic, the leading feminist ideology reinforced the predominant beliefs regarding motherhood as an essential duty in promoting the state’s development. In the last decades of the century, several feminist associations joined the national efforts to promote child protection. 63 In 1876, the French feminist Marie Béquet de Vienne established the Society for the Propagation of Maternal Breastfeeding (La société pour la propagation de l’allaitement maternel), as part of the French Federation of Feminist Societies (La fédération française des sociétés féministes), which provided housing to poor pregnant women and mothers in an effort to reduce the rate of child abandonment. This secular organization, funded by the Ministry of the Interior and the Paris municipality, sought to aid married and unmarried women without any religious obligation, on the condition that they nurse their children themselves. The society’s successful periodical, printed in Paris from 1877 to 1918 as a part of a struggle to preserve children’s life and welfare, won the : 98 :
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gold medal awarded by the Académie de médecine at the World’s Fair of 1900.64 Although this group was chiefly concerned with maternal nursing, dozens of its most distinguished members repeatedly donated cradles and bedding, including the founder, Béquet de Vienne, who in 1902 gave twenty cradles, sixty pillows, and fifty baby blankets to deprived mothers.65 Even though these societies were primarily intended to support women of the lower classes, their views also affected the women of the bourgeoisie, who, in a time of social and political instability, once more adopted the trend of devoted motherhood, while integrating “maternity” and “motherliness.” This amalgamation was repeatedly stressed during the nineteenth century in art, literature, philosophy, and medicine. In a short article entitled “What Do Women Think About?” published in 1898 in La jeune mère, the anonymous writer aimed to clarify the issue: “At four, they think of candy and sweets; at seven, their favourite doll; At thirteen ... at night of their little cousin; at eighteen, they dream of a romantic marriage; at twenty-one, they foresee their first baby; at thirty-five they are saddened by their first white hair; at forty, they lament their premature wrinkles; at fifty, they remember the past; at sixty, they are exclusively interested in their grandchildren. What do feminists think about?”66 Along the same lines, throughout the century, numerous portrayals of vigilant mothers incorporated maternity and motherliness. This combination is revealed in Fanny Fleury’s Baby Sleeps, which earned public acclaim in the Salon of 1884, and was purchased by an American collector (fig. 3.6).67 The painting portrays an elegant young mother, looking directly at the viewer while holding her sleeping child in her arms. The resemblance between her features and a portrait of the painter, published in 1882 in an album of photographs of contemporary artists,68 indicates that Baby Sleeps is, in fact, a self-portrait of the artist as a mother. By uniting motherhood and mothering, Fleury intertwined her profession with her personal status as a spouse and a mother. To further stress this unique combination, the artist placed a print of an interior being looted by a mob on the wall on the right. Through the use of this “metapicture,” defined by William J.T. Mitchell as a picture within a picture; an image framed within another to reflect on the very nature of the image itself,69 she underlined the security and comfort of : 99 :
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Fig. 3.6. Fanny Fleury, Baby Sleeps (Bébé dort), 1884 (Salon of 1884, cat. 946), oil on canvas, 208 × 143 cm. Private collection.
the household. By contrast, the cradle, adorned with a white lace pillow and surmounted by long embroidered curtains, signifies a haven of elegant tranquility compared to the menace of the outer world. Though she does not look at her baby – a boy, as suggested by the curtain’s blue ribbon – he is guarded by his vigilant mother, nestled in her embrace. As benevolence was perceived as an “innate” set of traits characteristic of every woman, especially those who have given birth, the pictorial emphasis on perpetual maternal supervision embodied the very nature of motherliness. Since, unlike the sleep of adults – or of older children, who are trained to sleep per schooling requirements – the sleep of babies tends to be fragmented, chaotic, and unorganized, the mother’s unceasing gaze was presented in contrast to the idea of economic efficiency that affected the modernization of adult sleep. While doctors recommended letting babies sleep in accordance with their physical needs, mothers were expected to overcome their bodily functions in favour of their babies, : 100 :
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thus renouncing their own physical and emotional needs. By repeatedly urging mothers to endure the sacrifices entailed by constant watching through “science, patience, and conscience,”70 physicians maintained that “patience makes a woman good, forgiving, charitable, and benevolent.”71 “Maternal devotion cannot be compared to any other devotion,” wrote the novelist and journalist Champfleury in 1882. “Nothing stops the mother, nothing costs her, neither deprivation nor fatigue. During the first years … the mother does not know what sleep is; or it is so light that the slightest movement of the child in its cradle wakes the mother and puts her on her feet.”72 Given such inclinations, as opposed to the Christian notion of “incarnation” – the human embodiment of the divine – nineteenth-century mothers became “un-carnated.” Albeit human, they were nevertheless embodied in divinity through transcending their material needs, reflecting the new codification of the self-sacrificing, vigilant mother, simultaneously profane and sacred, corporeal and metaphysical. Comparable praise was repeated in an article published by Brochard in 1875 in La jeune mère. Based on his enthusiastic account, it seems that the good doctor riffled through Gustave Doré’s illustrated Bible, published in 1866, finding textual and pictorial corroborations for the innate, collective, and perpetual maternal selflessness:73 “While contemplating these scenes, I said to myself: To protect the child, we still have someone, the mother! A mother, within the family, at the door of the school, can do everything for her child and for society. Yes, to save young people from this flood of incredulity and immortality that seems to be invading us, a mother is enough! … Have courage then, O good mothers, your work is holy and sublime, only you can regenerate society.”74 Such attentive, altruistic mothers, relentlessly watching their babies day and night, gained artistic acclaim during the second half of the nineteenth century. Some painters, such as Morisot and Toulmouche, represented mothers from the middle and upper classes (figs. 0.1 and 3.5). Others, like Caille, focused on peasants (fig. 3.1), while others still, like Daumier, portrayed women from the urban proletariat (fig. 2.1). Nonetheless, they repeatedly emphasized maternal watchfulness, regardless of the mother’s economic status. Concurrently, however, a vast number of academic genre painters deviated from such contemporary allusions, disregarding class : 101 :
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or individual features altogether.75 Instead of representing the new, medicalized infants’ sleep, occurring indoors in particular beds and attire, they portrayed imaginary, idyllic mothers, holding their sleeping babies in their arms amid nature. Unlike their eighteenth-century predecessors, who represented sleep outdoors per contemporary medical and philosophical outlooks, such images disregarded the new hygienic veneration of infants’ sleep, substituting physicians’ warnings with maternal omnipotence. Instead of presenting risks and threats, those semi-religious mothers signified care and protection.
The Secular Madonna One of the most popular artists who repeatedly portrayed such scenes was the academic artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau, who, in the mid1860s, was at the height of his career, gaining both artistic and commercial success.76 From 1866, he had an exclusive contract with Adolphe Goupil, who rapidly became one of the most important art dealers of the period and a key protagonist in the national and international distribution of Bouguereau’s work.77 Unlike the members of the Academy, who generally overlooked genre paintings, Goupil recognized their appeal to customers and, therefore, encouraged the artist to produce such images in response to the market’s demands. With his avid support, Bouguereau yoked his production to reproduction, selling thousands of lithographs and photographic reproductions of his popular genre images to eager customers, who pursued the most decorated artists of the Salon and the most sentimental, alluring narratives.78 The beautification of reality was highly venerated through the second half of the nineteenth century by the members of the French Academy and critics alike.79 This inclination was manifested in a series of articles published in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts between 1860 and 1861 by Charles Blanc, one of the most influential art historians and theoreticians of the period.80 In his well-known book Grammaire historique des arts du dessin, he claimed that the purpose of art is to “interpret, or rather idealize nature,” while emphasizing the “true, the good, and the beautiful.” “The artist,” he explained, “who understands beauty, is superior to nature, which merely displays it.”81 The author and thinker Antonin Rondelet wrote in the same spirit: “The prettiest : 102 :
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work of art is not the one that copies nature with fidelity, but to the contrary, the one that voluntarily detaches itself from nature in pursuit of the ideal.”82 In an era of national concerns over child mortality rates, repeatedly stressed by the medical establishment, illusory prints and photographs of serene mothers appealed to the public, since they replaced the hazardous reality, ruled by the strict laws of hygiene, with a never-changing ideal of happiness and bliss. Understanding that “the public only buys what it likes,”83 Bouguereau repeatedly produced the finest portrayals of motherhood as a reflection of his artistic beliefs combined with his commercial goals. “There’s only one kind of painting,” he argued. “It’s the painting that presents the eye with perfection … One must look for the beautiful … this is what I call interpretation of nature.”84 One such image, Maternal Affection of 1869, portrays a mother standing outdoors, holding her baby in her arms, while vigilantly trying to prolong its sleep (fig. 3.7). Her ideal beauty echoes the angelic appearance of the baby, whose golden hair, round cheeks, and delicate lips are accentuated by the white scarf wrapped around its tiny body. The emphasis on the baby’s calmness – the object of the maternal gaze – expresses the persistence of the romantic ideal of childhood innocence initiated by Rousseau and his contemporaries.85 Like the 1898 semireligious description of the baby’s resemblance to Jesus, the combination of the mother and child, located amid nature, alludes to the sanctity of childhood and motherhood. Devoid of a crib, despite recurrent medical demands, the baby is harboured in her bosom, signifying her godlike ability to protect her child from harm. Following Pope Pius IX’s proclamation on 8 December 1854 of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin as a dogma of the church, the Virgin Mary – France’s patron saint – rose in prominence in the second half of the nineteenth century. This trend continued into the Third Republic, when dozens of French Catholic newspapers reported at length about Mary’s twenty-two revelations throughout France between 1830 and 1896, her pilgrimages, and the unveiling of new sculptures installed in her honour.86 The growing cult of the Virgin informed the portrayal of the ideal, watchful mother, giving expression to Christian thought incorporated with republican ideologies. By emphasizing the Virgin as a mother, devotional literature urged girls and : 103 :
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Fig. 3.7. William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Maternal Affection (Affection maternelle), 1869, oil on canvas, 116 × 89 cm. Private collection.
women to imitate her maternal and educational capacities.87 Artists also conveyed such implicit messages. “We must pity the painters who did not deign or did not know how to extol the woman and the child,” wrote the genre painter Alfred Stevens. “All the masters have painted the Virgin and Child Jesus,” he professed. “It is always a mother and her son, and it will forever be an adorable subject.”88 Although these secular Madonnas shed some of the attributes associated with the original archetype, their grounding in reality did not detract from the sanctity of these figures. Instead, it enhanced the holiness of the ordinary through the earthly representation of the heavenly; thus, did the religious sphere encroach upon ordinary life. Such portrayals were, in many ways, more forceful than the former celestial imagery, as the Earthly Mary could evoke viewers’ identification. : 104 :
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It is in this spirit that Maternal Affection contributes to the exaltation of motherhood, since the artist based his work on Christian imagery, as demonstrated by its affinity to prevalent portrayals of the Madonna and sleeping child.89 Nonetheless, in these portrayals, Mary is grave, caught in her thoughts, thinking of her son’s inevitable death, implied by the baby’s diagonal position, his closed eyes, and his limp left arm, recalling the posture of his corpse in Pietà scenes, in which she holds his crucified body prior to burial.90 Bouguereau’s smiling mother, however, is happily looking at her sleeping baby, signifying the profound cultural understanding of the differences between sleep and death, while apprehending the importance of the former for her baby’s well-being. Until the eighteenth century, sleep was often compared to death, “the eternal sleep.” According to the Encyclopédie, the affinity between the two was represented in Greek mythology by Hypnos and Thanatos, the two sons of the goddess of the night.91 From the end of the century onward, however, doctors repeatedly argued that, unlike death, sleep is vital for human well-being, as it enables the body to flourish.92 By substituting their lengthy deliberations on fatal diseases and ill-nutrition with sleep, they argued that “sleep, and one which is calm, deep, and sufficiently prolonged, is still more necessary for the reparation of the strength than nourishment itself.”93 The growing concern for children’s lifespan persisted during the Third Republic, resulting in increased state regulations that aimed to promote French motherhood and child care.94 As part of the physicians’ battle against hired nurses, on 23 December 1874, the Roussel Law (Loi Roussel) was legislated, stating that every child under the age of two, who stays with a wet nurse away from its parents’ home, would be subjected to the supervision of public authorities in order to preserve its life. The law – intended to protect the lives of nursing children by imposing oversight on the conditions of their care – obliged parents and wet nurses throughout the country to register every child nursing away from home. In addition to comprehensive medical exams of both wet nurse and child, parents were required to report to the authorities on every infant death under the care of a wet nurse.95 Similar initiatives were promoted in the last decades of the century by Paul Strauss, a leading member of the municipal department of the Seine, and one : 105 :
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Fig. 3.8. Henri Decaisne, The Guardian Angel (L’Ange gardien), ca. 1836, oil on canvas, 148 × 114 cm. Paris, Musée du Louvre. Photograph © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre) / Adrien Didierjean.
of the most active pediatricians in the fight against child mortality. In the course of his career, Strauss argued that, since “the future is in the children,” society should protect them rather than their mothers, as the latter were merely vehicles by which sustenance could be offered to infants. By maintaining that the responsibility for children’s rights lay within the state, he advised it to educate mothers on how to provide hygienic care for their offspring in order to protect their lives.96 Even though the involvement of the medical establishment in child care indeed reduced children’s death rates, doctors nevertheless continually stressed their potential demise. These dangers – also depicted : 106 :
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Fig. 3.9. Edouard Cibot (painter), Pierre-Émile Desmaisons (lithographer), The Angel Watches, the Mother Can Sleep; The Mother Watches, the Angel Can Sleep (L’Ange veille, la mère peut dormir; La Mère veillant, l’ange peut dormir),1855, lithographs, 49 × 41 cm. Private collection.
in heartrending images of bereaved mothers97 – were repeated as part of the new medical maternal education, which insisted on continuous maternal surveillance of babies, day and night, awake or asleep. Consequently, throughout the nineteenth century, the significance of the maternal gaze was often coupled with religious imagery, implying divine providence. One of the most renowned images of this type was Henri Decaisne’s The Guardian Angel of 1836, portraying an angel watching a baby whose mother has fallen asleep (fig. 3.8). Although the painting, exhibited in the Salon and procured by King Louis-Philippe, received favourable attention, the critic from the Journal des beaux-arts et de la littérature concluded that “the whole is prettier than real,” expressing his hope that “next year we will see less of these holy paintings done as for the love of God.”98 Nonetheless, the image was engraved in 1836 by Goblet : 107 :
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Fig. 3.10. Post Mortem, ca. 1850, daguerrotype, 8.9 × 11.9 cm. Private collection.
de Metz, attracting countless buyers.99 As, by 1853, it was nearly unattainable,100 the theme of the guardian angel was reproduced in 1855 by the academic artist Édouard Cibot in response to public demand (fig. 3.9).101 Yet, while the original painting emphasizes divine protection over children’s sleep, Cibot created two separate lithographs: The Mother Is Awake, The Angel Can Sleep, and The Angel Is Awake, the Mother Can Sleep. Whereas the second is almost identical to Decaisne’s original oeuvre, the first reverses the figures’ roles: now, the angel is sound asleep, and the mother supervises her baby, guarding its precious life. Although her rosary beads are wrapped around the sleeping baby’s arm as a manifestation of her devoutness, her constant wakefulness preserves its fragile life. : 108 :
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The mother’s power to protect the life she granted is likewise manifested in Bouguereau’s painting, since, as in late-eighteenth-century portrayals of maternal bliss,102 the young mother is smiling. Following the emergence of the cult of sensibility in the late-eighteenth century, smiles became new cultural products, viewed as a symbol of an individual’s innermost and most authentic self, revealing the character of the person within.103 This “Revolution of Well-being,” to borrow Jean Baudrillard’s term,104 can be seen in Bouguereau’s mother, representing a distinct epistemological state of happiness and gratification. In an era of constant medical and national awareness of infantile demise, the maternal smile, combined with her watchfulness, epitomized her baby’s liveliness. The well-established images of the Madonna watching her predestined child, as well as the mid-nineteenth-century tradition of infant “death portraits” displayed at home, were a constant reminder of the perils that jeopardize young children. The democratization of photography enabled families to preserve the images of those who had died prematurely. Since adults had more opportunities to be photographed in their lifetime, most memorial portraits were dedicated to dead children, usually snapped in their cradles or on their mother’s lap, as if they were merely asleep. As children’s bodies disguised the rigor mortis that is more detectable in photographs of adults, the illusion was often complete. The only evidence of their demise was the addition of their grieving mothers by their side (see, for example, fig. 3.10).105 While death aimed to resemble sleep, maternal surveillance gave children’s sleep the assurance that it represented life. Like the journal of 1898, the combination of infants’ sleep and motherly happiness provided viewers with the confirmation of the child’s safety. Hence, despite her semi-religious qualities and her “un-carnated” nature, Bouguereau’s vigilant mother is nonetheless a contemporary woman, echoing the pediatricians’ orders for ongoing maternal surveillance during sleep. Despite the baby’s centrality, her gaze, which combines maternity and motherliness, is, in fact, the focal point of the painting. Through her attention and devotion, she protects her child from all harm. Similar ideas are represented in Sleep, exhibited by Bouguereau at the Salon of 1864 (fig. 3.11), and extensively replicated through lithographs sold to numerous customers during the last decades of the : 109 :
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Fig. 3.11. William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Sleep (Le sommeil), 1864, oil on canvas, 153.7 × 119 cm. Private collection.
century.106 Portraying a young mother wearing Italian attire, hushing an older boy to prevent him from waking the baby sleeping in her arms, the image amalgamates a naturalistic genre scene with religious overtones. Although the grouping of the two children alludes to engravings after Greuze’s painting of 1759 (fig. 1.1), Bouguereau placed the family outdoors, thus eliminating any indication of social status, or explicit period. In like manner, he rejected the typical eighteenth-century sartorial presentation of Greuze, clothing the mother in white and blue while covering her head with a scarf. Lastly, he replaced the three children in Greuze’s painting with two infants, thus alluding to well-known religious lithographs illustrating the Virgin raising her finger to her lips to warn John the Baptist not to wake the sleeping Christ. In an early-nineteenth-century engraving based on Annibale : 110 :
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Fig. 3.12. Camille Duchemin (drawing), André Galle (engraver), Virgin and Child with John the Baptist, after the painting Del Silenzio: The Silence or the Madonna by Annibale Carracci, ca.1803–18, on paper, 33.4 × 47.2 cm. London, British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings.
Caracci’s painting Silence, exhibited at the Louvre, Jesus’s future sacrifice is implied by the table’s resemblance to an altar or tomb and by the shroud-like fabric on which he sleeps (fig. 3.12). The cherries, also represented by Bouguereau, symbolize heaven, alluding to Christ’s future resurrection.107 Yet, though both mothers hold their fingers in a comparable manner, their gestures are, in fact, different. While the Virgin cautions John not to awaken Christ to his Passion before his time, Bouguereau’s mother, like Greuze’s, is simply trying to maintain her baby’s sleep. Although dressed in Italian attire, she nevertheless represents the contemporary institution of motherhood, combined with the present-day awareness of the significance of infants’ sleep for their vitality and well-being.
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Fig. 3.13. Léon Basile Perrault, Young Mother and Her Sleeping Baby (Jeune mère et enfant endormie), 1897, oil on canvas, 97 × 142 cm. Private collection.
Rustic Tenderness In the last decades of the century, the commodification of maternity in the art market, manifested in the popularity of the secular Madonna, also yielded numerous images of devout mothers from the French peasantry watching their sleeping children. The combined Catholic, republican, and feminist ideologies that amalgamated maternity and motherliness further reinforced this development, turning infants’ sleep into a maternal responsibility. As peasants produced the majority of raw materials for the country’s subsistence, they were rendered with considerable admiration in the art market as a vivid reminder for the urban bourgeoisie of traditional values in a period of industrialization and reduced birth rate.108 By fusing naturalistic genre scenes with religious iconography, Young Mother and Her Sleeping Baby, exhibited by Léon Basile Perrault in the Salon in 1897, appealed to the public (fig. 3.13). : 112 :
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Initially known as a history painter, Perrault became an important figure and regular exhibitor at the Parisian Salon, where he exhibited, from 1860 onward, religious, allegorical, and historical scenes. In 1887, he obtained France’s highest honour and was knighted as a Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur; this was followed by a bronze medal at the 1889 World’s Fair (Exposition Universelle) and a silver medal at the 1900 World’s Fair.109 In addition to praise of his historical and religious subject matters, his genre scenes gained acclaim in the mid-1860s after, at the Salon of 1866, he exhibited a painting of a child cuddling a dog, which was acquired by Emperor Napoléon III.110 As one of Bouguereau’s former students, Perrault shared his teacher’s pragmatic approach to shaping his career through idealization, popular choices of subject matter, and awareness of the financial aspects of the art market. Critics and art dealers acknowledged his resemblance to his prominent teacher,111 and his numerous genre scenes of motherhood, most of them illustrating infants’ serene sleep, were sold to eager collectors by Paul Durand-Ruel, his art dealer.112 Young Mother and Her Sleeping Baby portrays a mother looking tenderly at her baby, which is sleeping placidly on her lap in the midst of nature. Leaning against the ground, gently stroking its golden hair, the mother is smiling, expressing her contentment. The red apple held in the child’s left-hand carries religious significance, as according to Christian tradition, apples grew on the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. Three other fruits are lying on the ground to the left, at the foot of a tree, accentuating the child’s plump red cheeks. Although apples often represent Original Sin and the Fall of Man, they are also the fruit of salvation, symbolic of Christ, the new Adam, who took upon himself the burden of man’s sins.113 Correspondingly, the red apple held by the sleeping child is based on images of the infant Christ holding an apple as an allusion to his future mission as redeemer.114 These religious characteristics are reinforced by the watchful mother, reminiscent of devotional paintings of the Virgin Mary watching Christ.115 The naturalistic palette draws attention to the blue skirt, white fabric, and red apple, signifying both the colours of the Madonna and the tricolour shades of the Republican flag. Joined together, they symbolize the ideal French institution of motherhood, epitomized by the mother’s contented, reassuring smile. : 113 :
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Fig. 3.14. Jean-François Millet, Baby’s Slumber (Le sommeil de l’enfant), ca. 1855, oil on canvas, 46.4 × 37.5 cm. Norfolk, VA, Chrysler Museum of Art, gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.517 (photograph provided by the Chrysler Museum of Art).
Despite the obvious stylistic differences, Jean-François Millet’s peasant mother, represented in Woman Sewing beside Her Sleeping Child of 1870–72,116 embodies Christian inclinations through her blue dress and red scarf, signifying the colours of the Virgin. Similarly, Baby’s Slumber of 1855 (fig. 3.14) is based on Rembrandt’s Virgin Mary in The Holy Family of 1645, abruptly interrupting her reading in order to watch Jesus’ cradle.117 Although Millet eliminated the angels and the mystical light falling on Christ, the baby’s father, working in the garden, is reminiscent of Joseph, carving a piece of wood in the background of Rembrandt’s painting. Unlike the Virgin, however, or Bouguereau and Perrault’s inactive mothers, Millet portrayed his diligent mothers preoccupied with their domestic labour, mainly knitting or mending blankets, while simultaneously sitting patiently next to their infants’ cradles, day and night, observing their sleep. Like her husband, the rural mother is working, reflecting the ideology of separate spheres: the father works outside, the mother works indoors, and the child sleeps. The similarity between the sewing basket placed on the windowsill and the baby’s wicker cradle suggests that the child is also part of the maternal labour. Likewise, the mother’s and the child’s comparable bonnets, and the affinity between the red pincushion and the baby’s blanket, underline the parallel between womanly tasks and child care. Though stylistically diametrically opposed to Bouguereau, Millet’s paintings, too, sanctified the institution of motherhood, illustrating the peasants as universal figures, representing domestic bliss and maternal watchfulness. In the same vein, Bouguereau’s Lullaby, Italian Woman Spinning of 1875 portrays a young Italian peasant woman, sitting in a rural landscape and rocking her baby’s cradle as she works at the spinning wheel (fig. 3.15). Like Millet’s diligent mothers, she is simultaneously working, rocking, singing a lullaby, and watching her baby with love and tenderness. While the scene may represent actual country life,118 the mother’s manual labour entails Christian symbolism, as spinning was one of the emblems of the Virgin, symbolizing the thread cut at the end of life, thus foreshadowing Christ’s Passion. As Mary became an archetypical divinity who holds in her hands the thread that will tear at the moment of her son’s death, such images contained the promise of ultimate redemption for humankind.119
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Fig. 3.15. William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Lullaby, Italian Woman Spinning (Berceuse, Italienne filant), 1875, oil on canvas, 89.5 × 64.1 cm. United States, private collection.
The sanctification of the peasant mother was concurrently apparent in paintings made by Caille, who exhibited several family genre scenes at the Salon in the 1860s and 1870s,120 and repeatedly portrayed young mothers watching their babies sleeping peacefully in their cradles. Like Millet’s mother, the young peasant in Mother’s Pride of 1876 is clad in red and blue, and, like the Virgin, she cautiously lifts the veil on top of the wooden cradle to inspect her child’s sleep.121 The same religious affinities are also demonstrated in Young Woman Praying Beside a Baby’s Cradle of 1864, depicting a young rustic mother kneeling at the foot of the cradle, pleading for God’s providence in maintaining her baby’s life.122 This theme, which was repeated in poems published in maternal magazines,123 often included the infant praying with its mother before falling asleep.124 Though she is not praying, the mother in Her Pride and Joy of 1866 is kneeling next to a wicker cradle, gently placing her hand on the sleeping baby, watching its serene face with love and devotion (fig. 3.1). In an essay dealing with the commodification of emotions in nineteenth-century English visual culture, Sonia Solicari argues that the Victorian sentimental impulse was motivated by the sharing of emotions and the dynamics of communal and interactive feeling. Written and pictorial works of sentiment operated as emotional souvenirs, so that material proof of feeling could be easily digested, displayed, and revisited. Representations of motherhood and images of children were prevalent, since the moving quality of the scenes affected the viewers’ own participation in this intimacy, while generating feelings of empathy and identification. In a society that could purchase physical proof of its emotions, sentiment became a matter of supply and demand, reflecting social norms through the validation of collective emotions.125 These attributes were similarly manifested in France, in an era of escalating capitalism, when aestheticized representations of sleeping babies being watched by their happy mothers became a commodity to be hung on the walls of the bourgeoisie as proof of their own domestic cordiality. “It is only too well known amongst artists that when a painter has any difficulty in earning his living, his best chance of a return to prosperity lies in affecting appeals to the maternal instincts,” wrote the art critic Philip Gilbert Hamerton in this respect in the treatise he dedicated in 1895 to French art. “Children, however, are so difficult to : 117 :
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paint that any considerable success in the domestic line of business proves something more than a knowledge of what is marketable.”126 This bourgeois “aesthetic disposition,” in Pierre Bourdieu’s term, turned artworks into symbolic goods that further validated their life choices, since “taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier.”127 As doctors repeatedly underlined potential risks and dangers, visual imageries offered a counter-discourse to the prevalent point of view. The recurrent portrayals of rockable cradles and nude babies sleeping outdoors challenged the doctors’ advice, offering ideal images that stressed the mothers’ divine power to procure sleep, so essential for their health, spirit, and well-being. Given the growing anxiety regarding babies’ mortality rates, the juste-milieu representations of joyful and watchful mothers provided the bourgeois spectators with a perfect, idealized image of the institution of motherhood, a visual salute to the French mothers’ protective capacities. Concurrently, by hanging a painting or print of an idyllic mother watching her sleeping child in their home, bourgeois consumers portrayed – and felt themselves to be – dedicated, attentive parents.
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CHAPTER 4
Ambivalent Mothering: Tediousness and Depression It is not possible for any mother to follow her child everywhere, however zealous and devoted she may be.1 —Dr Alfred Donné, 1842
Widowed and Fatherless, painted by Léon Basile Perrault in 1874, portrays a young woman, dressed in black, leaning against her baby’s cradle, consumed by her thoughts (fig. 4.1). Although she is physically sitting next to the cradle, she is emotionally far away. Unlike the contemporary pictorial convention of maternal vigilance discussed in the previous chapter, she is characterized by sightlessness, engrossed in her solitude due to her husband’s untimely death. Unseeing, the mother is also unseen, as her golden-haired baby is sound asleep, unaware of the abrupt loss of its father. A similar grim mode of expression is displayed in The Widow and Her Children, commissioned from the Belgian artist Alfred Stevens by the government as a tribute to brave sailors lost at sea and the families they had left behind.2 Painted in 1883, it represents a woman in black attire sitting outdoors on a bench, while her baby lies on her lap, sound asleep after nursing and clad in white, its waist encircled with a black ribbon signifying its loss. The mother’s eyes are wide open, but instead of looking at the sleeping child, she is consumed by her grief. In contrast to Greuze’s vigilant mother, trying to maintain her children’s sleep by imploring her son to stop blowing his toy trumpet (fig. 1.1), she avoids eye contact. Leaning against the wall, gazing at a sinking ship and the mass of black clouds emanating from the destruction, her older daughter, too, exhibits no desire to play.
Fig. 4.1. Léon Basile Perrault, Widowed and Fatherless (Veuf et orphelin), 1874, oil on canvas, 109 × 92.5 cm. Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton Art Gallery.
During the last decades of the nineteenth century, images of young widows accompanied by sleeping babies gave visual manifestation to the rising discourse of subjectivity, femininity, and gender differences, substituting desolation and loneliness for maternal happiness. Since, according to the demographer Jacques Bertillon, “in all countries, the proportion of widows far outweighs those of widowers,”3 portrayals of widowhood denoted common occurrences in real life. Nonetheless, Stevens, among others, concurrently portrayed affluent, married mothers who bear similar expressions of sadness and distress. Carefully watching their sleeping babies as per medical demand, they represent the dark side of bourgeois feminine responsibilities, which, unlike the popular juste milieu formula, comprise loneliness and gloom. Such a mother appears at the heart of a Mother and Her Children, painted by Stevens in 1883 as a variation on the original scene and exhibited in Paris in 1884 (fig. 4.2).4 Leaning against a table, next to her straw hat, a mother is looking at her baby. Rather than the black gown and confounded expression of the widow, she is dressed in a sophisticated, ruffled cream-coloured gown, signifying her wealth and elevated social status.5 Sleeping on her lap, her baby is clad in a white embroidered dress, decorated with a pink ribbon – denoting her female gender – per the latest fashion.6 Even though her older daughter wears a middy blouse, commonplace among upper-class children,7 she wears her mother’s shoes and does not possess a skirt or a hat, implying that, rather than being in a public garden, they are situated in their private domain. The bouquet of fresh flowers on the table and the rose that has fallen to the ground suggest they may have just returned from a walk. Yet, even though the mother is surrounded by wealth, affluence, and maternal bliss, she is not smiling. In fact, while a smile is the easiest facial expression for fellow human beings to recognize,8 her expression is hard to read. Although she is watching her sleeping daughter as instructed, thus embodying attentiveness and devotion, she rests her head on her right hand in a typical melancholic posture, conveying weariness and boredom. Her older daughter, too, is avoiding contact, standing in the background, inspecting the remote boats sailing at sea. Christiane Lefebvre suggests that the glowing red haze visible on the horizon may refer to the volcanic eruption at Krakatoa, a global disaster that killed thousands of people and triggered chaotic weather patterns, : 121 :
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Fig. 4.2. Alfred Stevens, Mother and Her Children (Mère et ses enfants), 1883, oil on canvas, 67.3 × 97.8 cm. Private collection.
Fig. 4.3. Alfred Stevens, Complete Happiness (Tous les bonheurs), 1861 (Salon 1861, Exposition Universelle 1867), oil on canvas, 116.5 × 89.5 cm. Brussels, Royal Museums of Fine Art of Belgium, inv. 3645 (photograph provided by Photo d’Art Speltdoorn & Fils).
creating a distinctive red glow visible in large parts of France.9 Yet, the juxtaposition of the global catastrophe presented on the horizon and the tranquil existence in the foreground conveys a sense of confinement, stressing the tediousness of the bourgeois feminine lifestyle. Unlike in eighteenth-century portrayals of sleep in nature, signifying freedom and lack of restrictions, the bourgeois women are enclosed in their own surroundings. The mother’s melancholic expression implies that fulfilling her maternal obligations does not necessarily elicit pleasure or personal fulfillment. Albeit mirroring an influence within the home, as discussed in the previous chapter, continuous maternal supervision may evoke a sense of confinement and despair. Known as a member of the “group of modernity, of which Baudelaire was the god-father,”10 Stevens was described by critics as “the most authorized historiographer of Parisian boudoirs.”11 “In name and birth Stevens is a foreigner,” wrote the French poet Émile Bergerat in 1878, “in mind, heart, and art he is French.”12 While emphasizing the simplicity and unpretentious nature of his domestic genre paintings, “most difficult to achieve,” John Graham maintained in 1863 that Stevens holds the “invincible conviction of the need to make modern art” by portraying his own time.13 Nonetheless, though the contemporaneity of Mother and Her Children suggests that he was well aware of the dark side of bourgeois feminine responsibilities,14 most of his genre paintings depict maternal bliss through the portrayal of elegant young mothers who find their joy in their children (see, for example, fig. 4.3). In the same vein, Perrault, too, among other genre painters in vogue, preferred devoting his paintings to happy, attentive mothers, so popular in the art market (see, for example, fig. 3.13). It is hardly surprising that, in the face of the dominance of the juste-milieu in representations of idealized motherhood, the subjective practice of mothering was habitually presented by artists belonging to the avant-garde. With the intention of analyzing such images, this chapter focuses on several Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artworks that replaced the patriarchal institution of motherhood with “mothering.” Unlike works by Stevens, who represented infants’ sleep in the family garden, these paintings situated sleeping scenes in the seclusion of the bourgeois home, stressing the ever-growing medical dominance in the bourgeois lifestyle and its latent psychological repercussions. : 123 :
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Evidently, as the “wise and moderated” principles of children’s hygiene “require constant and assiduous care,”15 many mothers from the middle and upper classes hired wet nurses or gardes to care for their babies,16 as mentioned in the first chapter. Nonetheless, given the medical and societal expectation that mothers would dedicate their entire time to their children, even when they sleep, many mothers suffered from melancholy and depression. Accordingly, instead of underlining maternal happiness, artists such as Morisot, Degas, and van Gogh revealed the subjective characteristics of the maternal “sleeping agent” practice, particularly regarding weariness, anxiety, and seclusion. The latter, I argue, is demonstrated by Morisot’s Cradle (fig. 0.1), so different from Caille’s and Bouchet-Doumenq’s depiction of happy mothers, patiently staying in the seclusion of their homes, watching their infants as they sleep in their cradles (figs. 3.1, 3.3).
Bonds of Love Painted during the first months of 1872, The Cradle was completed when Edma was still recuperating from labour in Paris, a few months after the birth of her second daughter on 23 December 1871.17 The two are situated in Edma’s room, as implied by the large bed illustrated in the back, covered with a blanket and surmounted by a white canopy. The sense of intimacy between the two is enhanced by the half-open translucent curtain that the mother pulls back to get a better view of her child while partially veiling her from the viewer. Although there is no physical contact between the two, their emotional attachment is manifested by the mother’s tender gaze and her light touch on the edge of the lace enveloping the cradle. Displayed in the First Impressionist Exhibition in 1874, held in Felix Nadar’s studio, this intimate scene gained some critical attention. Etienne Carjat praised it as a “little marvel of feeling,”18 while Jean Prouvaire wrote: “Nothing could be truer or at the same time more touching than this young mother, who, although dressed in a shoddy way, bends over a cradle into which our view of a pink child is muted by a pale cloud of muslin.”19 Even the disapproval of Louis Leroy in Le charivari merely mentioned Morisot’s sloppy brushstrokes,20 saying nothing about the topic. : 124 :
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Whereas some scholars emphasized the formal traits of the painting, discussing Morisot’s progressive style,21 the majority addressed its biographic aspects, considering The Cradle an intimate family portrait.22 Given the painting’s contemporaneity with regard to womanhood, Anne Higonnet maintains that the painting was based on an engraving illustrating a mother tending to her new baby in a cradle, which was published in June 1871 in Le moniteur de la mode, France’s most widely circulated fashion magazine.23 Through her focus on the artist’s consumption of fashion plates, Higonnet reveals how such prints shaped and defined modern images of bourgeois femininity. Once such images had been accepted as a suitable subject matter by avant-garde artists, she argues, it became possible to reinvent them with the intellectual and formal power of painting.24 Indisputably, The Cradle reveals Morisot’s private associations, while concurrently representing contemporary motherhood and bourgeois domestic life. The modernity of the scene is manifested through Edma’s toilette d’intérieur (“day dress”),25 and Blanche’s fashionable cradle. The subject itself, however, was not as revolutionary or unconventional as argued by Higonnet. In fact, the popularity of such images may have been one of the main reasons for which the critical and public responses to Morisot’s painting were mostly favourable in comparison to the attacks on some of her colleagues, mainly Claude Monet and Paul Cézanne. The extreme prominence of images of infants’ sleep was boosted by the medical establishment, as discussed in chapter two. Bouchut’s decision to add such a scene to the title page of his prominent childcare manual testifies to the prevalence of infants’ sleep, not just in the medical discourse, but in wide-ranging cultural manifestations (fig. 2.5). Likewise, a baby lying on its back in its cradle, surrounded by his parents and older brother, was illustrated on the cover of four of the first issues of La jeune mère;26 it was later replaced by a mother extending her hands toward a baby who had just woken up in its cradle.27 A comparable image appeared on every cover of the popular women’s journal La mère et l'enfant: Journal illustré de la première enfance, published by Dr Caradec in the last decades of the century.28 Though in the latter, the baby is awake, sitting on its smiling mother’s lap, the fashionable cradle illustrated on the right, so reminiscent of the cradle in Le moniteur de la mode and in Morisot’s painting, : 125 :
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underlines the significance of infants’ sleep, which was discussed at length in the journal.29 Indeed, Morisot may have been influenced by the 1871 fashion print or, alternatively, by paintings of sleeping babies that regularly appeared in the Salon (see, for example, fig. 3.5).30 Be that as it may, all these images, in fact, reflect the affinity between visual culture and the medicalization of babies’ sleep. In an era that defined health as a consumer product produced by doctors and consumed by those who could purchase it, Morisot, like the illustrator of the Le moniteur de la mode, echoed the latest medical endorsements. As the artist and her sister persistently read fashion magazines,31 it is safe to assume that Edma, at least, did not merely consult her family physician about her daughters but was also exposed to child-care manuals and periodicals designated for young mothers. Since, in 1872, Edma was in Paris with her newborn daughter, her sister was likely exposed to the same reading materials, which were so popular among women of their social background. Indeed, not only is Edma’s gaze acquiescent to medical recommendations, urging mothers to watch their babies’ expressions during sleep,32 but also the painting in its entirety endorses pediatricians’ recommendations. A summary of such instructions, which had been repeated since the early 1860s in the majority of child-care manuals, was published by Brochard in November 1873 in the first issue of La jeune mère. In the spirit of the hygienic movement, Brochard maintained that “the newborn child has only two needs, breastfeeding and sleeping.” Accordingly, he instructed, it should be returned to its cradle immediately after suckling, “unless he gets dirty and needs to be changed.” Like Donné before him, he insisted that the mother must observe strict rules, both for the baby’s physical education and for her own convalescence. “The child’s meals must take place at perfectly regular intervals,” he wrote. “The newborn should suckle every two and a half hours, or every three hours. In the evening he will be given a feed at eleven o’clock, then in the morning around five o’clock. In the meantime,” he concluded, “he has to sleep” (emphasis in the original).33 Aware of the mother’s weariness after birth, the doctor recommended that she place the baby’s cradle in her bedroom, next to her own bed, to facilitate maternal care (see fig. 4.4).34 Indeed, not only is Blanche’s cradle accordingly located at the foot of her mother’s bed, but : 126 :
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Fig. 4.4. André-Théodore Brochard, “Le berceau,” La jeune mère, ou l’éducation du premier âge 1, no. 1 (November 1873), 8. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France (photograph provided by gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France).
it “complies with the rules of hygiene,” as “it is clean, light, at height enough to reach, posed on solid feet.”35 In its structure and overall design, Blanche’s cradle is nearly identical to the one portrayed in La jeune mère, as well as the one illustrated in Bouchut’s guidebook (fig. 2.5). Likewise, as we shall see in the next chapter, Blanche’s clothes and bedding are correspondingly indicative of medical recommendations. “The young mother must carefully monitor the way in which her child : 127 :
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is dressed,” wrote Brochard in this respect. “The clothing must never restrain the new-born’s arms,” and “the head will be scarcely covered.”36 The following concluding paragraph elucidates several others of Morisot’s paintings, portraying her sister with her children outdoors.37 “Next month we will find the young mother seated near her child’s cradle, washing her newborn herself and taking him out to his garden, around the middle of the day, whenever the weather permits.”38 Morisot’s awareness of fashion, exemplified by Edma’s attire in conjunction with her daughter’s cradle, is similarly established through her attentiveness to medical trends. Distinguishable from the academic conventions that shaped the visualization of infants’ sleep in the last decades of the century, Morisot’s painting is modern in every aspect. In contrast to the repeated representations of idyllic Marian motherhood, Morisot portrayed a personal, reflective, and ambivalent mothering. Unlike the happy, watchful mothers represented in paintings, lithographs, child-care manuals, and women’s journals, Edma is not smiling. Even though she is looking at her child, her expression resembles Perrault’s wretched widow (fig. 4.1) rather than his gratified Marian mother (fig. 3.13). Several scholars have commented on Edma’s state of mind, regarding the image as a visual manifestation of the ambivalence of modern motherhood. Accordingly, The Cradle is not simply an image of maternal love, but represents the demands on the new mother, who is expected to attend to her children at all times, all while dressing up, going out, and pleasing her husband.39 Sylvie Patry suggested that her posture can be seen as a modern reformulation of Dürer’s Melancholia I, expressing the tension between a contemporary woman’s expected fate and her squandered artistic career.40 By the same token, Marni Reva Kessler contends that a similar sense of melancholy characterizes the watercolour The Artist’s Sister, Edma, with Her Daughter, Jeanne, also painted in 1872.41 Although it illustrates Edma and her eldest daughter sitting together on a couch, their physical closeness is coupled with emotional remoteness. While the child is staring into the distance, her mother’s lifeless gaze conveys ambivalence and boredom. Even though both paintings, she claims, concern themselves with the gaze, they, in fact, represent an interchange between mother and child, the viewer and the viewed.42 : 128 :
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Nonetheless, even though in The Cradle Edma is looking at her sleeping child with concentration, her gaze lacks the admiration and happiness that characterize Bouguereau’s mothers. Indeed, rather than reciprocating the maternal gaze, her sleeping daughter is making herself visible to her mother’s gaze, “se faire voir,” in Jacque Lacan’s terminology,43 “seen, but does not see,”44 while Edma ostensibly remains unseen. Accordingly, her gaze conveys tediousness and boredom, representing, according to Louis Nicolas Bescherelle, the publisher of The National Dictionary of 1856, “a state of discouragement and languor, a sort of moral lassitude, in which our soul is unable to take any interest either in external or interior operations.” This mental state, Bescherelle concludes, “born from uniformity,” is “the calamity of happy people.”45 Being aware of the extensiveness of such maternal apprehensions, Donné, cited above, argued that “Many young mothers undertake, through excess of zeal and without real profit to their children, more than the other duties they have to fulfill will allow them … This sacrifice, when they impose it upon themselves from a sort of exaltation of the maternal sentiment, soon proves to be beyond their strength and will.”46 Following in his footsteps, the renowned French psychiatrist Louis-Victor Marcé, too, acknowledged that “the tasks of motherhood require a robust constitution and a considerable vital energy, and they very quickly exhaust the organism, when it cannot oppose a strong enough resistance.” Consequently, he maintained, some mothers, “whose intelligence is often brilliant and distinguished,” frequently suffer from “attacks of mania or melancholy which reappear under the influence of painful moral emotions, prolonged fatigue, or physical illness, which is enough to destroy the unstable balance of their nervous functions.”47 As Edma’s sister and close friend, Berthe must have been aware of the sacrifices made by her sister, who substituted domestic life for her love of painting. Growing up, the sisters received private drawing lessons in a studio built by their parents in the garden, working closely together until 1869, when Edma married the naval officer Adolphe Pontillon, moved to Cherbourg, and had less time to paint.48 Whereas Berthe became a successful avant-garde artist, her sister gave up her artistic career for the sake of becoming a mother. Letters between the sisters show a loving relationship, stressed by Berthe’s regret at the physical distance between them and Edma’s withdrawal from painting. “I am often with : 129 :
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you in thought, dear Berthe,” wrote Edma. “I’m in your studio, and I like to slip away if only for a quarter of an hour, to breathe that atmosphere that we shared for many years.”49 In several other letters, Edma conveyed her complex feelings toward motherhood and painting. “The more I advance in marriage,” she wrote, “the more I am convinced that you would not manage this existence under the same conditions. Do your best with your charms and your location to find something at your convenience.”50 On 19 March 1869, Berthe responded to Edma’s lamenting her lack of a current painting career by saying: “the lot you have chosen is not the worst one. You have a serious attachment and a man’s heart utterly devoted to you. Do not revile our fate. Remember that it is sad to be alone; despite anything that may be said or done, a woman has an immense need of affection.” She concluded by stating: “This is something I see for you in motherhood. Do not grieve about painting.”51 Nonetheless, concurrently, she wrote to Edma: “Men easily believe that they occupy an entire existence; but me, I believe that whatever affection that one can have for her husband, one does not break without pain with a life of work; feeling is a very nice thing, provided that we add something to fill our days.”52 Accordingly, Edma’s facial expression reflects the two main reasons for boredom, which can occur when we are prevented from engaging in wanted activity, or else when we are forced to engage in an unwanted activity.53 Patry suggests that Berthe, who in 1872 was thirty and unmarried – to the continuing disappointment of her mother – expressed in this painting her own melancholy at her sister’s maternal role.54 Yet, what makes her painting so notable compared to other images of infantile sleep is the sense of empathy toward her sister’s ambivalence regarding motherhood. Such traits were acknowledged in 1930 by the French art critic and curator Paul Jamot, who wrote: “Berthe Morisot was not married in 1873 when she painted The Cradle … To substitute herself so perfectly with the heroine of this little maternal idyll, one can believe she was inspired by the affection she had for her sister.”55 While Edma’s gaze reflects the modernization of infantile sleep, it also coveys the modernity of the very act of seeing, redefined, according to Jonathan Crary, during the nineteenth century. In his well-known book Techniques of the Observer, Crary argued that the reorganization of vision at the beginning of the nineteenth century produced a new : 130 :
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type of observer, who was separated from the observed. Whereas in previous centuries, vision had been modelled after the camera obscura, which privileges representation while excluding the contingency and specificity of the seeing body, optical devices such as the kaleidoscope created images that “belonged to the eye.”56 Following Walter Benjamin, who maintained that modern subjectivity was based on the idea of “reception in a state of distraction,” Crary argued that, from the mid-1800s on, perception was characterized by experiences of fragmentation and dispersal. Given the growing emphasis on attention in the disciplinary organization of labour, education, and mass consumption, a new ideal of sustained attentiveness was formulated, stressing constitutive elements of creative and free subjectivity. Consequently, modern experiences of subjective autonomy were “intertwined within the resplendent possibilities, ambivalent limits, and failures of an attentive individual.”57 Unlike the Cartesian gaze, ruled by reason alone,58 Edma’s watchfulness combines attention and distraction. Even though she is looking at her child, Morisot’s rapidly applied brushstrokes, which contest Edma’s monotonous occupation, challenge one of the most prominent maternal traits: “patience, patience, and more patience.”59 While The Cradle represents Edma’s awareness of medical guidelines, her melancholic, weary gaze is highly subjective and emotional, joining together the objective and experienced worlds. Moreover, the fact that she is concurrently aware of being watched by her sister further accentuates and validates her own subjectivity. Merleau-Ponty maintained that each of us, in relation to the other, is a visible-seer. This carnal bond between two subjects affords access to the other. In view of his rejection of the Cartesian distinction between body and mind, he claimed that “Anger, shame, hate, and love are not psychic facts hidden at the bottom of another’s consciousness. They are types of behaviour or styles of conduct which are visible from the outside. They exist on this face or in those gestures, not hidden behind them.”60 By portraying Edma’s melancholic gaze, Berthe gave expression to the subjective experience of mothering. Unlike Millet’s busy mother, who watches her baby, mends clothes, and concurrently rocks the cradle with her leg, the bourgeois mother is imprisoned in her societal duties and obligations. Although she can afford to hire a wet nurse, as she obviously did according to some of Morisot’s paintings,61 : 131 :
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she is nevertheless obliged to watch her daughter at all times. Truly, her fashionable clothing and nursery furniture reflect a new sense of femininity that shaped material commodities instead of merely being shaped by them. Nevertheless, like her daughter, enclosed in her cradle, Edma is symbolically confined to her marital bed, tied to her maternal and conjugal duties, imprisoned not just by her social status but also by her compliance with the medicalization of everyday life. Indeed, although the painting epitomizes Brochard’s instructions to the letter, the well-lit room lacks any source of air, despite endless medical instructions to the contrary.62
Puerperal Insanity A seemingly comparable sense of imprisonment was presented a decade later in Madame Ernst May behind the Cradle, painted by Edgar Degas in 1881–82, portraying a woman sitting in quiet desperation, staring aimlessly into the air without looking at the cradle to her side (fig. 4.5). The painting was commissioned by Marie-Héloïse’s husband, the banker Ernest May, for the birth of their second son, Etienne, born in May 1881.63 Like Morisot, Degas portrayed infants’ sleep in the form of a portrait, similarly focusing on the intimate space of the bourgeois bedchamber. The delicate fabric that covers the cradle, topped by a bow, is comparable to contemporary veils illustrated in paintings and prints, thus reflecting the family’s social status (see, for example, fig. 0.1). Yet, instead of drawing attention to infant sleep, it merely highlights the sharp division between mother and child through the fragmented composition. The right part of the painting is close to the viewers, and relatively uniform in its tones, whereas the left part is styled with more detail, despite its relative distance from the viewer. In contradistinction to the contemporary pictorial convention, Degas obliterated the baby, which is merely implied by the back of the cradle, turning it into an insignificant visual tool that explains the mother’s physical and mental fatigue. Her exhaustion is the only evidence of the baby’s existence, as her life is, by definition, devoted to others. This emotional detachment is also apparent in additional portraits of Madame May, painted by Degas as preparatory sketches for this portrait, which similarly focus on her thoughtful expression. The only sketch that portrays the right : 132 :
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Fig. 4.5. Edgar Degas, Madame Ernst May behind the Cradle (Madame Ernst May), 1881–82, pastel mounted on canvas, 130 × 80.5 cm. Private collection.
side of the composition illustrates the cradle’s curtain while utterly disregarding the baby.64 From the late 1860s, Degas painted several portrayals of infants’ sleep, occurring outdoors after nursing.65 At the Races in the Countryside of 1869, presented at the First Impressionist Exhibition in 1874, portrays a baby sleeping on his wet nurse’s lap (fig. 4.6).66 The newborn’s parents – Paul and Marguerite Valpinçon – gaze at their son with interest, while the mother holds a white parasol to protect them from the sun. In her essay about Degas’s images of families, Linda Nochlin argues that the nurse’s centrality in the composition reflects alienation, as it turns the pastoral family scene into a cold depiction of a bourgeois family employing a salaried caregiver for their children.67 This critical : 133 :
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Fig. 4.6. Edgar Degas, At the Races in the Countryside (Aux courses en province), ca. 1869, oil on canvas, 36.5 × 55.9 cm. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.
approach, however, overlooks the clear visual connection between the biological mother and the wet nurse, who are harmoniously portrayed together on either side of the triangular composition, with the sleeping baby in the focal point. Rather than signifying alienation through the substitute for maternal love, the inclusion of the nurse and the baby at the horse races reveals the mother’s desire to spend time with her child, even when she leaves the house. As she cannot expose her breasts in public, hiring a nurse is the only way to provide proper sustenance for her son while exposing him to fresh air, according to medical recommendations.68 Such an interpretation is strengthened in view of the differences between Degas’s wet nurse and the portrait of Madame May, who, without a nurse or a garde, is condemned to stay at home, and watch her baby at all times, even when he sleeps. Whereas the former is watching the sleeping baby with care and attention, instead of buttoning up her open blouse, the latter avoids any eye contact, conveying a sense of weariness and depression, signifying puerperal insanity, which, according to Étienne Esquirol, one of the most renowned physicians at the : 134 :
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Salpêtrière hospital, was especially frequent among the wealthy classes.69 Postpartum depression, identified long before the nineteenth century, gained extensive medical interest from the 1820s among French psychiatrists.70 Already in 1819, Esquirol asserted that “mental alienations following childbirth, during and after lactation, are more frequent than I first indicated; this is true, especially in the wealthy classes: the number, in this class, is about a seventh, according to the result of my specified practice.”71 Comparable observations were stressed by Marcé, who wrote in 1858, after interviewing numerous women, that approximately 10 per cent, primarily aged twenty to thirty-five, suffered from puerperal insanity.72 “The more accurately the information is taken,” he maintained, “the more one can come to attribute to it a truly frightening influence.”73 These observations continued during the Third Republic, when psychiatrists acknowledged that “there are women who, with each pregnancy, have a fit of puerperal insanity [folie puerpérale], sometimes in a manic form, sometimes in a melancholy form.”74 The leading predisposing causes of puerperal madness were believed to be a combination of physical, emotional, and social factors, including age, heredity, multiple pregnancies, prolonged and painful childbirth, and acute fatigue.75 Consequently, even though many mothers – like Fanny Fleury (fig. 3.6) – apparently adjusted themselves to their baby’s demands, others experienced changes in sleeping or eating patterns, low energy, anxiety, crying episodes, irritability, and extreme sadness.76 In his eminent monograph on pregnancy, birth, and lactation disorders, Marcé divided puerperal insanity into two categories: melancholia, characterized by depression, sadness, and lack of activity and enthusiasm; and mania, distinguished by disruptive and deviant behaviour that endangered the life of the newborn. While both these illnesses may appear immediately after labour, typically lasting between one to six months,77 postpartum melancholy “has less importance and gravity than mania,”78 as the latter may result “in healing, incurability, or death.”79 Mothers who suffer from mania, he elucidated, exhibit “a series of intellectual disorders which constitute a predisposition to madness: inexplicable anguish, disturbed personality, anxiety, sadness … The patients, taken with discouragement, have gloomy ideas, hypomanic tendencies, accompanied by hallucinations of which the ideas of suicide and infanticide are all too often the result.”80 Such desolate mothers, : 135 :
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“are sad, morose, but more often still excited … they cry or they laugh without reason ... the slightest noise painfully affects their hearing, the bright light causes pain ... This state of excitement ... may subside on its own ... but if the subjects are predisposed to madness ... then the agitation increases day by day, and the mania erupts in all its violence ... they become dangerous for themselves, for those around them, and especially for the child entrusted to their care.”81 Once a case was diagnosed, relatively rapid decisions needed to be made regarding the patient’s required treatment. Although some women, who “threatened to throw the child out the window if it was ever brought to them,”82 were placed in asylums (maisons de santé),83 many remained at home under “the most rigorous surveillance.”84 Not wishing to hurt their babies, such mothers, nonetheless, “remain indifferent and do not show any desire to see them.”85 The comparison between Madame May and Edma reflects a range of maternal depression, as described by Marcé. While Edma’s expression differs from Bouguereau’s smiling mothers, she nevertheless fulfills her motherly duties, watching her daughter as repeatedly instructed. Albeit not idyllic, she represents the “good enough mother,” which, according to the English pediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, does not have to be perfectly attuned to her children but just “ordinarily devoted” to protecting her baby from emotional or physical harm.86 Nonetheless, as being “ordinarily devoted” entailed, in the mid-nineteenth century, being close to godlike, according to Marcé, approximately 10 per cent of mothers who failed to imitate the Virgin’s selfless devotion suffered from depression.87 Even though the new expectations empowered mothers within the household, the demand for intensive motherhood, repeated in the last third of the century by feminists, republicans, and Catholics alike, imprisoned mothers, both physically and mentally, in the proximity of their children’s cradles. Concurrently, Marie-Héloïse, unlike Edma, avoids eye contact with her baby and exhibits signs of puerperal insanity through her lethargy and passivity, thus testifying to the vast psychological costs of the newfangled socio-medical demands on mothers. It is likely that Mr May’s refusal to accept the painting, which remained unfinished,88 stemmed from the fact that it utterly contradicted the accepted cultural notion of the watchful mother, happily looking : 136 :
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Fig. 4.7. Vincent Van Gogh, Lullaby, or Women Rocking a Cradle (La berceuse, Augustine Roulin), 1889, oil on canvas, 92.7 × 73.7 cm. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg Collection, Gift of Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg, 1996, Bequest of Walter H. Annenberg, 2002.
at her child, thinking only of its well-being. Not only did her expression of melancholy challenge the contemporary visual convention of the blissful, selfless mother, but it also defied national, religious, and medical anticipations, and current expectations vis-à-vis the appropriate feminine manner of conduct. Portrayed as an exclusive projection of contemporary outlooks, Marie-Héloïse, as an individual woman, remains in the shade. A comparable wretched woman appears in Vincent van Gogh’s Lullaby, or Women Rocking a Cradle, painted between December 1888 and early 1889 in five versions (see, for example, fig. 4.7).89 In a letter to his brother Theo from 1 December 1888, the artist wrote: “I’ve done the portraits of an entire family, the family of the postman whose head I did before – the man, his wife, the baby, the young boy, and the 16-year-old son … And if I manage to do this entire family even better, I’ll have done at least one thing to my taste and personal [taste].”90 Yet, though he emphasized the word “family,” repeated twice, unlike Edma or Madame May, the only pictorial evidence to the existence of a child is the rope held by Madame Roulin, allegedly tied to an unseen cradle. : 137 :
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According to two letters the artist sent to his friends, the painting illustrates “our lullaby or the woman rocking the cradle,”91 intended to provide comfort “for broken hearts.”92 On 28 January 1889, Vincent wrote to Theo, clarifying that this motif was chosen after reading the novel Pecheur d’Islande (Icelandic Fisherman) by Pierre Loti, describing homesick fishermen in their melancholic isolation, exposed to dangers at sea. He thought that “seeing it in the cabin of a boat of Icelandic fishermen, would experience a feeling of being rocked, reminding them of their own lullabies.”93 Accordingly, the artist imagined the painting as the centrepiece of two sunflower paintings, thus creating a devotional triptych of a maternal icon, a modern Madonna.94 After her husband had posed for the artist for several works, Augustine sat for van Gogh and Paul Gauguin in the Yellow House the two men shared. Her distant gaze may be the result of her relations with Vincent, since, according to her daughter, she kept her gaze on Gauguin during the sitting, due to the discomfort she felt in the presence of his colleague, who frightened her.95 Whatever the reasons for her appearance, she is neither rocking the cradle nor singing a lullaby.96 In fact, not only was the custom of rocking the cradle – exceedingly discouraged by doctors from the eighteenth century onward –prevalent only in the rural areas of France, but even when it was adopted in the countryside, rather than ropes, the motion was generated by means of flat woven straps made of wide pieces of fabric, attached to the cradle, as represented by Millet (fig. 3.14).97 Such straps were affixed to wooden buttons at the sides and fastened to the cradle’s rods in a criss-cross fashion over the bedspread, with the infant tucked underneath, to prevent the child from falling out when the cradle was rocked.98 Indeed, though strings were represented in the print Céline berce sa poupée (fig. 2.4), the sleeping doll ends up falling out as a result of Claire’s reckless behaviour.99 This pictorial inaccuracy, which represents threat rather than carefulness, is further underlined in comparison to drawings and paintings previously made by the artist, as well as a vast number of letters in which he mentioned babies lying in their cradles, seen in images or in real life.100 In Girl Kneeling by a Cradle, drawn in The Hague in March 1883, van Gogh depicted a young girl, kneeling next to a cradle, watching her sleeping sibling.101 Purchased by the artist for the : 138 :
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newborn baby of Sien (Clarisena Maria Hoornik), with whom he shared a small apartment, the cradle was mentioned in several of van Gogh’s letters to Theo. On 6 or 7 July 1882, he described their cramped lodging, adding: “Next to it is a small iron cradle with a green coverlet. I can’t look at the last piece of furniture without emotion, for it’s a strong and powerful emotion that grips a person when one has sat beside the woman one loves with a child in the cradle near her … I’ve hung the big etching after Rembrandt above it – those two women beside the cradle, one reading from the Bible by the light of a candle, while the great cast shadows put the whole room in deep chiaroscuro.”102 Evoking the Christian connotations of Rembrandt’s image of The Holy Family of 1645,103 the artist stressed a mother’s devotion to her child. Five years later, however, when Vincent moved to Paris, his rendering of maternal watchfulness was altered. Woman Sitting by a Cradle, painted in spring 1887, during his stay with his brother Theo, portrays Leonie-Rose Davy-Charbuy, clad in dark brown, sitting in a straight-backed chair next to a cradle, her hands clasped on her lap.104 As she lived with her uncle, the art dealer Pierre Firmin-Martin, who displayed some of van Gogh’s paintings in his gallery, the artist made a portrait of the niece while emphasizing the paintings hanging in the background. As in Morisot’s painting, her own bed is situated in the back, next to the elevated cradle, which is veiled by a white curtain decorated with a blue ribbon, indicating her child’s male gender. Her placement at home near the cradle reflects the popularity of this theme, both in art and visual culture. The lit candle on the right indicates that it is nighttime, yet, instead of sleeping, she supervises her baby’s sleep, as required. Nonetheless, while the fact that she is not looking at the cradle may be a result of posing for the artist, the painting lacks intimacy, and the cradle remains in the background. As a mere accessory that implies motherhood, rather than representing it, the baby, in fact, is nowhere to be seen. Like Degas’s portrait of Marie-Héloïse, the middle-class woman signifies restraint and detachment. La berceuse, painted a year and a half later, further accentuates this aloofness. It can be assumed that van Gogh genuinely perceived the portrait of Madame Roulin as motherly. Cornelia Homburg maintains that, by repainting it in four other versions, he again evoked the characteristics of consolation and : 139 :
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protection that he had accorded to the original portrait, underlining its truly iconic nature.105 Yet, far from representing the soothing, empathic mother, La berceuse epitomizes sightlessness and depression. These traits are further accentuated in comparison to Morisot’s painting, which gives the viewer a window into the intimacy between mother and child while concurrently stressing Edma’s own agency. Although her sleeping daughter does not share her gaze, Edma is being watched by the loving, empathic eyes of her sister, who is vicariously expressing Edma’s internal state as if it were her own. Unlike Bouguereau’s smiling mothers, The Cradle epitomized motherhood as an individual identity, replacing the patriarchal institution of motherhood with subjective, self-doubting mothering. The painting’s main protagonist is not the sleeping baby nor her mother, but rather the gaze of the female agent who enables her slumber. These unique characteristics may explain why Morisot’s painting, offered for sale in the First Impressionist Exhibition, found no buyer and remained in Madame Pontillon’s collection until 1930. Following its acquisition in 1930, however, The Cradle rapidly became “one of the most popular masterpieces in the Louvre,” considered as an exceptionally “delicate expression of the maternal feeling that we owe to French art,”106 a painting that “radiates maternal love, the purest feeling of the human heart.”107 Filled with admiration for its intimate subject matter, Jamot wrote, “Only a woman could paint this young mother who contemplates, watches and, with all the strength of her ecstatic and fearful love, protects … the sleep of her child.” Although he states that Morisot was not married when she painted The Cradle, he added: “But the maternal instinct, which pre-exists all experience in the purest of virgins, suffices, and we are pleased to think that rendered by a young woman, this gesture, repeated daily by thousands and thousands of women since the beginning of the world, has only once found its true poetic and plastic expression, gaining more modesty, chaste happiness, and trembling hope, which makes Berthe Morisot’s Cradle unlike any other image of a very small child sleeping under its mother’s gaze.”108 Following such commendations, the art critic of the literary and artistic journal Comœdia, who argued enthusiastically that “the work is in the purest French tradition,” emphasized The Cradle’s religious attributes. “If it was still the custom to represent Mary and her Son in : 140 :
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contemporary costumes,” he wrote, “this painting could just as well be called Virgin and Child, as it radiates religious tenderness and sacred modesty.”109 Yet, The Cradle does not represent a secular Madonna, but rather a modern, individual mother, whose gaze reflects her ambivalence about the unrelenting demands of motherhood through the unique combination of mothering, motherliness, and female agency. By exhibiting Edma’s boredom, the painting may offer a counter-narrative to the institution of motherhood, transforming the maternal practice into a site of empowerment that can subvert patriarchal notions and foster new ways of defining the complex experience of being a mother.
Execution versus Superintendence The same combination also characterizes Morisot’s paintings done during her own experience as a mother. After she had almost despaired of ever getting married, after nearly four years of marriage to Eugène Manet, brother of the pre-eminent artist and Morisot’s colleague, her only child was born on 14 November 1878.110 In the summer of 1879, she dedicated a small watercolour to her daughter, Julie, sitting peacefully in her cradle, wide awake (fig. 4.8). The cradle itself is identical to the one painted seven years earlier, yet the entire scene has changed. Her sleeping niece, partially concealed from the viewer by the white veil, is replaced by her own child, occupying the centre of the composition, sitting serenely and looking at a small rattle in her hand. Although the reflective, observant mother is absent, the sense of intimacy so dominant in The Cradle, painted five years earlier, is evoked by the painter’s affectionate gaze, which remains one of the primary focal points of the image. Julie’s mother – the artist herself – is indirectly present in the scene through the double act of observing and documenting, simultaneously being the mother, the beholder, and the painter. In a letter written to Edma in spring 1879, Morisot reported that Julie “has been baptized … and vaccinated. Two necessary chores are thus behind me.” Whereas her decision to implement the Christian tradition “came as a great shock to some people,” she considered vaccination an essential deed, not worthy of extended debate. Comparing Julie to “a big inflated balloon,” she added, “My daughter is a Manet to the tips of her fingers; even at this early date she is like her uncles, : 141 :
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Fig. 4.8. Berthe Morisot, Baby in a Cradle, Julie (Bébé au berceau, Julie), 1879, watercolour, 18.5 × 18.4 cm. Private collection.
she has nothing of me.” Similar reservations about her newborn baby’s appearance appeared in a letter sent to her sister Yves, stating: “All poor Julie has to offer is her fat cheeks and her pretty complexion.” The following sentences divulge Morisot’s difficulties in adjusting to her new circumstances. “Don’t accuse me of being neglectful, my dear, I think of you and your children continually, but my life is becoming complicated,” she wrote. “I have little time, and then I have my days of melancholy, my black days, when I am afraid to take up a pen for fear of being dull.”111 The last sentence reflects the low-grade depression from which the artist suffered following her daughter’s birth, which may have been one of the reasons why she did not exhibit her work at the Fourth Impressionist Exhibition in April 1879.112 Nonetheless, several paintings portraying Julie in the arms of a wet nurse, Angèle, reveal that Morisot, like Marguerite Valpinçon, found a way to combine her persistent personal and professional desires with : 142 :
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Fig. 4.9. Berthe Morisot, Wet Nurse and Baby (Nourrice et bébé), 1879, oil on canvas, 50 × 61 cm. Washington, DC. Private collection.
her new maternal obligations. In Wet Nurse and Baby, painted in the summer of 1879, the nurse sits in the centre of the garden, suckling Julie at her bare breast as per medical recommendations (fig. 4.9). Identified by her light-coloured clothes and the white hat tied with a ribbon under her chin, she glances in the direction of the viewer as she enfolds the baby’s tiny body in her arms. Nochlin argues that this work focuses on wet nursing as a representation of feminine work, drawing a parallel between professional nursing and the work of the artist herself.113 Indeed, as in the twofold depiction of motherhood in Degas’s At the Races in the Countryside, Morisot – present in the scene through the act of painting – intersperses additional evidence of her presence through her parasol and hat, strewn on the grass on either side of the wet nurse. These two accessories, typical attributes of urban bourgeois women, appear in Beneath the Lilac at Maurecourt from 1874, portraying Edma sitting in nature with her two daughters, Blanche and Jeanne, with Edma’s closed : 143 :
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parasol and the artist’s straw hat placed on the left, as a symbol of the artist’s involvement in family gatherings. 114 In Wet Nurse and Baby, the hat and parasol also belong to the artist, evidence of her involvement in her daughter’s life. This unique portrayal, hinting at the harmony between the biological mother (mère de sang, “blood mother”) and the wet nurse (mère de lait, “milk mother”), demonstrates the complex entanglement between maternity and motherliness. Though Angèle is not the girl’s mother, every depiction of Julie and her nurse encloses physical contact representing maternal affection.115 Even though Donné dedicated an entire chapter to maternal nurs116 ing, he acknowledged the importance of fulfilling the mother’s needs and desires. Maintaining that the feeding method depends entirely on the mother’s decision, he insisted that women who are not interested in nursing for their own reasons are entitled to give it up.117 Since Donné declared that he has “no other aspiration than the interest of the child and his mother, who cannot be separated,”118 he devoted the third chapter of his manual to wet nursing, discussing at length the nurse’s physical and moral characteristics.119 “It is impossible, or at any rate very rare, for a mother to give all her time to her children,” Donné wrote, and “avoid the necessity of abandoning him for some moments, from time to time, to foreign hands.” Women cannot sacrifice themselves entirely to the care of their infants; they cannot withdraw themselves either from their family obligations or their relations to society, nor even give up every species of distraction and amusement … For this reason, the principal duty of a Lady is superintendence, not execution … All that is important is to carefully select those who serve us, and to exercise firm and constant supervision … it is not a bad thing, from the very beginning, to lay the responsibility upon the nurse with whom the child is to pass a portion of his early life.120 Unlike Hall and Brochard, cited in the previous chapter,121 Donné urged mothers, “whenever one’s mean and habitation admit of it,” to entrust the baby with its nurse during the night.122 Stressing the mother’s physical and emotional needs, he added: : 144 :
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We must not ignore the fact that there exist mothers – and very good ones – who feel no inclination for the care which infancy demands, and particularly for nursing. It would be wrong to conclude from this that such mothers are necessarily unnatural ones, incapable of devotion and sincere love for their children … I confess, even, that in many cases, I should prefer a little less enthusiasm on the part of certain young mothers who, in the first moment of ardor, allow themselves to be carried away beyond what they are really capable of accomplishing, and whose zeal does not long continue equal to this first impulse.123 Wet Nurse and Baby, painted a few months after the Fourth Impressionist Exhibition, indicates the veracity of such statements. Although foreign hands hold the artist’s daughter, the intimacy between Julie and her nurse conveys a sense of tenderness and affection. Devoid of jealousy or criticism, the painting denotes Morisot’s gratitude to the foreign woman that enabled her to function as a mother without renouncing her vocation as an artist. Indeed, Baby in a Cradle, Julie, painted during the summer of 1879, reveals that the artist found solace in conjoining her professional and maternal roles. Despite her complaints regarding the lack of leisure time and her fear of insipidity, which stemmed directly from becoming a mother, the artist found a way to combine her two sources of affection. Unlike Edma’s melancholy, Morisot’s twofold gaze, intertwining her personal and professional identities, enabled her to substitute the institution of motherhood with personal mothering. Although she repeatedly painted her nieces in the early 1870s, Julie’s arrival enriched both her personal and artistic life. Serving as Morisot’s favourite model, her daughter was painted in nearly a hundred and fifty paintings and drawings from birth until the artist died in 1895. Higonnet cites a letter composed by Julie in adulthood, in which she relates that she and her mother always spent time together and, though she was raised by salaried nursemaids, her mother looked after her with love and affection and often painted her during their joint outings in nature.124 Even as a young child, she was allowed to join her parents’ friends, among them artists, poets, and writers, and to participate in their gatherings and : 145 :
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conversations. By the time she was eight, she had visited Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands with her parents, in addition to frequent visits to museums and other cultural activities.125 “The singularity of Berthe Morisot consisted in living her painting and painting her life,” wrote in this vein the poet Paul Valéry, her niece’s husband, in an article published in 1941 for an exhibition at the musée de l’Orangerie. “As a girl, wife, and mother, her sketches and paintings follow her destiny and accompany it very closely.”126 Indeed, unlike the idyllic unvarying golden-haired babies painted by academic artists, the portrayal of Julie in her cradle emphasizes the child’s identity and individuality, strengthened by her distinctive plump features and her fixed gaze. Ostensibly oblivious to her mother’s presence, Julie focuses on the toy in her hand, experiencing sovereignty and self-sufficiency. Instead of constituting restrictive confinement, her cradle epitomized autonomy and independence for both Julie and her mother.
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Part three Entrepreneurs
CHAPTER 5
The Commodification of Sleep: Space, Clothing, and Toys Make sure that your baby’s feet are always warm.1 —Dr Félix Bremond, 1885
The Cradle, Camille with the Artist’s Son, Jean, painted by the baby’s father, Claude Monet, portrays the artist’s first child, born in Paris on 8 August 1867. Lying motionless in a cradle under the supervision of a woman, about to fall asleep, Jean holds a drum-shaped rattle in his hand and stares toward his father (fig. 5.1). A similar theme is depicted in Jean Monet Sleeping, showing the baby lying in his cot, holding a doll, absorbed in sleep (fig. 5.2). Daniel Wildenstein, who dates the first image to late 1867 and the second to early 1868, suggests that, during these months, Monet – who spent most of his time with his aunt at Saint-Adresse – occasionally came to visit his newborn son, then in Paris with his mother, Camille Doncieux. 2 Mary Mathews Gedo, however, argues that Jean Monet Sleeping was painted during the family’s stay at Étretat in the spring or summer of 1869, when the child was nearly two years old. Based on the difference between the cradle’s diamond-shaped interior and the small-scale floral bassinet portrayed
Fig. 5.1. Claude Monet, The Cradle, Camille with the Artist’s Son Jean (Le berceau, Camille avec le fils de l’artiste, Jean), 1867–68, oil on canvas, 116.2 × 88.8 cm. Washington, National Gallery of Art, Collection of Mr and Mrs Paul Mellon 1983.1.25 (photograph provided by the National Gallery of Art, Washington). Fig. 5.2. Claude Monet, Jean Monet Sleeping (Jean Monet endormi), 1869, oil on canvas, 42 × 50 cm. Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Gliptotek (photograph published under fair dealing).
in The Cradle, Camille with the Artist’s Son, Jean, Gedo maintains that the former is, in fact, “a more adult-style bed with a proper pillow and linen,” designated for an older child.3 A closer look reveals that both paintings represent the same bassinet, which consists of a metal mesh basket, cloaked in a floral fabric and padded with a mattress and a large white pillow. The translucent grey lozenges on the lower part of Jean’s cradle in the earlier image indicate its mesh structure, while the shadows on the left side of the cushion in Jean Monet Sleeping point to the presence of a curtain. Nonetheless, other alterations related to the child’s position, garments, and toys, support Gedo’s time frame, thus suggesting that the two paintings were painted nearly a year and a half apart. Unlike the 1869 portrait, which focuses on the toddler’s lone presence, four-month-old Jean is supervised by a woman, presumably his mother, or else a garde hired to watch over the newborn to help Camille recuperate after birth.4 Judging from the large wooden bed illustrated on the left, shrouded by a long white curtain and covered with a brown blanket, his cradle is located in his mother’s bedroom, as per medicinal instructions, to facilitate caregiving and supervision. In addition, the baby is completely wrapped in a warm blanket, a white bonnet covering his head, whereas the toddler, clad in a long-sleeved white nightgown embroidered with black decorations, is bare-headed and uncovered. Finally, baby Jean holds a drum-shaped rattle, while the two-year-old child is embracing a doll. In a letter from 1 January 1868, sent to Jean’s godfather, artist Frédéric Bazille, Monet complained of his dire financial situation, noting: “I have gone through this day with no heat and the baby has a cold.”5 The letter, indicating Monet’s financial situation, suggests that Jean’s varying attire reflects the disparate seasons, winter versus summer. Yet, in fact, the differences between the two paintings allude to the significant disparity between “being asleep” and “doing sleeping,”6 as discussed in this book’s introduction. Whereas the first signifies self-will and complete autonomy, the latter is entirely fashioned and controlled by the baby’s caregivers. In a well-known essay on bodily techniques, the sociologist Marcel Mauss argues that the very way we use our bodies, including movements and gestures, is a product of socio-cultural learning processes. Concurrently, since there is no “natural” manner of using our bodies, even sleep has its varied cultural techniques; some sleep on the floor : 150 :
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in the company of others, whereas countless others use “instrumental assistance,” including beds, pillows, mattresses, and particular attire while sleeping in private spaces, away from public view.7 According to sociologist Norbert Elias, until the sixteenth century, it was common to share a bed; hosts and guests, men and women, elderly and children, all slept together. From the seventeenth century onward, this lack of inhibition slowly disappeared, until sleep eventually became one of the most intimate sectors of human life.8 In the late-eighteenth century, the distinction between the private and public spheres extended to the home, as the bourgeois family institutionalized privateness, and the home became the sphere of the conjugal family. The privatization of life was observed in architectural changes, as the house became the intimate domain of the nuclear family. While the house became more of a “home” for each individual, fewer rooms were designated for the family as a whole, and a growing number of specially furnished rooms were designated for individual family members.9 As a result, the family’s intimacy was represented through the bedroom, which became one of the most private spaces in the household.10 Those attributes became increasingly evident in France during the second half of the nineteenth century. Due to the Haussmannian renovation of Paris, bourgeois apartments were intentionally separated from workplaces and shops, reinforcing the idea of the home as a refuge and site of repose and socializing. Whereas most bourgeois apartments had a sitting room, a salon, and a dining room for receiving guests, bedrooms were the only genuinley private spaces where – unlike the upper-class women’s boudoir – guests rarely entered.11 Concomitantly, interior spaces were divided by gender. While men would retreat to the library or the billiard room to socialize amongst themselves, women were generally the main users of the salon, the kitchen, the servants’ quarters, and the children’s rooms. Even though babies were expected to sleep in their mother’s bedroom to facilitate maternal care (see fig. 4.4), most middle-class urban apartments contained two children’s rooms, separated from their parent’s bedroom and divided by gender.12 “Do not allow other persons from the opposite sex to lurk in your room while you are in it,” wrote in this vein an anonymous French author in 1817, in a book dealing with children’s education. “Get up so prudently that no part of your body seems exposed, even if you were alone in the : 151 :
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bedroom. If someone else arranges your bed, do not let them discover when you got out; at least put the blanket back on.”13 These unique spaces gained significant attention from the medical establishment during the last decades of the century, when nearly all doctors published strict recommendations concerning the proper sleeping environment appropriate for infants, including the baby’s room, bedclothes, mattress and pillow, room temperature, recommended ratios of air, light, and noise, and sanctioned postures. The pediatricians’ comprehensive directions were mirrored in art, as nearly all images made by naturalist, Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and genre artists epitomized the implementation of the new hygienic, routine babies’ sleep. These “uniforms of sleep,” to use Taylor’s terminology,14 did not consist merely of a watchful mother, but also of similar locations, bedding, clothing, and sleeping postures, which demarcate the standardization and normalization of babies’ sleep. While striving to attain a certain level of hygiene and comfort for the baby and its parents, such endorsements eventually augmented medical authority within the household among all classes. Nonetheless, even though the emerging infant-centred industry reveals the medical establishment’s growing social control vis-à-vis children’s sleeping environment, a close inspection of infants’ clothing and toys shows a much more complex approach, in which consumers’ demands generated production that occasionally diverged from doctors’ recommendations. Wishing to undermine the idea of the “norm” and convey their children’s distinctiveness, middle- and upper-class mothers often obtained items that mirrored the doctor’s demands, yet varied according to class, gender, and taste. To decipher this unique “commodity situation,” that is, the meaning of an object and its socio-cultural setting and use,15 this chapter addresses four leading players: the objects (bedding, clothing, and toys), the manufacturers (doctors and designers); the users (primary users – the babies – as well as secondary users – the parents or caregivers), and the socio-medical environment. Through these four axes, I will demonstrate that babies’ objects reveal a shift in focus from the primary users – children – to the secondary users. Even though children became critical players in consumer culture during the second part of the nineteenth century, the growing concern for doctors’ satisfaction : 152 :
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was overshadowed by the interest in the secondary users – mainly the mothers – which spurred the entrepreneurs’ involvement in the infant-centred industry.
The Location of Sleep One of the leading medical concerns around sleeping rituals was the ventilation of the baby’s room. Already, in 1775, Dr Nicolas suggested: “Remove any bad odours from the cradle, and often renew the air in the room.”16 Similar assertions were made by Donné, who specifically addressed parents living in large cities, where fresh air was significantly less abundant.17 During the last decades of the century, his successors constantly maintained that insufficient air, caused by clustered, heated rooms, combined with heavy bed curtains that prevented the flow of air, might cause insomnia.18 Accordingly, the pediatrician Louis Giraut stated that “The room of the newborn baby needs to be greatly elevated … on the first floor, facing east,” to ensure the purity of the air it breathes. “Every day, we will open the windows of the child’s bedroom to refresh the air,” he added. “The beautiful clarity of the sun is essential for childhood. In a dark room or in the shade, he languishes and withers.”19 “Air is half their food, half their life,” wrote the Parisian physician Émile Olivier Toussaint in La jeune mère in 1889. “When the air is pure,” he wrote, the child is “rosy, ruddy.” However, “when the air is bad, insufficient, vitiated by noxious emanations, the child is pale, withered, unwell.” “Do not fear to ventilate,” he commanded, since “the bedroom, especially if it is small, conceals miasmas that must be expelled.”20 Until the mid-nineteenth century, doctors believed that diseases – such as cholera or tuberculosis – were caused by a miasma (ancient Greek for “pollution”), a poisonous, foul form of “bad air” that could transmit diseases via odour. However, during the last quarter of the century, scientists and physicians replaced the miasma theory – advanced by Hippocrates in the fourth century BCE and accepted since ancient times throughout Europe – with the germ theory of disease. Following Louis Pasteur’s research in the 1880s and 1890s, hygienists emphasized personal cleanliness to prevent epidemics and ensure individual and societal health.21 David S. Barnes contends that the miasma doctrine : 153 :
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actually gained validation from the new science of germs.22 Indeed, while the new theories dispelled the belief that foul air triggered diseases, the need for fresh air around the baby’s crib was repeatedly promoted by all pediatricians, both traditional and innovative, who insisted on domestic ventilation to provide pure, odourless, sufficiently circulated, and renewed air. Some, like Toussaint, who opposed using “flowers or perfumes” in the child’s bedroom,23 were yet to adopt the germ theory. Others, however, embraced the conclusions of the national commission, formed in 1880, which maintained that foul air could indeed spread diseases – not as generalized miasmas, but as vehicles of specific pathological germs.24 “The microbes,” wrote Dr François Barjon in this respect, “would lodge themselves in all these nests made purposely for them. Additional air, light, fewer draperies, doors, double curtains, here is fashion for once in harmony with hygiene.”25 The significance of “the beautiful clarity of the sun” is at the core of The First Born, painted in 1863 by the genre painter Gustave Leonard de Jonghe (fig. 5.3). Praised at the Salon for its contemporaneity,26 the painting portrays a nursing mother proudly exhibiting her baby to an admiring young friend who has come for a visit. The mother’s right leg is elevated on a stool to facilitate breastfeeding, while her chair is located in front of the open window, showering her baby with air and light. Its head, however, is placed facing away from the window to protect the baby from “too bright a light,” which can “hurt the eyes and cause many infirmities.”27 The cradle’s location, positioned in front of the large window, epitomizes similar hygienic considerations. “To prevent accidental strabismus,” wrote Le Barillier in 1860, “the cradle will be placed in such a way that light comes from behind or from the front.”28 For additional shelter, the cradle’s suspended veil, “made of light fabric, which can be closed or opened at will,” gives the child “all the air he needs.”29 Concurrently, however, it shields the baby “from the drafts caused by an open door,” while preserving it “from mosquitoes and flies.”30 Similar veils, which appeared in genre paintings, fashion prints, medical illustrations, and doll novels, are apparent in The Cradle, Camille with the Artist’s Son, Jean. Not only is the cradle located in Camille’s bedroom, as per pediatricians’ recommendations, but the shaded window and the crib’s curtains protect the baby from direct exposure to sunlight. Millet, in contrast, portrayed a low-set : 154 :
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Fig. 5.3. Gustave Leonard de Jonghe, The First-born (Le premier-né), 1863, oil on panel, 52.5 × 66 cm. Private collection.
cradle that could not benefit from attached curtains, therefore positioning the window behind the baby, while a cloth placed above the child’s head screens out the light (fig. 3.14), as represented in the 1865 doll novel (fig. 2.4). Monet’s compliance with medical guidelines is also reflected in Jean’s sleeping postures. “The child will be sleeping with his head a little high, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other,” wrote Le Barillier, “to clear the chest of the phlegm it contains.”31 As pediatricians believed that other postures might harm the baby’s delicate brain tissues, they continuously recommended placing its head on a pillow.32 Barjon provided an additional reason for this unique posture, insisting that it could prevent suffocation if the baby vomited.33 Due to the frequency of such occurrences, nearly all doctors strictly opposed prone sleeping, namely, sleeping on the stomach.34 Whereas the medical opposition to this position was unconditional, some pediatricians equally endorsed : 155 :
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side sleeping and supine sleeping positions (i.e., sleeping on the back).35 Yet, the majority stressed the importance of positioning the baby on its side in the cradle. “Lay the child on the left side or on the right side indifferently,” commanded Degoix, “but not on the back.”36 To maintain such a sleeping posture, doctors recorded strict rules concerning the cradle’s bedding, which ultimately restricted the baby’s movements, keeping it still: “He must be lying in a cradle with one or two doormats and a cushion made of oat hull, kelp, or horsehair; over the mats, there is a waterproof canvas or absorbent felt which protects them from any stains … It is covered with a sheet and one or more blankets, depending on the temperature. If it is cold, it is necessary, especially in the early stages of life, to place along the child’s body a bottle of hot water, sometimes one on each side.”37 Denoting the prevalence of such medical instructions, most nineteenth-century artists portrayed babies covered in blankets, their heads resting on pillows (see, for example, figs. 0.1, 2.1, 2.3, and 3.1). Likewise, all paintings, lithographs, advertisements, and drawings repeatedly portrayed babies – from all social classes – sleeping on their backs, their heads slightly tilted to the side (see, for example, figs. 3.5, 3.14, and 3.15). This medical endorsement is represented in The Cradle, portraying Blanche’s face as it calmly rests on her pillow, slanted toward the viewer (fig. 0.1). Like the babies painted by Toulmouche, Millet, and Perrault, two-year-old Jean’s head is slightly tilted to the side, while baby Jean is lying on his back, awake, in full compliance with the doctors’ demands, which maintained that “children should be accustomed to falling asleep in their cradle.”38 In a decade of growing awareness of the uniqueness of childhood, the choice of position was, undoubtedly, partly a visual consideration, as it constituted the most effective way of fully exposing the babies’ serene features. Nonetheless, it concurrently accentuated the babies’ lack of independence in terms of their sleep, as the new hygienic children’s beddings had “the advantage of covering the child competently, securing his body, whatever movements he makes during his sleep.”39 Apart from several juste milieu images of babies sleeping in partial nudity outdoors, as a symbol of their innocence and their likeness to Christ (see, for example, figs. 3.11, 3.13, and 3.15), the majority of images portrayed sleeping babies tucked in their cradles. Fully clothed : 156 :
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and completely covered, they could barely move to adjust their bodily posture. Whereas their sleep demanded every attention from their caregivers, the freedom to sleep at their own discretion was, in fact, denied to them. Enclosed in their beds, they were fully governed by the new rules of hygiene.
The Uniform of Sleep Even though the baby’s confinement was further accentuated by its modern, hygienic clothing, pediatricians repeatedly stressed their opposition to swaddling, arguing that “the mother must prevent the garde from following this prejudiced routine that could be fatal to her newborn baby.”40 Such potential misfortunes appear in a caricature by Georges Bertal, which portrays a fierce-looking nurse holding a screaming baby, slapping its naked bottom with vigour, as seven other babies, wrapped like human parcels and hanging from nails on the wall, scream their lungs out.41 The caption elucidates the tragic scene: “this brave mother Barrot has always adored freedom; likewise, thanks to her, we have little freedoms somewhat tied up.” Indeed, even though from the late-eighteenth century, members of the upper classes renounced this practice, as discussed in chapter one, wet nurses and members of the rural classes continued swaddling their children until the beginning of the twentieth century.42 Doctors, however, repeatedly refuted this custom, stressing that “Such clothing hinders the child’s development, it can only be harmful to their health.”43 The Parisian physician Paul Triaire was even blunter. While insisting that babies’ clothing must be “wide and comfortable as both reason and nature demand it,”44 he added: “we should ask ourselves, would we sleep well at ease, if we were tied up before we went to bed?” To conclude, he cited Rousseau: “Barbarians, they cry because you are hurting them. Thus garroted, you would cry harder than they do.”45 Nonetheless, as pediatricians argued that newborns have only three needs: “to receive enough heat, suckle, and sleep,”46 their stern objection to swaddling was equivalent to their opposition to partial nudity. “Some people, when putting their children to sleep, merely leave them wearing a shirt and a bodice, laying them in a cradle padded with bran, on which the newborn rests naked,” wrote Stéphane : 157 :
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Étienne Tarnier, Gustave Chantreuil, and Pierre-Constant Budin, three of the most renowned pediatricians of the period, in their 1888 work, Allaitement et hygiène des enfants nouveau-nés. Given such negligent conduct – portrayed in de Jonghe’s painting – they maintained that a child should be covered at all times.47 “The garment must protect from the cold, from heat,” maintained Louis Girault, president of the Parisian medical society of the Pantheon. “It protects the skin against sunstroke, airborne scents, against the bite of insects; it contributes to the maintenance of cleanliness.” While describing the ideal babies’ clothing, he maintained that it ought to be “flexible, light, fairly ample, and sufficiently warm,”48 and suggested placing a thermometer in the child’s room, which “should not drop below twelve degrees, nor rise above eighteen degrees.”49 Similar declarations were repeated by Félix Bremond, a pediatrician from the Academy of Medicine in Paris, cited above, who maintained that infants are much more vulnerable to the cold than are adults. Alluding to the American custom of partially uncovering children, regardless of weather conditions, he recommended that French mothers dress their babies in layers, as “even in order to stay in our apartments, their [the Americans’] manner of dressing their children would be insufficient.”50 Such considerations influenced several doctors, who equally condemned the English manner of dressing babies on the same grounds, arguing, “this fashion has the disadvantage of leaving the legs, arms and neck too exposed to the cold, which often harms children and can make them sick.”51 Based on such considerations, hygienic baby clothing included “the little shirt; the bodice or the undershirt; the swaddling clothes; the diapers, or clothes; the straps; the scarf; the long dress; the stockings and the slippers; the vest,”52 and, occasionally, also “small rubber underpants” to prevent the baby’s clothes from getting wet from urine.53 Girault insisted on adding “woollen socks rising above the knee; knitted woollen slippers on the feet,” accompanied by wool underpants, a bodice, a wool petticoat, and “finally, above all, a long wide dress with wide sleeves.”54 French physicians’ widespread insistence on warm garments resulted in two main dressing methods, often combined. The first, partially based on the previous, denigrated method, was described by doctors as “modern swaddling clothes” (maillot modern),55 or “modified : 158 :
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Fig. 5.4. “Toilettes pour enfants de tout âge, mode des Magasins du Louvre, rue de Rivoli,” La mode illustrée, journal de la famille 27 (5 July 1874), 212. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France (photograph provided by gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France).
swaddling” (maillot modifié),56 as it freed the baby’s arms and legs, while maintaining its body heat (see fig. 5.4, no. 12). Endorsed by the majority of French doctors, it was regarded as a “more logical swaddling method” and was especially popular, according to Dr Jules Rouvier – who illustrated this technique in his manual – among the working classes and peasantry.57 The second method – prevalent among the affluent classes58 – was based on the “English manner” (l’habille à l’anglaise) and favoured by Brochard, who argued that its usage made it “difficult to make mistakes against hygiene.”59 “In the English method,” wrote Dr Étienne Tarnier and his associates, “we do not clothe the child in a scarf or a hat. Rather, the dresses are high-topped, and the arms are covered by sleeves that extend to the wrist.”60 Initially, most pediatricians recommended using both techniques, arguing that the first is the most suitable for newborns, as it prevents : 159 :
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them from catching a cold, “which may consequently be fatal,” whereas the latter can be appropriate for older babies. “The modified swaddling method is infinitely preferable during the first months of life,” wrote Bouchut in his prominent child-care manual, as “it does not compress the body and causes little inconvenience to the organs.”61 In this vein, Brochard wrote in his doll novel of 1881: “The little girl takes care, when dressing her doll, not to tighten her swaddling clothes too excessively, and to leave her arms free. A doll must be able to move her arms and legs … When the doll is four months old, we will clothe her in a dress.62 Accordingly, in his fictional baby’s memoir, cited in chapters two and three, Courgey described the newborn garments, which were purchased in advance, a month prior to delivery. Stating that the French, English, and American swaddling clothes were all available on the market, he pondered: “Are your mothers going to merely follow fashion? No, they did not consult the doctor for nothing: we will make an informed choice in the composition of each of them.” As his son was born at the end of September, he declared that they would start with the French method, albeit embracing the English approach regarding the baby’s head, keeping it bare.63 By three months of age, however, the baby’s parents favoured the English method, which allowed him to exhibit “regular marching movements, rhythmical, fifteen or twenty times in a row,” while moving forward “a bit like a skate, but very well.”64 Though this description negates any possibility of swaddling, it also reflects the doctor’s insistence on physical exercise, as elucidated by Le Barillier: “it is in vain if they have received a good constitution from their parents, given good food, and wear simple clothes, if the exercise is neglected … The desire for movement is innate in us, most living beings, from birth.”65 Such recurring endorsements influenced a vast number of artists, who repeatedly portrayed sleeping babies fully clothed. Since the majority of these illustrated babies are covered in blankets, it is difficult to determine whether they are entirely clad in the English manner or in the competing, modern swaddling method. The recurrent visual manifestation of their hands, however, as revealed in the artworks of Morisot, Caille, Millet, and Monet, to name just a few, clearly indicates that they are not entirely swaddled (figs. 0.1, 3.1, 3.14, and 5.1). One may even suspect that some of these babies, dressed in short-sleeved shirts, : 160 :
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went so far as to embrace the American clothing system, so derided by French doctors (see, for example, figs. 3.5, 3.6, and 4.1). The bonnet, however, illustrated in numerous portrayals of infantile sleep, was a sugject of conflict between medical recommendations and mothers’ wishes. Like Brochard’s instructions on the matter in Doll Game, stressing that a doll “must only wear a light cap, or be bare-headed,”66 most pediatricians argued that a bonnet warmed the head and might even “compress the brain.”67 They therefore advised that a cap should be used only for newborns, while habituating older infants “to remain, summer and winter, day and night, always bareheaded.”68 Nonetheless, unlike the fierce opposition to the ancient swaddling system, the controversy regarding the bonnet was substantially less vigorous. “It is enough for one to accustom the child early to be bareheaded, day and night,” wrote Triaire on this subject, adding: “Many mothers will be wrongly reluctant to adopt this measure; in this case, they should at least cover the child’s head only temporarily, in the first weeks of summer and the first months of winter. They will take precautions to make him gradually give up his caps and wear successively lighter ones until he soon manages to stop using them completely.”69 Such recommendations are reflected in Monet’s paintings of his son. During the winter of 1867–68, Jean was just a few months old. Accordingly, he is fully covered, his head clad in a bonnet. In the second image, however, painted when he was two years old, the child wears an embroidered white nightgown (robe de nuit), reminiscent of those sold in the Grands magasins du Louvre (see, for example, fig. 5.4, on the left).70 Although the lack of a blanket may indicate that, unlike the early painting, it was produced in the spring or summer of 1869, it nevertheless signifies he is older, since Jean-Dominique, sketched by his father – the artist Maurice Denis – in early August, two days after his birth, is fully covered (fig. 5.5). Monet’s paintings highlight the fluctuating relations between parents and physicians in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Evidently, the doctors’ medical advice often stood in opposition to women’s own needs and desires, as mentioned in the previous chapter. Yet, when discussing equivocal, marginal issues, such as babies’ bonnets, doctors left room for the mother’s individual tastes and choices, albeit gently commenting on the matter from time to time. Indeed, while some : 161 :
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Fig. 5.5. Maurice Denis, JeanDominique and His Doll (Jean-Dominique a la poupée), 1909, pencil on paper, 24 × 15.5 cm. Private collection.
artists illustrated bare-headed babies, in accordance with the l’habille à l’anglaise (see, for example, figs. 0.1, 3.5, 4.1), many painters dressed their sleeping babies in bonnets (see, for example, figs. 3.14, 4.2, and 4.3). Though not obligatory, the hat was one of the only items that allowed the baby’s caregivers to apply their own tastes, thus combining the “fashioned body” with the “fashionable body.” Clearly, contemporary physicians respected such tendencies, albeit occasionally trying to revise them by writing: “do not sacrifice the convenience of the newborn to its elegance.”71 Nonetheless, the countless number of bonnets and caps published in women’s magazines and confectionary catalogues and sold at a range of prices in all the department stores suggests that their advice on the matter was mostly disregarded.72 : 162 :
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Sleep à la Mode Throughout the nineteenth century, the growing engrossment in babies’ sleep among the middle and upper classes was supported by mass production, which was largely controlled by the women of the period, who took an active part in it, as producers, consumers, and sellers. This trend intensified in the second half of the century, when department stores became self-enclosed feminine metropolises, and shopping became one of the prevailing feminine leisure activities. Even though the active involvement of bourgeois women in the world of commerce contributed to their integration into the public sphere, granting them economic freedom, mobility, and growing emancipation, this activity was perceived as an extension of their domestic roles as wives and mothers.73 This tendency was described by Émile Zola in his 1883 novel Au Bonheur des Dames, featuring a department store modelled on the Bon Marché.74 In the children’s department, in the midst “of babies of all ages … The mothers completely lost their heads.” Given the “riot of white, enough to dress in white a troop of shivering cupids,” Madame Bourdelais, a wealthy client and mother of three, asserts: “These little ones are ruining me!”75 From the late 1860s, babies’ garments were regularly advertised in fashion magazines and catalogues, offering, among a long list of “clothing for children” (“Vêtements pour enfants”), dresses, bonnets, slippers, socks, bodices, petticoats, scarves, and underpants for newborns.76 Such items were depicted in great detail in a print issued in 1874 in La mode illustrée, journal de la famille, portraying a flannel diaper (fig. 5.4, no. 12), a bodice and underpants (fig. 5.4, no. 20), a bonnet (fig. 5.4, no. 23), and a long dress (fig. 5.4, nos. 8, 18). In addition to everyday attires, the store also offered long, decorated christening dresses, embroidered English dresses (“robe en broderie anglaise”), and extravagant babies’ hats made of white straw and decorated with feathers (“en paille blanche, orné d’une plume,” 35 fr.).77 To accentuate the garments’ attractiveness, the author of the 1876 catalogue professed that, thanks to the “renowned elegance, reliability, and affordability of our children’s clothes,” the store’s merchandise: “has reached all families, and when we admire the grace of children’s clothing, we can be certain that this attire comes out of this department. We strive in this department not only to follow but : 163 :
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also to foresee fashion; then to deliver at reduced prices all the objects which, in special houses, are listed at such a high price.78 Such items were exhibited in 1873 at the Pavillon de l’enfant (the children’s pavilion), which was entirely dedicated to childhood, from birth “until the age of twenty-one.” Opened in Paris on 15 November, as part of the Industrial Exhibition (L’Exposition industrielle), this vast space, located on the first floor of the northern wing of the Palais de l’Industrie, displayed numerous products, “from swaddling clothes to the baby’s first toy … from the dress and the jacket to the elegant outfit and the college uniform … The number and variety are endless.”79 In a commercial catalogue, published in 1878 by Alfred d’Aunay on behalf of the Grands magasins du Louvre, the author described the vastness of the store and its elegance.80 “On the right and on the left,” he wrote, “[are] the elevators going up to the salons of coats, dresses, costumes, children’s clothing, outfits, baby’s clothes, which occupy a large part of the first floor.”81 The proximity of women’s attire and children’s clothing was no doubt deliberate, as is evident from d’Aunay’s detailed account, designed to attract the attention of new mothers: “The most refined maternal vanity could not dream of anything more accomplished than the clothing prepared at the Louvre for children. Nothing banal, ordinary, nothing that is not exceptionally elegant and completely incontrovertible. The simplest little dress has originality and paraphrases current fashion without slavishly copying it. Children of all ages – from the newborn child to the older little girl, to the young boy of eight – can be dressed from head to toe, taking only the time of the fitting.”82 The number and variety of babies’ garments increased steadily during the last decades of the century, when dozens of new items were available for sale.83 Even though babies spent the first year of their lives lying in their cradles, these included, in 1880, long cotton and piqué dresses, decorated with “embroidered strips” (“bandes brodées”), “pleated back” (“dos plissé”), and “embroidered ruffles” (“volants brodés”), ranging from forty-five to sixty centimetres in length.84 In 1890, the catalogue included detailed descriptions of this clothing, citing specific colours and materials, such as “striped percale cotton in blue and white”; “plain woollen garment, navy, cream, old blue, light blue, adorned with hollow-point spiked embroideries, Colbert style”;85 “woollen garment, cream, light blue, navy, red and old blue, sailor collar, belt and cuffs : 164 :
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trimmed with velvet”; or “chiffon dress in printed wool, red background, navy, old blue, and cream.”86 Since babies’ attire was designed for both boys and girls, shops also offered trimming, ribbons, and embellishments in a wide range of materials, colours, and, most importantly, prices, to signal the young sleepers’ social status, as well as gender. Already during the last decades of the eighteenth century, babies’ clothing was often decorated with ribbons, but their varying colours carried no gender identifiers.87 As childhood gained importance in the mass market, fashion magazines contended that blue denotes the male gender, whereas pink signifies the female gender.88 This custom was already described in a manual for housewives published in 1834. In a chapter dedicated to baby clothes, the author maintained that it was common to add “pink satin in the case of a little girl, and blue satin if it is a boy.”89 Such conventions were widespread among all the social classes during the christening ceremony, as suggested in an 1859 manual dedicated to good manners: “these caps can be entirely white. Otherwise, the colour pink is compulsory for a girl, and blue is compulsory for a boy.”90 The same convention was manifested in a coloured lithograph, published in the Moniteur de la mode in August 1871, portraying a baby girl held in her mother’s arms, clad in a long, white christening dress decorated with a pink satin belt.91 Whereas Triaire derided the use of long dresses, arguing that “It is astonishing that the common sense of the English does not recoil from a practice which is foolish and even barbaric,”92 mothers, who ostensibly found them charming, disregarded any recommendations. Following Walter Benjamin, who maintained that commodities generated a “phantasmagoria of equality,” Greg Thomas argues that the prominent market for children’s clothing and toys helped commodify children themselves as symbolic capital, reflecting the affluence and status of their parents and families. 93 The veracity of this statement is mirrored in Bertal’s trilogy La comédie de notre temps (The Comedy of our Times), published in 1874. Given that “the solitude and the maternal pride of the mother awaken in favour of this dear newborn baby,” It is the golden age of tiny bodices, of these delicious microscopic caps, beehives of lace and ribbons, shaking up the little moms, the residents of the night before, smiling with eyes : 165 :
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moist with tenderness. It is the moment for running quaveringly and eagerly to all the stores when we find the Magasins du Louvre too small, or we overturn a squad of clerks to discover suitable swaddling clothes, diapers of a very advantageous quality, and lace of choice to decorate dresses. The baby has entered the world. The dear little darling barely appeared, and his outfit and costume already classified him. Not to mention the exceptional babies who find the légion d’honneur in their cradle. Nonetheless, some begin by hiding their little red noses in batiste and Alençon lace, while others sneeze in regional clothes and calico. Are some happier than others? I sincerely doubt it, especially since the latter most often find compensations in their mother’s breasts, very much their own, to which they must secretly attach importance to an entirely superior order.94 Evidently, Dr Brochard, too, was aware of such maternal tendencies. Even though he argued that children’s clothing “must vary according to the climate and the season,” he added that the form of the child’s clothes can be “regulated by the taste of the parents or the whim of fashion.” Nevertheless, he concluded by stressing that “nothing is more contrary to health than transforming children into well-dressed little dolls, who cannot or do not dare to move for fear of getting dirty.”95 Interestingly, however, this was precisely the merchandise that the good doctor endorsed in La jeune mère. From the early 1890s, the journal published a monthly column that offered specific instructions for handmade babies’ clothing, stressing the “elegant model, which gives little trouble for the obtained result.”96 Concurrently, from its very first issue, La jeune mère featured an abundant number of commercial ads, testifying to its compliance – for a certain fee – with mothers’ wishes. On the last pages of every issue, dozens of advertisements featured products for mothers and babies alike, including a photographer’s studio, with a “specialty in children’s portraiture”; food products designed to improve babies’ health; or distinctive facial masks against freckles. Some of these items, such as “Absorbent felts for cradles, so useful for the hygiene of the first age,” were explicitly endorsed by Brochard himself, and sold at a discounted price to his subscribers. Other items, : 166 :
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however, offered merchandise that overtly contradicted his sanctions, such as “Baby carriages of all sorts and prices, cash on delivery, sent to all railway stations.”97 Even though daily exposure to fresh air was recommended by all his colleagues,98 they strictly opposed the use of baby carriages (voitures d’enfants, literally, “children’s cars”). Claiming that they “are convenient for lazy nurses, but they are unhealthy for the child,” pediatricians argued that a baby should be carried in its mother’s arms, where it is well supervised, kept warm, and cheered up.99 In a similar vein, Brochard himself argued in La jeune mère that, although carriages are “extremely convenient for mothers who do not have maids,” they can lead to severe accidents and, sometimes, “bring about a real catastrophe.”100 Nonetheless, dozens of photographs representing wet nurses strolling with babies, as well as prints and paintings made by, among others, Degas, Mary Cassatt, Édouard Manet, and Georges Seurat,101 suggest that parents were not always obliged to follow their doctors’ advice. In fact, along with using fashionable baby carriages or hiring a nurse – discussed in the previous chapter – the use of extravagant garments and decorated bonnets were virtually the only means available to late-nineteenth-century bourgeois parents for displaying their babies’ individuality. This so-called distinctiveness, however, was repeatedly underscored by the capitalist consumer culture that pressured individuals to conform to stereotyped representations of that apparent autonomy.102 The inherent tension between individuals’ assertion of subjectivity and the standardized commodification formula for visualizing this individual autonomy is clearly manifested in babies’ bedclothes. Unlike the simple blanket and the plain piece of cloth laid on Millet’s cradle, Bouchet-Doumenq painted lavish white bedding, trimmed with lace, and covered the top of the baby’s cradle with a piece of delicate silk fabric to shelter it from daylight (fig. 3.3). Toulmouche, on the other hand, painted a large blue-taffeta curtain, hanging over the cradle, topped by a delicate white muslin veil (fig. 3.5). Similar items, customary among the upper classes, could only be hung on a particular rod attached to the elevated cradles used by the bourgeoisie (see, for example, figs. 0.1, 3.6, 4.3, and 5.3). Despite Monet’s recurrent complaints regarding his poverty, which meant that he had “not even something to cover the little one,”103 a similar device is represented in : 167 :
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The Cradle, Camille with the Artist’s Son, Jean, suggesting that, like all other illustrated babies, his needs are met in complete accordance with medical endorsements.
The Psychology of Sleep Monet and Camille’s compliance with rules of hygiene is likewise represented through Jean’s toys. As toys are “the first objects they [children] have at their disposal,”104 their use was highly encouraged by pediatricians. “Children need to play, to get exercise, in order to stay healthy,” wrote Dr Jean-Marie Leroux in La jeune mère,105 “it is not only a question of entertaining the child; we must also develop his taste, his heart, and his mind.”106 Based on such understandings, pediatricians recommended choosing toys according to the child’s age, character, and gender,107 while reminding parents that “the most expensive toys do not necessarily keep children entertained the most,” as youngsters appreciate their value only through the pleasure they find in them.108 Parents of young babies were advised to place in their cradles simple devices that produced sound and movement, made of unbreakable materials and devoid of small parts that could be easily swallowed.109 “These cute little creatures love brightness and glossiness,” wrote pediatrician Georges Grenier in 1875. “To satisfy this taste, the industrialists, who, like physiologists, are obliged to study human nature to succeed in their endeavours, adorn children’s toys with the most brilliant colours: vermilion red, French green, saffron yellow, Prussian blue.”110 By means of bright colours, pediatricians sought to spur the baby’s cognitive development, since “as a newcomer, everything is still unknown to him.” Emphasizing the child’s vision, d’Albrays wrote: “it is mainly through the eyes that we reach the baby’s intelligence, as he does not understand our explanations; but he does understand – at least in part – the images he sees.”111 The significance of the baby’s fixed gaze was described in the fictitious baby’s diary. In chapter fifteen, the three-month-old baby writes: “My gaze grows sharper, more confident … I watch.”112 At four months, he notes: “my vision develops, aided by the attention I pay to everything ... I begin to engage in serious relationships with the outside world ... I look at people, things, I observe movements and am interested in everything that stirs.”113 : 168 :
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In view of this, the bright-yellow windmill at the far end of Jean’s oval cradle, facing the baby, is intended to capture his gaze and develop his eyesight, while his rattle is supposed to develop his hearing range. As Jean grew up, however, his developmental toys were replaced by a doll. Since the same doll appears in The Luncheon, discarded beneath a chair on the left, next to a ball,114 Thomas maintains that, when Jean grew older, he no longer treated it as if it were a human being.115 As, in fact, the image of Jean eating breakfast with his mother was painted in winter 1868–69, nearly six months before Jean Monet Sleeping, the doll’s different positions in these two paintings may be related to Monet and Camille’s awareness of the psychological aspects of sleep and the need for a comforter in the night. Based on nineteenth-century medical literature, Jean’s ruddy complexion and contracted eyebrows in Jean Monet Sleeping may signal a bad dream. “Dreams are impressed upon the infantile countenance legibly enough,” wrote Underwood and Hall in 1835. “The child’s expression during sleep easily reveals distress or pain of any kind. The brow is contracted, or the mouth is drawn.”116 Such occurrences gained interest in the second half of the century when psychiatrists and physicians acknowledged the significance of children’s night terrors from “the first days of extra-uterine life.” Accordingly, they urged parents to observe their children’s sleep, since “the mental strain, from which so many, both children and adults, suffer in our time, often shows itself first in their dreams.” While the lack of dreaming may indicate an illness, groaning or crying in one’s sleep as a result of night terrors was seen as equally problematic for a child’s well-being.117 The dire consequences of nightmares “for the health and moral being” of young infants were described at length in La jeune mère as potentially halting the development of their mental faculties. “During the day,” wrote Georges d’Albrays, “the baby plays, cries, and moves constantly ... it is only during his sleep that one can admire him at leisure. He is so calm, so charming ... the cherub! ... Yet, suddenly, the baby is agitated! ... His features contract as if under the impression of suffering or terror! ... Drops of sweat cover his forehead; his little arms are raised as if to repel an invisible enemy; inarticulate cries, faint moans escape him, somehow strangled in his throat ... care must be taken to avoid the recurrence of such incidents ... It is up to the mother, who : 169 :
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knows all the little details of the child’s day, to seek the cause of the harm.”118 While encouraging mothers first to embrace their frightened child, d’Albrays insisted that the mother should stay by the baby’s side until he or she has fallen asleep on its own.119 Even though Jean Monet Sleeping depicts the child alone in his crib, in fact, not only is he being watched by his loving father, his beloved doll is also at his side. To explain its shabby state, Gedo suggests that the doll might have previously been owned by one of Jean’s parents or else by one of the Pissarro children.120 Thomas, on the other hand, emphasizes its commonness, suggesting that it was added to the painting to highlight Jean’s vivacity and identity, as its male gender – indicated by its short hair – secures rather than blurs the child’s masculinity.121 Evidently, like the variety of styles and prices of babies’ clothing, toys also mirrored the socio-economic status and personal taste of the babies’ parents. However, I would like to propose that the doll’s function is unrelated to its possible previous owners or gender considerations. Rather, it constitutes a “transitional object,” otherwise known as a “secure object,” namely, a material item used to provide psychological comfort to children at bedtime. In an essay titled “The Philosophy of Toys” (“Morale du joujou”), published in 1853, Charles Baudelaire maintained that the childish desire to “see their toys’ souls” determines the toys’ “life expectancy.” Baudelaire drew a connection between toys and dolls and the formation of the subject, arguing that toys initiate children into the public social world. As one of the first artifacts of culture that individuals learn to negotiate, toys thus significantly affect children’s development and initiation into the society. Since “all children talk to their toys,” the latter come to life through the imaginary process they trigger in the child, making the toys “actors in the great drama of life.” When children grow older, the seductive spark of imaginary life they find in objects disappears, to be replaced by the destructive impulse.122 Similar ideas were proposed over a century later by Winnicott, who maintained that objects such as dolls, teddy bears, or blankets take the place of the mother-child bond. Such a transitional object is often the first “not-me” possession that genuinely belongs to the child and represents all the components of mothering. As it enables the child to experience a bond with his or her mother in her absence, the : 170 :
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transitional object is often used during sleep as a defence against anxiety. Winnicott maintained that the baby’s relationship with its favourite object manifests several unique qualities: “The infant assumes rights over the object, and we agree with this assumption … The object is affectionately cuddled as well as excitedly loved and mutilated. It must never change unless changed by the infant. It must survive instinctual loving, and also hating, and, if it is a feature, pure aggression. Yet, it must seem to the child to give warmth … or to do something that seems to show it has vitality or reality of its own … Its fate is to be gradually allowed to be detached, so that, in the course of years, it becomes not so much forgotten as relegated to limbo.”123 Although dolls appeared in several paintings from the lateeighteenth century,124 such items, like children’s games in general, gained substantial prominence in the second half of the nineteenth century.125 According to French engineer Alfred Picard, in 1855, Paris had no less than 400 workshops employing 2,800 workers and earning six million francs per year; nowhere else were such elegant dolls made … Between 1851 and 1855, our manufacturers continuously improved and perfected their products, which they offered for sale at very fair prices. At the 1855 World Exhibition, they displayed well-crafted dolls of a new genre … By 1867, further progress had been made in manufacturing … In 1855, the production of French toys brought in no more than seven million francs per year. Today its profit is nearly seventy million; for the past ten years, this industry has earned at least forty million francs per year.126 With the growing commodification of infancy, from the midnineteenth century, dolls were sold in all the department stores, among them the Grands magasins du Louvre, which offered “two million children’s toys.”127 Undeniably, this variety, “from the little boy’s gun to the little girl’s doll,”128 regularly emphasized gender differences, also apparent in the many paintings, prints, and photographs portraying girls in the company of their dolls.129 Whereas trains, rifles, and toy soldiers mainly were designed for boys, girls were offered dolls and miniature replicas of household items.130 Thomas maintains that dolls, : 171 :
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made primarily by adults for adult buyers, embodied their perception of childhood, rather than reflecting children’s own experiences.131 In view of this perspective, whereas dolls, in general, signified childhood and innocence, the majority of late-nineteenth-century dolls were designed in the form of small-scale sumptuous girls, made of porcelain and clad in a large variety of attires, as a means of preparing young adolescents for womanhood and motherhood.132 Nonetheless, such items were too delicate and sophisticated to play with and were initially meant to be admired from a safe distance. These unique features were described in an article dedicated to the toys and dolls exhibited at the Pavillon de L’Enfant of the 1878 Exposition Universelle. “You must see the crowd that strolls endlessly through these narrow halls,” wrote Jules Creux enthusiastically after visiting the fair. “Naturally, babies are numerous; we hear only little cries of admiration … Tantalus’s torment was a mere game compared to the appetites that awaken at the sight of these treasures.” Creux nevertheless lamented the dolls’ sophistication, writing: The industrialists may have racked their brains to create new toys, but some of these objects are too complicated to be placed in the hands of a child without monitoring its movement or saying, “have fun but don’t touch your toy.” What is the attraction of a toy for a child if he cannot play with it at ease? … All the toys ever created and that will ever be created can never replace the ordinary doll, easy to dress and undress in a flash … This doll gives the little girl a notion of her own sex; she plays with it as a mommy; she can change the doll’s clothes, dress her in her little shirt, her stockings, her hats, her other dresses; she can drag the doll in the sand of the Tuileries or the Luxembourg if she so wishes, or in the countryside, on garden paths, without the risk of irreparable damage. The sumptuous dolls of the Exposition, by contrast, are elegant ladies … with blond hair, tinted cheeks … housed in princely apartments.133 In a similar vein, after his visit to the Exposition Universelle of 1889, Picard protested against the excessive luxury of French toys, writing:
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“we no longer see a wooden horse resembling a sheep, nor a doll’s body reminiscent of a sack of flour,” although, “by its very nature, a toy must be simple and should not inspire the child with a premature taste for spending and luxury.” Nonetheless, he did mention one satisfactory exception: “That of the poupard, which in France is the quintessential simple doll. The poupard, the poor man’s doll, consists of a hollow cardboard body, made of a single lump, without arms or legs … and a tinted, childish head: primitive, simple, and naive, delighting small children, girls and boys alike.”134 Such a low-cost “poupée à six sous” was already described in 1867 in a popular doll novel published by Timothée Trim: “Certainly, this doll does not shine with luxury … She does not have well-formed arms or legs. She does not have little shoes or little leather gloves. Nonetheless, in the hands of hardworking little girls, the six-penny doll is transformed. We clothe this armless body in a dress made of elegant rags. We make a nice little linen cap … and the poor doll looks neat, elegant, distinguished.”135 Unlike the sumptuous feminine dolls that initiated young girls into their future roles as spouses and mothers, it may be assumed that Jean Monet’s doll was, in fact, a modest poupard. As an only child, he must have spent much time playing with it, seeing in it a friend and fellow companion. Unlike the elaborate figurines that were too fragile to play with, the simplicity of Jean’s doll made it perfect for daily use for boys and girls alike. Indeed, in Girl with a Doll from 1865, painted by French painter and engraver Ferdinand Roybet (fig. 5.6), the little girl holds an identical poupard on her knees. Her sadness may be attributed to the doll’s imminent departure, to be replaced by another, more obviously feminine, or else baby-like, doll. Similar toys appeared in paintings by Théophile Alexandre Steinlen and Henri Rousseau, both of whom portrayed a little girl holding her poupée à six sous in her arms.136 Denis, too, drew a similar armless doll in 1909, lying next to his sixth child, Jean-Dominique, keeping him company as he sleeps (fig. 5.5). According to the inscription, “Domi, 2 Jours,” the new baby was just born, yet the artist hurried to sketch his head, reclining on a large pillow, immersed in deep sleep. Albeit alone in his own bed according to the new sleeping norms advocating solitary sleep in individual bedrooms, he is accompanied by his little doll.
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Fig. 5.6. Ferdinand Roybet, Girl with a Doll (Fillette à la poupée), 1865, oil on canvas, 40.5 × 32.5 cm. Photograph © RMNGrand Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski.
Based on these understandings, the scruffiness of Jean’s doll may be the child’s own doing rather than a testimony to the doll’s extended previous ownership. Like other babies sleeping with their dolls,137 Jean possibly found reassurance in its company at night when sleeping alone in his cradle. Accordingly, the abandonment of the doll in The Luncheon may simply signify the difference between night and day, since, in the daytime, the transitional object is not as crucial as it is during sleep. Even though parental implementation of the medical establishment’s strict orders confined the baby to its cradle, both physically and mentally, thus depriving children of the choice of when, where, and with whom they sleep, the doll reveals Jean’s agency. Far from being a simple visual mechanism that enhances his vivacity, the shabby doll denotes the child’s authority and control. Not only does Jean possess personal belongings, but he is also encouraged to use them as he sees fit. While Monet’s interest in Jean’s sleep denotes the artist’s involvement in child care, the two paintings of his sleeping son indicate that the artist meticulously followed the new medical rules of hygiene. Accordingly, even though he was considered a rebellious innovator, due to his impressionistic style and modern subject matters, in fact, : 174 :
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juste-milieu artists such as Bouguereau, who regularly portrayed naked babies sleeping outdoors, were much more provocative regarding this standard practice, intentionally or not undermining the pediatricians’ orders (see, for example, fig. 3.13). Avant-garde artists, however, like many modern genre painters, followed the new medical rules of hygiene, presenting homogeneous sleeping patterns, regardless of the baby’s gender or social status. The similarities between the sleeping babies’ postures, bedding, clothing, and toys attest to the growing medicalization of sleep among all classes. Even though the social environment of Paris was much more “modern” than that of provincial cities and farming communities in the countryside, given the expanding consumerism and the enhanced level of literacy, which was followed by growth in the number of newspapers, rural communities, too, were becoming increasingly aware of styles of behaviour at other levels of society. 138 “Among the poor as among the rich, in palaces or under thatch, when a child is born, its baby clothes are always ready,” wrote Dr Bremond in this respect in La jeune mère in 1885. “There is not a single mother, great lady or peasant, who has not lovingly prepared, long in advance, all the pieces of the adorable wardrobe intended for the expected little angel.” Undeniably, due to the growing commodification of childhood, such items varied “according to rank, fortune, taste, country, and mother,” as observed by Bremond.139 Yet, the visual uniformity of babies’ sleep divulges the vast impact of pediatrics on the child-oriented industry, which did not simply reflect the medicalization of sleep but essentially contributed to its widespread Western naturalization.
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Fig. 6.1. “La chambre à coucher,”in Ernest Breuil, Leçons illustrées de français (Paris: Larousse, ca. 1910), 42. The author’s collection.
CHAPTER 6
The Cradle of Life: Hygiene and Social Standing The child’s first cradle was naturally the arms of its mother; the one and the other being inseparable … Hence the invention of the first cradle which, perpetuated through the ages, always presents roughly the same type, varying only in size, shape, and accessories.1 —Dr Alfred Auvard and Dr Émile Pingat, 1889
In a children’s book dedicated to French lessons, published by the French professor Ernest Breuil circa 1910, a bedroom is described, containing, as elucidated by the caption, “a bed, a cradle, the bed board, the box spring, the mattress, the sheets, the bolster, the pillow, the blanket, the coverlet” (fig. 6.1). In addition to providing a verbal description of the image, young readers are invited to complete the written sentences by using the proper pronouns: “The little child sleeps in … cradle. The white sheets envelop … A pretty blue blanket keeps … warm. The light curtains make a vault over … head. Nothing disturbs … sleep. He breathes gently. … pink lips are parted. … older sister is watching him. For him, she sews and embroiders, for him, too, she sings a sweet lullaby.”2 The accompanying illustration portrays a young adolescent sitting next to a cradle, watching her sleeping brother while embroidering. On his back, his head placed on a pillow, and his body fully covered, the baby sleeps under her relentless supervision. This illustration perfectly reflects the late-nineteenth-century visual scheme of infants’ sleep, including the baby’s cradle, reminiscent of those illustrated in medical guidebooks and fashion plates (see, for
example, figs. 2.5, 5.4). Nonetheless, it differs significantly from the cradles portrayed by Caille, Daumier, Bouchet-Doumenq, and Millet (figs. 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, and 3.14). Albeit particularized, the book’s inscription, cited above, simply uses the word “cradle” (berceau). The same term was repeated in a short, illustrated survey of the history of the cradle, written by Auvard and Pingat, cited above: “Tunisian cradles are hung on the wall … The Kabyle put their newborn babies in a simple wooden box … In Russia … the child is stretched out on a canvas fixed to a wooden frame without tension … The Turkish cradle, for example, is a low, swinging cradle … The Breton cradles are remarkable for their elegance and for the various ornaments that cover them.”3 Yet, what is, in fact, a desirable cradle? What are its measurements, materials, and structure? Is it supposed to generate motion, or is it meant to initiate tranquility and stillness? Given the visual homogeneity with regard to the watchful female agent and the posture of the sleeping child throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, how can we interpret the infinite variations of infant beds in terms of size, height, materials, and decorations? Through a detailed micro-history of a specific object, this chapter sheds light on the evolution of infants’ beds during the nineteenth century. The medicalization of sleep, reflected through the standardization of postures, bedding, and clothing discussed in the previous chapter, altered the bed-design market, as doctors’ repeated warnings against co-sleeping led to the development of new types of children’s beds, which followed the rules of hygiene (see, for example, fig. 4.4). Affecting human behaviour, these newly designed objects altered traditional sleeping habits, insisting on children’s secluded sleep in their own private beds, thus expanding the understanding of such items as symbols of rank, regardless of their practical, ordinary usage. Accordingly, unlike the paradigms of the watchful mother or sleeping baby, repeatedly portrayed throughout the century, the baby’s cradle – like its clothing and bedding – became a prominent marker of social standing. Ranging in size, height, materials, colours, embellishments, and, most importantly, cost, during the second half of the century, infant beds became the most significant objects demarcating the social status of young sleepers, as well as of their parents.
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Children’s Beds Cradles and cribs, like beds in general, mirror socio-cultural settings, norms, and behaviours. While the essence of a bed is the material manifestation of a simple biological need, namely, to sleep in comfort and security, its design and usage articulate a multi-faceted historical and cultural account. Like other commodities, cradles, too, display cultural categories and discriminating values that mark their selfidentity.4 Such “nonhumans,” to borrow Bruno Latour’s terminology, are designed to shape human actions and decisions while mediating human relationships.5 Accordingly, since in early-modern Europe beds cost more than all the household furniture combined, their form, aesthetic attributes, and economic value often marked the family’s wealth.6 Cradles, too, manifested the social rank of the family: while poor babies often did not have a bed of any kind, the configuration, materiality, and aesthetics of cradles designed for noble newborns reflected their social status.7 Babies spend approximately two-thirds of each twenty-four-hour cycle asleep. Yet, while they can easily sleep in various locations, including their caregiver’s arms – as argued by Auvard and Pingat, cited above – recurring visual and textual evidence indicates that many babies slept in particular beds intended exclusively for their own use. Often, such items were given as a wedding gift to young couples to symbolize their future fecundity. Yet a vast number of babies throughout history shared a bed with other family members, most commonly when another sibling was born, and the cradle had to be vacated.8 While considering the four players involved in the cradle’s life – the object, the manufacturers, the users, and the socio-cultural environment – one can understand the relative lack of effort put into the design of cradles until the mid-eighteenth century. On the one hand, the cradle’s primary users – the babies – were yet to be considered worthy of specially crafted objects, due to their exceptionally high mortality rate. The client was, therefore, not the baby but its caregiver. Nonetheless, since most people could not afford material objects designed for children – namely, they were “users” rather than “consumers” – they preferred investing their meagre resources elsewhere. The nature of the users influenced the second component of this scheme, as the : 179 :
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lack of a proper clientele did not produce specialized manufacturers. Nonetheless, already from the late Middle Ages, suffocation in the parents’ or the wet nurse’s bed was cited as the most common cause of infant death. Accordingly, moralists and clerics repeatedly demanded, from the fourteenth century onward, that children sleep in separate cradles, as discussed in chapter 1.9 Even though only a few antique cradles have survived – due to wear on the organic, perishable materials from which they were constructed – engravings and paintings testify to their configuration. While, throughout history, some cradles were constructed deliberately, as evident from paintings, illuminated manuscripts, and a few rare artifacts,10 many cradles were improvised from objects that the baby’s caregivers found lying around the house. Caregivers often chose wicker baskets, old wooden boxes, or timeworn chests, which enabled babies’ sleep while letting their caregivers monitor their movements, attend to them easily when in need, and keep them safe. The close quarters of the cradle resembled the security of the womb and added another layer of functionality to its simple design. Since cradles were designated to serve as mobile beds, with no fixed location in the house, this “re-use” was manifested in the choice of objects that could be easily moved around the household. Identifying the basic functions of the early cradle – safety, supervision, easy access, and portability – often led to simple designs of wicker baskets or bassinets.11 Such a device, made of a simple container bought at the grocery store for a small fee, was portrayed in a caricature published in 1906 in Le rire: journal humoristique. “It was very convenient during the day,” says the caption, “to keep the room clean, we put it under the bed.”12 Like other objects, such as the nail, which has remained mostly unchanged since Roman times,13 the cradle’s design and its unique features have been preserved to this very day, attesting to its success. Although materials and technologies have evolved, the basic functions and configuration of the cradle have remained unchanged. Indeed, the light and perishable material, the sturdiness of the design, and the cheap production values enabled cradles to be easily built and repaired when damaged – and easily destroyed in case of an epidemic.14 By applying these key features, cradles manifested two opposing functions: stability and mobility. Initially, the cradle’s : 180 :
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primary purpose is intended to generate steadiness and security. Yet, at the same time, many cradles have a twofold movement. The first is an “outer-portability” that allows the cradle to be moved effortlessly around the household to facilitate supervision and protection of the child from animals or other siblings. This function is demonstrated in numerous paintings from the late Middle Ages onward that show the cradle in different locations – indoors and outdoors – according to the caregiver’s needs (see, for example, figs. 1.4, 1.5, 3.14, and 3.15). The second kind of mobility, representing the motion that enables one to rock the baby to sleep, is manifested through the etymology of the French word for “cradle,” berceau, defined in the renowned Encyclopédie as “a sort of small bed that can be rocked effortlessly and in which little babies are put to sleep.”15 Likewise, in a dictionary published in Paris by JeanFrançois Féraud in 1787, the cradle is described as a “small machine, made of wicker, square, standing on two legs in the form of crescents.”16 Derived from the verb bercer (“to rock”), both of these written sources stress that the cradle is designed to move the infant gently into sleep. Even though from the mid-eighteenth century onward, French physicians opposed this widespread custom, as discussed in chapter 1,17 recurring depictions of bassinets standing on rounded platforms, as well as round baskets, designed to generate self-motion, suggest that some parents disregarded those recommendations altogether (see, for example, figs. 3.1, 3.3, 3.14, and 3.15). While these functions were initially meant to address the primary user – the baby – both kinds of mobility reflected the agency of the secondary user – the caregivers – and their active role in the baby’s sleep. Specifically, the “outer-mobility” enabled parents to relocate the cradle at their wish, whereas the “inner-mobility” mirrored babies’ subservience to the caregivers’ control over their sleep. Both reflected the transitiveness and marginality of babies in the household prior to the last decades of the eighteenth century. Lacking a place of their own, they spent most of their time in a spatial infantile enclave, in the only place designated especially for them – the cradle. During the nineteenth century, however, the growing medicalization of babies’ sleep shaped the mass market of children’s beds, yielding new configurations, structures, materials, and technologies. Unlike the eighteenth-century “desirable cradle,” which enabled supervision, : 181 :
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easy access, portability, and inner-mobility, the late-nineteenth-century cradle emphasized hygiene, diversity, and comfort, for both the baby and its caregiver. The flourishing of the cradle market in the last quarter of the century changed the demands of the secondary users – the parents. While the previous generation of cradles and bassinets were valued mainly for their accessibility – namely, an object that is available and inexpensive – in the fin-de-siècle competitive capitalist market, parents aspired to functionality, safety, and comfort. Nonetheless, they simultaneously looked for diversity and style as a means of mirroring their babies’ gender and social status through the cradle’s configuration, materiality, and technology. As children became key players in consumer culture, the cradle’s design became a segregating tool, striving to produce an object that would clearly differentiate itself from its competition, while concurrently distinguishing its users. Whereas eighteenth-century cradles were designated, according to Lefébure, for all babies, from their first day of life “until the time when he will start to walk,”18 the combination of the medicalization of sleep and the growing commodification of infancy led to the development of numerous specific products, designed for every phase of childhood. Based on visual and material data, the beds of nineteenth-century infants may be divided into four main categories: portable bassinets (basket-like containers), rockable cradles, immobile cribs, and toddler beds. The first category of footless and small-scaled bassinets is appropriate for newborns until they reach the age when they can roll over, which generally happens between three to four months (see, for example, fig. 6.2, no. 59). Cradles, on the other hand, typically designed to produce movement through the addition of rocker feet or suspended baskets, are designed to be used by infants until they are capable of pushing up on their hands and knees, generally between the ages of five to six months (see, for example, fig. 3.3). Cribs – which gained extreme popularity during the second half of the nineteenth century – are intended for toddlers until they can climb out, between eighteen to twenty-four months (fig. 6.2, no. 58). According to commercial catalogues, their length, ranging from 110 to 120 centimetres, was adjusted for toddlers, whereas their height, ranging from 190 to 210 centimetres, enabled the caregivers to attend to a child’s needs efficiently. Finally, children’s
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Fig. 6.2. Au Bon Marché, nouveautés, maison Aristide Boucicaut, catalogue général, été 1892 (Paris, 1892), 173. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France (photograph provided by gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France).
beds (lit d’enfant) were manufactured for older children until they reached adulthood (fig. 6.2, no. 55). While these objects varied in height (ranging from 78 to 90 centimetres), their width (61 centimetres) and length (130 to 140 centimetres) guaranteed accessibility and comfort for both children and their parents.19 Granting that beds had an economic advantage, as they “can be used by the child until he is seven or eight years old,” late-nineteenth-century pediatricians maintained that the crib “has a more serious superiority,” as “it is immobile and stable and consequently does not lend itself to rocking.”20 Though contemporary physicians repeatedly prohibited rocking, they stressed additional factors related to the cradle’s height and materiality.
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Cradles versus Cribs “The cradle is the first and most important residence of the human being, the pivot of domestic life, the centre of the family’s hopes, joys, and regrets,” wrote Bremond in an advisory column published in La jeune mère; “for these various reasons, the cradle deserves the enlightened care of the hygienist.” Even though in 1803 Leroy suggested “using a small box of very thin wood, or a small cradle of wicker, made in the shape of a bucket,”21 Bremond strictly prohibited such devices, contending that: “The cradle must, whatever its wealth or its poverty, entail an open-wire basket, never an impenetrable box. Mothers can therefore give free rein to their fantasy in this regard, choose walnut, mahogany, or rosewood, prefer silk nets or metal networks; the significant thing is that they make the baby a latticed nest and not a compact one. An airtight box is worth nothing for the infant.”22 The widespread opposition to the traditional footless wooden bassinets was based on several impending perils related to location, height, and materiality. “Placed on a piece of furniture, they expose the child to fatal falls,” wrote Brochard in the first issue of La jeune mère. Put on the floor, “these cradles expose newborns to the action of humidity and the attention of pets … I have rarely gone to nurses with such cradles, without finding chickens and their chicks pecking at the outfit or the figure of an infant, to grab the bread crumbs that could be found there.”23 To further convince his female readers that such hazards “are by no means imaginary,” Brochard cited a regrettable incident that had occurred in Brittany, and was reported in the newspaper. After a local mother left her three-month-old baby in his low-based cradle for a minute, “his cries called her home, where, upon arriving, she found a pig occupied in devouring the child. The lower part of its face had disappeared.”24 In view of the miasma doctrine that maintained that noxious fumes filled the air below knee level,25 Brochard and his colleagues insisted that babies’ cribs must be positioned on solid feet, “at height enough to reach.”26 Elevated above ground, they guaranteed fresh air and facilitated parental care without “being overturned by the tremours which are impressed upon it by the comings and goings of people of the entourage.”27 Lastly, pediatricians’ opposition to using low-based : 184 :
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Fig. 6.3. Louis-Eugene Leroux, The Newborn, Breton Interior (Le Nouveau-né, intérieur bas-breton), ca. 1864 (Salon 1864), oil on canvas, 106 × 130 cm. Photograph © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Patrice Schmidt.
cradles was also related to their materiality. Even though Bremond and his contemporaries ostensibly approved of a variety of materials for babies’ cradles, so long as they were elevated above the ground,28 in fact, solid wooden cradles were utterly prohibited by all doctors, as they “can be impregnated with bad smells, be invaded by bedbugs, are too difficult to clean not to reject them absolutely.”29 As bedbugs, fleas, and lice left noticeable marks on babies’ pale skin, they were not only a sign of maternal negligence but also denoted bad hygiene, both physical and moral.30 Regardless of such potential hazards, small-scaled, sturdy wooden cradles with low horizontal proportions remained popular in rural France until the beginning of the twentieth century, even though they : 185 :
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went against current hygienic demands. It may be assumed that parents chose to reuse the cradles passed from generation to generation for financial and sentimental reasons. Such a cradle appears at the centre of Louis-Eugene Leroux’s The Newborn, Breton of c. 1864, representing a young mother recuperating from labour, accompanied by her husband and their newborn child, sleeping in its cradle (fig. 6.3). After being exhibited in the Salon, Leroux’s painting earned him a medal and was purchased by the state. “It is with a newborn baby that Mr Eugene Leroux won his medal,” stated Théophile Thoré. “Somewhat a naive painting of sentiment, but round and commonly executed.”31 The painting’s success, further stressed by the popularity of its engraving,32 may have stemmed from the growing urban bourgeoisie’s interest in the peasantry in general and in the Brittany peasantry in particular. Though the use of agricultural technology increased in the last decades of the century in rural France, Brittany included, this region was considered to be a wild, traditional, and primitive place, undefiled by industrialization. Consequently, many artists portrayed Breton peasants in order to express the traditional values sanctified by the bourgeoisie: work, home, family, land, and nationality.33 The pastoral, intimate subject matter of Leroux’s painting, which reflected the ongoing romanticization of the peasantry, further added to its success. Not only is the family’s rustic setting so different from bourgeois urban accommodations, but it is clearly oblivious to the latest rules of hygiene. Though the baby is sufficiently covered, it is evidently entirely swaddled, wrapped in its bedding, and denied the possibility of any freedom of movement. Likewise, the newborn’s cradle, wholly made of wood and mounted on a curved base that enables rocking, is placed on a wooden chest, to the great interest of the family dog, attentively watching its motion. It may be argued that, in the 1860s, the rules of hygiene were yet to be implemented in rural France. Yet, a similar cradle appeared in 1890 in Family in the Fields, exhibited by Marie Caire with great success at the Salon des artistes français (fig. 6.4).34 Due to the communal nature of agrarian labour, the workers’ baby is sleeping peacefully at their side, sheltered from the glowing sun by a large red umbrella. Following medicinal instructions, it is lying on its back, its head – covered by a white bonnet – rests on a large pillow, and its body is fully covered to : 186 :
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Fig. 6.4. Marie Caire, Family in the Fields (La famille aux champs), 1890 (Salon de la Société des Artistes français, 1890), oil on canvas, 89.5 × 116.5 cm. Barcelonnette, Musée de la Vallée.
prevent it from catching a cold. The rockable cradle, however, is entirely made of wood, thus allegedly exposing the baby to potential hazards. Since the ongoing popularity of wooden cradles among the peasantry stemmed mainly from their mobility and low price, pediatricians regularly contended that the wooden cradles “must be replaced everywhere by a vulgar wicker cradle, posed on solid feet.”35 As wicker is light, sturdy, and relatively easy to work with, it became a common material of choice throughout Europe from the sixteenth century onward (see, for example, figs. 1.4, 1.5, and 3.1). Given their low cost and durability, easy maintenance, and stylistic adaptability, such cradles became extremely popular among the urban merchants and members of the petty bourgeoisie, as represented in Daumier’s caricatures (figs. 2.1, 3.2).36 Whereas wooden cradles were made by rural carpenters (menuisiers), who did simple, everyday woodworking,37 wicker bassinets were sold in the grands magasins, available to all for : 187 :
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a modest price.38 Unrockable and mounted on high feet, they reflected the doctors’ orders perfectly. Due to such advantages, wicker bassinets and cribs were also used by impoverished urban families. Already, in 1846, Jean Baptiste Firmin Marbeau, the lawyer who initiated the foundation of the first Parisian crèches in 1844, argued: “In Paris alone, the Crèches would preserve from poverty, through work, 2,400 households, a twelfth of the registered households! Berceau Moïse, the cradle of Jesus, protect the cradle of the poor!” Accordingly, he amassed countless donations to provide each baby with its own cradle. “We write above the cradle the name of the person who gave it,” he elucidated, “so that the mother sees every day to whom she owes the benefit both she and her child enjoy.”39 Unlike the denigrated footless wooden cradles, the crèches supplied every baby with a wicker crib, mounted on four legs and topped by a circular roof to shield them from harsh daylight. The crib’s woven basket was padded with a thick mattress, and every child had a pillow, a blanket, and a bonnet that covered its head.40 Since many poor mothers could not afford to buy a cradle, during the last decades of the century, members of the Société pour la propagation de l’allaitement maternel repeatedly bestowed beds and bedding on mothers in need.41 Zola described this custom in Fruitfulness (Fécondité), through Mathieu’s efforts to help a poor mother by securing “a cradle and a supply of baby linen” from the Assistance publique (the official organization for the relief of the poor), in addition to “an allowance of thirty francs a month for at least one year.”42 At the same time, thanks to the benevolence of the charitable organization La société de charité maternelle (The Maternal Charity Society), several stores offered discounted cradles and cribs to families in need. In 1887, the society founded the Society of Cradles, which advertised one such Parisian store in July 1892 in the journal L’enfant: “To come to the aid of La société de charité maternelle, five years ago a new and independent group was founded under the name of Société des berceaux. Mothers rescued by the Maternal Charity Society can receive a special voucher upon presentation of which they will receive a cradle with blanket and mattress, all of which cost nearly five francs. 28, avenue d’Antin.”43 In 1894, the vouchers issued by the Society of Cradles were also accepted
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by Le Magasin du Gagne-Petit, 23, avenue de l’Opéra, which delivered for five francs “a complete cradle (cradle, stand, benchtop, blanket).”44 Even though the higher classes used similar elevated devices, they favoured cribs made of polished wood (see, for example, fig. 4.1), or preferably, those made of iron, like Blanche’s crib, illustrated by Morisot (fig. 0.1). The inclination to iron, repeatedly recommended by pediatricians in the last decades of the century, stemmed from reasons of hygiene, as metal beds prevented infestations of bedbugs, lice, and moths.45 Being “as precious as they are healthy and comfortable,”46 metal cribs, which appeared in artworks, fashion magazines, and child-care manuals, gained popularity among the bourgeoisie, as they conflated the doctors’ insistence on paramount sanitation with maternal aspirations to stylishness (see, for example, figs. 0.1, 3.5, 3.6, 4.3, 5.3). Such items reflected the growing importance of infants as individuals worthy of their own material goods and private space. Unlike the baby in Family in the Fields (fig. 6.4), who is destined to accompany its parents to work, bourgeois children enjoyed freedom in their own private, embellished universe. According to Zygmunt Bauman’s analysis of modernity, in past centuries, immobility signified higher social status, whereas nomadic mobility characterized the lower classes, lacking a place of their own.47 The elevated, immobile crib testifies to the veracity of this statement. Whereas the bassinets of the underprivileged – often relocated in accordance with the caregiver’s needs – imprisoned them in a restricted provisional location, cribs offered a comfortable, stationary territory of experiences. Subsequently, the higher a late-nineteenth-century cradle, the higher the social status of its occupant. Such opulent cribs appeared at the Salon of 1861 in Toulmouche’s and Stevens’s paintings (figs. 3.5, 4.3), which garnered the attention of the critic of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Léon Lagrange. “Mr. Alfred Stevens and Mr. Toulmouche seem to have dedicated themselves to the rehabilitation of the current bourgeois custom,” he wrote. “In the absence of beauty of style, they were able to discover the beauty of leisure.” Although he acknowledged their contemporaneity, he was less convinced by their sense of fashion, arguing that both “allow the truth to escape in favour of errors that a large battery of females would
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not have forgiven.” In reaction to Toulmouche’s home decor, he pondered: “What house mistress would consent to hang in a room coated with Damascus silk curtains of a different fabric and shade?” Stevens, however, “sins more gravely when he gives the young mother who is breastfeeding her child an old-fashioned shawl … as if this harmonious tone which seduced her could make a Parisian dress-up with an item that has been out of date for thirty years.”48 Although Lagrange found numerous flaws in Stevens’s sense of women’s fashion – echoed, apparently, by his incompetent colleague – in fact, the painting exhibits up-to-date nursery stylishness with the utmost precision. The baby is clothed in a long white dress and a thin, decorated bonnet, following contemporary babies’ fashion (see, for example, in comparison to fig. 5.4). Even though a small icon of the Madonna and Child is suspended from the cradle’s interior veil, to protect the baby from harm, the watchful mother does not rely solely on God’s benevolence, as indicated by the strict embrace of medical endorsements. Not only does she breastfeed her baby herself, instead of relying on a hired nurse, but the baby’s immobile, elevated metal crib is identical to those illustrated in child-care manuals and women’s magazines (see, for example, figs. 2.5, 5.4). Comprising a mesh basket padded with a mattress and a sizeable lace pillow, like the cribs represented by Morisot, Fleury, and de Jonghe (figs. 0.1, 3.6, and 5.3), it epitomizes the rules of hygiene, combining utter sanitation, stability, and stylishness. In his treatise on home decor, the architect Émile Cardon urged mothers to accustom their children to elegance and beauty. As “talking to the eyes is the most powerful of all means of instruction … we must only surround ourselves with noble and decent objects, to ensure that for our children, raised in this environment, this love of the beautiful becomes second nature.” Accordingly, “all that is destined for the use of children must be distinguished by the purity of the form. The ‘whatever, it is good enough for a child,’ is a mistake. You do not let him read a bad book, don’t show him nasty things; accustom him to beauty.”49 Such recommendations are reflected in Courgey’s so-called memoir, discussed in the previous chapters: “Your mother and grandmother went to the Bon Marché to buy the cradle and the swaddling clothes. It is true to say that they were more concerned with having a cradle of beautiful appearance, pleasing to the eye, than a hygienic cradle. : 190 :
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The curtains were a little too thick, the blankets a little thin, although high-priced; the lawn sheets embroidered and trimmed with lace, a little dry. They did not forget the knot of blue ribbon and the ivory cross combined with an angel’s head to hang from the curtain’s rod.” Albeit stating that the baby “will undoubtedly have an elegant cradle,” Courgey maintained that such feminine concerns were less important than the crib’s hygiene. Attesting to the supremacy of medical advice, he concluded by declaring that “its faults will be corrected little by little by the doctor.”50 Written by the baby’s father, Courgey, the column emphasized the caregivers’ considerations with regard to the selection of the baby’s cradle. Bought at one of the largest department stores in Paris, which mainly targeted clients belonging to the bourgeoisie,51 the chosen cradle represented taste and elegance. As the baby’s mother and grandmother replaced functionality with appearance, they did not forget the cradle’s adornments, which included a religious talisman, sold in the grands magasins,52 and a ribbon, signifying the baby’s gender. In a short essay titled “Cradle,” published in La mode illustrée in October 1867, the editor explained the best way of decorating a cradle, as represented in the detailed drawing accompanying the article. “If we want to make this cradle very elegant, we will garnish it in taffeta or pink or blue silk, and we will cover this lining with embroidered muslin or apply embroidered tulle meshes, beehives, and rosettes in pink or blue ribbon.”53 Toward the end of the century, such embellishments became so indispensable that Colette Salignac, the fashion journalist of La jeune mère, dedicated extensive columns to the matter, in response to the recurrent questions sent by her attentive readers: A large satin bow will be placed in the middle of the dome, one on each side of the basket and one at the end, namely at the feet of the child ... For the baby’s “receptions,” we will have a luxury pillow, covered in linen or embroidered muslin similar to the cradle. Likewise, on top of the top blankets, a matching pink and white or blue sky and white coverlet, lined with white silk ... will be applied during the day ... The curtains passing through the arrow are joined from behind in their entire length by a seam to avoid drafts that are always harmful to the baby’s : 191 :
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Fig. 6.5. Maison du petit St Thomas, catalogue special d’ameublement, meubles de bois, tapis, tapisserie et literie,1898 (Paris, 1898), 30. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France (photograph provided by gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France).
eyes ... These curtains will be in muslin or embroidered tulle ... trimmed with a lace frill, like the one that already surrounds the cradle. They will be embellished with knots of ribbons ... [in which we shall place] an ivory cross, an angel’s head seeming to watch over the sleep of the dear little one.54 Such instructions are echoed in the baby’s memoir cited earlier, where it is written: “From the middle of my third month, the blue ribbon of my canopy catches my attention. I look at it and laugh when it is shaken.”55 Doctors, who acknowledged these customs, did not oppose “the decoration of these small beds with a light fabric in pink, white or blue,” yet they maintained that “this garnish must be renewed often,” pointing out that “Unfortunately, this ordinance is forgotten more than once.”56 Accordingly, though mothers generally followed the pediatricians’ endorsements, they found ways of expressing their own tastes while signifying their baby’s individuality and gender. In addition to babies’ clothing and bedding, discussed in the previous chapter, all department stores exhibited a vast assortment of bassinets, cribs, and infants’ beds, at various prices. A rather simple wooden crib, “in rotatable wood, fully dismountable, with swan neck arrow, in varnished or natural walnut,”57 cost twenty-nine francs (fig. 6.5, on the upper right). For an additional fee, one could acquire a similar metal crib tinted in white enamel, sold for ninety-five francs (fig. 6.5, on the upper left). Since the average daily wages for the working classes in the 1890s did not exceed five or six francs,58 such a cradle was nearly equivalent to a worker’s monthly salary. It is not surprising, then, that metal cradles were incontestably destined for the affluent bourgeois clientele, who enjoyed the benefits of spacious households and valued fashion and style. Nonetheless, in the last decade of the century, after crude iron was successfully converted into steel, which lowered the price, metal cribs were mass-marketed, gaining popularity among the middle and lower classes all over Europe.59 Accordingly, at the beginning of the twentieth century, simple metal cribs were delivered to urban crèches, where each baby received its own sanitary bed (see, for example, fig. 6.6). Elevated on metal feet and adorned with white curtains, such cribs, sold in department stores for twelve to fourteen francs, offered a proper, medicalized sleep to the young members of the : 193 :
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Fig. 6.6. La Crèche de Chartres, ca. 1900, photography, private collection (KGPA Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo, The Keasbury-Gordon Photograph Archive).
underprivileged sectors of society.60 As sleep was long declared to be one of the most crucial needs of young babies for their physical and moral development, such devices democratized, to a certain extent, infants’ sleep, by offering the best possible sleeping environment to the young members of the working class. Since the hygienists’ goals were medical, educational, and moral, the strict application of medical rules was not only intended to reduce infant mortality, but also to serve as a model for working mothers on how to rear children hygienically and morally.61 Given that metal cribs became accessible to nearly everyone, the grands magasins offered expensive novelties for the affluent classes. : 194 :
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Fig. 6.7. Michael Thonet, Cradle, ca. 1895, bentwood, height: 208 cm, length: 150 cm, depth: 70 cm. Private collection.
As the appetite for luxury grew among the rapidly expanding bourgeoisie, most manufacturers substituted the previously accepted practice of custom-made furniture, favoured by the nobility, with the “shop method,” which enabled them to exhibit their designs regularly in all the major department stores. While some domestic manufacturers gained acclaim, the best-known crib designer in fin-de-siècle France was the Viennese cabinetmaker Michael Thonet. By mid-century, he had perfected a process by which solid wood rods could be steam-bent into complex curves, creating a cheaper, lighter, and more durable material than the traditional wood-carving techniques (see, for example, fig. 6.7). : 195 :
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Fig. 6.8. Au bon marché, maison A. Boucicaut, album des layettes, catalogue (Paris, 1907), 36. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France (photograph provided by gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France).
Due to this process, he could make furniture from a small number of long, flowing, curved pieces of wood, while eliminating much of the necessary prior joinery. After installing special machinery for mass production in his factory in 1856, he exported numerous items of furniture all over Europe and the United States.62 Unlike early-nineteenth-century elevated cradles, made of an oval bassinet suspended on wooden poles, specially designed to be rocked,63 Thonet’s cribs, sold in Paris at boulevard Sebastopol, 92,64 were immobile. Elevated on decorated legs in the Art Nouveau style, with a prominent, curved swan-neck pillar supporting the veil, Thonet’s cribs blended style, utility, and hygiene. John Dunnigan argues that, in Thonet’s furniture, “form and function were one.”65 Indeed, his stylish cradles mirrored medical endorsements perfectly, while offering numerous benefits for both the baby and its mother. Their four steady legs assured the baby’s safety; the bassinet’s height enabled easy access for the baby’s caregiver; and their light, : 196 :
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ventilated containers, so suitable for the basket’s added ornaments, facilitated the frequent changing of bedclothes. Since doctors maintained that “Children must be softly laid down because of the delicacy of their limbs,” the cradle’s wooden frame was “padded and quilted at the edges, so that they cannot harm themselves in their movements.”66 In addition to the mattress, felt, bedding, and blankets, the cradle’s unique frame facilitated the adjustment of an embroidered, gender-appropriate mantling, as suggested in the women’s magazines.67 Due to the combination of the Art Nouveau elegance of Thonet’s cradles with their ample compliance with the rules of hygiene, numerous copies – mostly unauthorized – soon invaded the market and were sold in department stores, such as the Bon Marché. A rather simple wooden crib, “walnut colour, Greek tulle curtains, hand embroidery, double sateen, padded with satin interior and silk strings, complete bedding with a knot,”68 cost 155 francs (fig. 6.8, no. 54684, on the upper left), whereas other, more sophisticated cribs were sold for 250 to 315 francs (fig. 6.8, on the right). Concurrently, however, Au Bon Marché and Le Grands magasins du Printemps offered simpler, immobile rectangular infant beds, made of steel or wood, erected on four steady feet, which became popular at the beginning of the twentieth century (see, for example, fig. 6.2 on the right). Such a bed appears in The Baby Brother’s Cradle, painted by Maurice Denis in 1915, portraying his seventh child, Jean-François, lying on his back in a wooden crib topped by a white veil (fig. 6.9). His older sister, possibly Madeleine, born in 1906, bends down toward him, smiling, looking at him with tenderness, like the other watchful young girls represented throughout the second half of the nineteenth century (see, for example, figs. 3.5, 4.4). Unlike Jean Monet, who was similarly portrayed awake in his cradle (fig. 5.1), Jean-François Denis does not look sleepy at all, but is awake, smiling mischievously at the viewer and, simultaneously, in the direction of his father. His elevated, fenced bed allows his caregivers to observe him at all times, while safeguarding him from harm. Such infant beds not only complied with medical recommendations but also suited both users, as the dimensions are clearly predestined for a baby, whereas the height facilitates the caregiver’s attendance. Nonetheless, like other members of the middle and upper classes, Jean-François had more than one bed, and was occasionally placed in a rounded small-scaled bassinet (fig. 6.10), reminiscent of the plain : 197 :
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Fig. 6.9. Maurice Denis, The Baby Brother’s Cradle (Le berceau du petit frère), 1915, oil on cardboard, 37 × 48.7 cm. St Germain en Laye, Musée Maurice Denis. Photograph © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée Maurice Denis) / Benoît Touchard. Fig. 6.10. Maurice Denis, Baby in His Cradle (Bébé dans son berceau), 1915, Album Maurice Denis, 12 – Folio 38 V dessiné au verso et Folio 39, pencil on paper, 17.2 × 11 cm. Paris, Musée d’Orsay, conservé au Musée du Louvre. Photograph © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Tony Querrec.
basket painted by Greuze (fig. 1.1). Interestingly, the use of such items, which flourished during the last decades of the century, enjoyed the pediatricians’ endorsement, despite their strict instructions to use elevated cradles that protected the baby from humidity, pets, and potential falls.69
Demand and Supply: Physicians in the Market Even though pediatricians widely recommended metal cribs in light of their hygienic qualities, portable bassinets gained popularity among the middle and upper classes during the last decades of the century. Accordingly, the grands magasins offered a variety of small-scaled bassinets designed for early childhood.70 Along with low-cost octagonal wicker bassinets, specially designed to hold warm-water bottles, for the winter,71 one of the bestsellers in this category was the berceau Moïse, i.e., Moses basket (see, for example, fig. 6.8 on the bottom). In a fashion column published in La jeune mère in 1886, Renée d’Ans contended that the Moïse is “As necessary as the large cradle,” as it is “more attractive, more practical, and indispensable on many occasions.” Due to its small dimensions, it could easily be moved around the house, allowing the mother “to transport the sleeping child wherever she wishes.” Of no less importance, however, such devices “adorn the baby’s room,” looking like “real jewellery, an indescribable jumble of crumpled attractiveness, charming, soft nests, in which the sleeping child looks like a rose votive in a case.”72 “When a baby is very young, that is in the first months of his life, he cannot always be left in its cradle, relegated to the back of the nursery,” wrote Salignac in the same vein in a fashion column published in La jeune mère. As the young mother is only too proud to introduce the new family member to all her acquaintances, she carries it in her arms, passing it from one to another to admire its delightfulness. “However, nothing is worse for a very young child than being tossed about without support from right to left.” Therefore, when transporting the child “from the nursery to the living room,” or “from the arms of the grandfather to the knees of the grandmother,” the Moïse is the most practical solution, “clean, comfortable, light and which can be as charming as desired.”73 : 199 :
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While mentioning the Moïse’s practicality, d’Ans and Salignac emphasized its desirability and moderate price. Whereas such bassinets were sold in every department store for a variety of prices, ranging from twenty-eight to seventy-five francs (see, for example, fig. 6.2 in the middle), in a later column, Salignac gave specific instructions for mothers who wished to create the Moïse themselves. “All the mothers have seen these lovely baskets at the seamstress and in the new department stores, wrapped in pink and blue, embellished with lace, which, despite their title, are hardly reminiscent of the basket coated with bitumen and pitch that was deposited on the banks of the Nile,” she wrote. Some fortunate mothers hastened to buy “this charming trinket”; others, less wealthy or more frugal, decided that the standard cradle would suffice, and walked away with a sigh, “thinking that the expected baby would, however, be adorable amid all these frenzies.” Yet, “it is so convenient! In winter, the child is placed in front of the fire in the middle of the nursery room; in summer, the child is carried in the garden under the branches that temper the sun’s rays.” As nothing is easier than fabricating such an item, Salignac described in detail the exact way of making it at home. “The expense is so minimal that the most economical will do it without difficulty.”74 In light of the rising maternal interest in such bassinets, during the last two decades of the century, nearly every pediatrician endorsed the Moïse, stressing its advantages. “There is only one harmless way to make an infant travel by train,” wrote Brochard in 1880, “it is to put it in a small berceau Moïse … which I have mentioned several times in this newspaper … In it, the child is not subjected to any violent movement.”75 Unlike the growing inclination toward simple, modest toys, as discussed in the previous chapter, the popularity of the Moïse was a direct outcome of the marketing enterprise, stressing variety and diversity. As infants’ sleep became a consumer product, fashioned by doctors and consumed by mothers who could procure it, pediatricians were only too eager to join the market by exploring, endorsing, and expanding the variety of recommended sleeping instruments. Although such objects were designed for the benefit of the primary users – the babies – it was, in fact, the growing concern for the satisfaction of the secondary users – the parents – that spurred the physicians’ involvement in the cradle industry during the last decades of the century. : 200 :
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In 1887, a vast number of portable bassinets were introduced at the Childhood Hygiene Exhibition held in Paris. Following a twoand-a-half-hour visit to the display, where the kiosk of La jeune mère, “surrounded by mothers,” distributed gifts, Dr Toussaint published an enthusiastic account. “All the readers of this newspaper who live in Paris have certainly visited the Exposition d’hygiène de l’enfance,” he wrote. While attending the lectures of the hygienists and physicians, the mothers “surely discovered a host of useful or pleasant objects and products.” Among the endless variety of toys, feeding bottles, bedding, and clothing for children from birth to the age of twelve, “the public ran the risk … of falling asleep in front of the endless series of children’s cradles,” which included a vast number of “charming beds” and “rubber mattresses.” In addition to the Moïse, made of wicker to prevent bedbugs, the good doctor was incredibly enthusiastic about discovering the “cradle-hammock” (berceau-hamac), “invented by Madame Léon Béquet, the devoted founder of la Société d’allaitement maternelle. It is hung with four nails above the mother’s bed, who has only one movement to make to take the child.”76 Although similar devices were described by doctors who discussed the different ways in which babies previously slept around the world,77 virtually all of them stressed the strict necessity of avoiding low-based devices, due to the exposure to humidity and the risk of falls or pet bites. Nonetheless, given such overall maternal enthusiasm, they submitted to the public’s demands. In his book The Social Life of Things, Arjun Appadurai argues that objects are born from the very yearning for them, and that it is cultural desire and demand that brings about their realization by pushing for new technologies in response to those needs. Suppressing the tyranny of the economic dimension, he argued that the cultural-political act precedes the economic act, and that it is the lust for luxury that drives capitalist commerce, rather than vice versa.78 By implication, it may be stated that the manufacture of the Moïse, like other low-scale bassinets, stemmed from the bourgeois women’s own needs. Even though the benefits of maternal watchfulness were discussed at great length in medical literature, this also caused many disadvantages, as discussed in chapter four. Consequently, women’s economic power as consumers eventually contributed to the development of pseudo-medical devices, which enabled them to fulfill the pediatricians’ demands without giving : 201 :
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Fig. 6.11. Au Printemps, Paris, ameublements de campagne et de jardin, ménage, porcelaines, catalogue commercial (Paris, 1910), 52. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France (photograph provided by gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France).
Fig. 6.12. Eugène Bouchut, “Cadre-hamac pour enfants,” Hygiène de la première enfance: guide des mères pour l’allaitement le sevrage et le choix de la nourrice chez les nouveau-nés, fifth edition (Paris: Baillière, 1874), 287. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cabinet des Estampes, Paris (photograph provided by gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France).
up leisure and other desirable activities. Portable beds, such as Béquet’s hammock, produced by mothers for mothers, enabled them to avoid sitting endlessly next to the cradle by allowing them to move the baby around at will, as stated by d’Ans. Consequently, during the last decades of the century, several physicians and engineers developed and endorsed new sleeping instruments. Along with foldable cribs (fig. 6.11, no. 29727) or “travel cradles” (berceau de voyage, fig. 6.11, no. 29728), Bouchut suggested using a baby hammock, based on his own creation, consisting of an iron frame and a piece of canvas (fig. 6.12). “This hammock frame can be an excellent daybed for young children,” he wrote. Nonetheless, he maintained that it could be used only during summer days. “During the day, because we will be able to monitor their movements and prevent their falls; during the summer, on account of the air, circulating freely around the child’s body, will give it a healthy freshness.”79 Whether or not this baby hammock was designated mainly for the convenience of the secondary user, other sleeping devices were chiefly manufactured to address potential accidents and health issues experienced by the primary user.80 In a column published by Brochard regarding : 203 :
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Fig. 6.13. “Berceaux-parachute,” Album illustré de l’almanach Didot-Bottin, annuaire de la fabrique et de l’industrie (Paris: J.E. Bovin, 1877), n.p. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France.
potential cradle-based accidents, he warned parents about falls, which could occur when the child started to roll over, proposing to cover the cradle with a mesh net.81 Indeed, in 1870, the Parisian engineer Jules Émile Boivin issued a patent for an ingenious “parachute-cradle” (berceau-parachute, fig. 6.13).82 After receiving a bronze medal and an honorary mention at two industrial exhibitions held in Brussels in : 204 :
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1873 and 1876,83 the new device was praised by the Parisian referees of the Exposition Universelle of 1878. “Let us quote an infinitely graceful piece of furniture,” wrote one of the critics, stressing that it was not only charming but also most helpful. “A net supported by metal wires, displaying the spheroid shape, completely envelops the cradle. The child can play and do whatever he likes; there is no fear that he will fall; the net also serves as a mosquito net and prevents flies and other insects from tormenting the baby.”84 Even though several doctors did not share his enthusiasm,85 Brochard argued that Boivin “perfected” his own idea and “even simplified it.” This invention, he maintained, “offers young mothers all the security possible, either when the infant sleeps or when he plays while awake.” To further convince his female readers, he added an illustration of this ingenious device, as “the child is perfectly enclosed while having at his disposal both air and light in the required quantity.” Claiming that it can be advantageous when children start standing in their cradles, he added: “I know very well that a large number of mothers will respond by saying that they do not leave their infant for a single instant, that they are always with him. Maternal love, in fact, is the best guardian of the child.”86 Other devices developed by pediatricians addressed health problems while reflecting the rules of hygiene. Already, in 1857, Jean-Louis-Paul Denucé, a pediatrician from Bordeaux, had invented the “incubator cradle” (berceau incubateur),87 “intended for children born before term, for which a mild and constant heat is essential. A current of hot water, circulating in a double zinc bottom, maintains a graduated and constant temperature.”88 During the mid-nineteenth century, several European obstetricians constructed similar devices to incubate infants in increasingly controlled environments. This medical instrument maintained stable conditions in a germ-free environment for premature infants born before the thirty-seventh week of gestation. In the early 1880s, Tarnier perfected this device, constructing an improved model that could hold up to four infants at once, consisting of a thick glass lid and a wooden box frame with sawdust-insulated walls that could radiate heat. As the incubator was placed upon a water tank heated with gas or alcohol, it was warmed by air circulation from the bottom through vents above the infants. This modified model became increasingly popular : 205 :
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Fig. 6.14. Alexis Clerc, “Le berceau pèse-bébé du docteur Groussin” (a baby-weighing cradle), Hygiène et médecine des deux sexes; suivies d’un Dictionnaire d’hygiène et de médecine 1 (Paris: Jules Rouff et Cie, 1885), 125. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France (photograph provided by gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France).
in Parisian maternity wards during the 1890s and was responsible for a 28 per cent decrease in infant mortality over three-years at the Hôpital Maternité in Paris.89 Another chiefly medical device was introduced by Lucien Groussin, who developed the “baby-scale cradle” (berceau pèse-bébé), endorsed by several pediatricians (fig. 6.14).90 In his 1874 manual, Bouchut explained the need for such an item: “in general, newborn children lose 30 to 300 grams on the first day; this can continue again on the second day and the following days, but in general, the weight rises again from the third day of birth. Mothers must therefore follow the increase in weight of their child with attention, and to do so, weigh them approximately every eight days, with a very exact balance or in the cradle of Groussin. : 206 :
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This process of weighing children is certainly the one that best informs parents regarding the development of nursing babies.”91 The doctors’ determination to regulate the world of early infancy through a long list of pros and cons significantly diminished parental agency. Under the auspices of puericulture (the care of newborns), doctors recommended, in the name of routine and normalcy, repetitive use of precise, systematic techniques for handling babies. In addition to regular visits with the pediatrician,92 mothers were expected to follow doctors’ instructions about sleeping, feeding, washing, dressing, promenading, and vaccinating punctiliously.93 The detailed charts endorsed by physicians, which laid out standards for newborns’ estimated height and weight, in relation to age,94 further stressed the superiority of the “scientific” over the “natural.” The doctors’ multiple activities vis-à-vis child care, which included writing, teaching, treating, and supervising, reflected its ultimate medicalization in line with Conrad’s terms: conceptual, institutional, and interactional.95 In an article dedicated to incubators, Gina Greene argues that, while this novel instrument represented the emergence of a new kind of therapeutic space, designed to emphasize transparency and hygiene, it actually separated the mother and child and interposed the physician as a mediator necessary for ensuring the child’s well-being.96 In like manner, by introducing mechanisms of medical administration through the recording of data and statistics, pediatricians contributed to the establishment of a “society of norm,” the sickness – and health – of which were governed by the medical establishment.97 Instead of allowing babies to sleep according to their own needs, late-nineteenth-century doctors prescribed specific rules, which determined the exact quantity and period of sleep required by each child according to its age. Consequently, by the end of the century, the subjective examination of bodily functions was replaced by charts and diagrams.98 Instead of relying on the baby’s behaviour (crying, bowel movements, sleep, and mood), the new narrative accentuated measurable parameters (weight, height, liquid quantities) to track the baby’s growth and well-being. Rather than focusing on the baby, parents now determined its welfare based on the doctor’s declarations. As the elevated hygienic crib mirrors similar ideas of separation, it is not surprising, then, that mothers were not always eager to take the doctors’ advice. : 207 :
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Co-sleeping and Demedicalization Based on Donné’s observations about exessive maternal devotedness, one of the most common forms of defiance of the doctor’s advice was mothers who “hold their children in their arms every night, for years, under the pretext that they could not sleep in their cradles.”99 Even though his successors repeatedly disparaged this custom during the second half of the century, Fleury, among others, portrayed her own baby sleeping in her arms rather than in the hygienic metal cradle shown in the background (fig. 3.6). According to Conrad, whereas the medicalization thesis seeks to explain processes, it does not clarify the sociological motives underpinning them, nor those which undermined them. “Demedicalization,” he argues, “occurs when a problem is no longer defined as medical, and medical treatments are no longer deemed appropriate.”100 Since, during the last decades of the century, the state, the medical establishment, and caregivers were all involved in the medicalization of sleep, as argued in the second chapter, it can be safely assumed that the problem remained and was even enhanced due to the modernization and industrialization of society. In fact, the very repetition of the risks of rocking a child to sleep in the arms of its caregiver101 is in itself an indication of the commonness of babies’ sleeplessness. Nevertheless, the proposed medical treatment could be regarded as incompatible or simply undesirable. Taking all this into account, we may assume that parents never entirely regulated their behaviour on the basis of medical instructions. Unlike medical manuals that offer a record of the ideal rather than actual lived experience, images can reflect a counter-discourse to the medical outlooks, allowing us to expand our understanding regarding sleeping practices in the past. Like the bonnet, the baby carriage, or even the practice of maternal breastfeeding, images show us that sleeping rituals were often implemented as per the caregivers’ wishes and desires. Indeed, children sleeping outside their cradles appeared in numerous artworks executed during the last decades of the century by modern genre artists such as Bouguereau or Stevens (figs. 3.7, 4.2).102 In 1871, the latter portrayed a mother happily supervising her sleeping baby, tenderly caressing its arm (fig. 6.15). Situated in the mother’s own bed, in complete defiance of medical endorsements, the baby’s closeness : 208 :
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Fig. 6.15. William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Young Mother Contemplating Her Child (Jeune mère contemplant son enfant), 1871, oil on canvas, 76.2 × 95.2 cm. Private collection.
facilitates the intimacy between the two. While the young woman’s attire and golden jewellery denote her marital and social status, clearly enabling her to hire a garde, she is fully dedicated to her maternal role. Like Edma Pontillon, Young Mother Contemplating Her Child presents a watchful mother who finds contentment in performing her motherly duties. Although her rosary beads are placed on the large bed next to the sleeping child, it is, in fact, her own vigilance that preserves its sleep, so beneficial for its wellness. Denis, too, who produced numerous images of his children sleeping in their beds,103 photographed two of his daughters sleeping on the ground. Given that this medium can hardly capture a baby if it isn’t sleeping, it is not surprising that the artist took advantage of their transient stillness to document their relaxed posture and serene faces. Whereas his eldest, Noële, born in 1896, was captured sleeping naked : 209 :
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Fig. 6.16. Maurice Denis, Anne-Marie Sleeping on a Pillow (Anne-Marie endormie sur un oreiller), 1902, photograph, 8.8 × 9 cm. Paris, Musée d’Orsay. Photograph © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Patrice Schmidt.
on the beach in Le Pouldu,104 his fourth child, Anne-Marie, born in September 1901, is sleeping serenely on a large pillow placed on the floor (fig. 6.16). Her position suggests that her sleep was rather spontaneous, yet she was allowed to continue sleeping, uninterrupted, under her mother’s supervision. Whereas photographs, in general, have the power to capture reallife events,105 it can be presumed that paintings and drawings made by artists who illustrated their own children, such as Denis or Fleury, also gave expression to actual everyday practices, which continued to flourish despite the physicians’ objections.106 Accordingly, it is quite conceivable that Paul César Helleu’s coloured drawings of 1904, : 210 :
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Fig. 6.17. Paul César Helleu, Madame Helleu Sleeping with Her TwoDay-Old Daughter by Her Breast (Madame Helleu endormi, ayant sa fille âgée de deux jours contre son sein), 1904, pencil, sanguine, black and white chalks on paper, 56.8 × 40.7 cm. Paris, Musée d’Orsay, conservé au Musée du Louvre. Photograph © RMNGrand Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Thierry Ollivier.
picturing his spouse, Alice Louis-Guérin, and their daughter, Paulette, sleeping together, denote actual incidences (fig. 6.17).107 Based on the title, Madame Helleu Sleeping with Her Two-Day-Old Daughter by Her Breast was apparently painted shortly after her delivery, portraying the exhausted mother sleeping in her bed with her newborn child. While sleeping on a pillow under the parents’ supervision was not considered dangerous, doctors repeatedly argued that a mother “should never keep her child in bed after breastfeeding, for fear of falling asleep and suffocating him.”108 In a response written in February 1882 to one of La jeune mère’s readers, who confessed to putting her daughter to sleep with her nurse, Brochard replied forcefully: “Any mother who allows her nurse to lay her infant with her is a bad mother or at least a weak and indifferent mother. Any nurse who lays her infant with her must be thrown out immediately.”109 Knowing that “The newborn usually falls asleep as soon as he has suckled and hardly wakes up except to suckle : 211 :
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again,”110 pediatricians urged mothers to place them gently in their cribs, as represented by Daumier (fig. 0.3). Undoubtedly, Helleu’s decision to depict breastfeeding in bed – unlike other images of his wife nursing in the public areas of the home111 – stemmed from Paulette’s young age, since, prior to the twentieth century, bourgeois women used to deliver their babies in their private bedrooms with the help of a midwife or a physician. After delivery, mothers remained at rest in bed to recover from labour while taking care of their newborn child (see, for example, figs. 4.4, 6.3).112 Even though physicians strictly ordered that parents place the baby’s cradle next to its mother’s bed (see, for example, figs. 0.1, 2.1, 5.1), Madame Helleu apparently preferred maintaining close physical contact in the first days of her daughter’s life. A similar account was described in Courgey’s memoir. After describing the baby’s newly purchased cradle, he added: “However, there will be no inconvenience, because of the rigorous season, of leaving you for a few days in your mother’s bed, like poor mothers who do not have a garde. Due to the hygienic precautions with which you will be surrounded and the supervision of the garde, you will be better there, and you will not be involuntarily choked while your mother is sleeping.”113 The significance of bodily interaction between the mother and the newborn baby had already been acknowledged in 1799 by Le Rebours, who maintained that co-sleeping is beneficial for both babies and their mothers during the first months of the child’s life.114 In a similar vein, Caillau maintained in 1797 that “It is essential that the newborn child cuddles on his mother’s bare breasts, clings on her, so to speak, and smells her. He needs not only her milk but also her beneficent warmth.” As he was aware of the possible dangers attached to this custom, he added: “Everyone knows that many women have suffocated their children by holding them in such a way. Most mercenary nurses use this dangerous custom; let us not be surprised, as only true maternal love is capable of continual vigilance.”115 Such views were, however, utterly obliterated during the second half of the nineteenth century. “How are there still mothers or nurses careless enough ... to be the cause of the death of their infant?” pondered Barjon in a column published in 1896 in the journal La jeune mère. To persuade his feminine audience further, he added: : 212 :
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The baby is sleeping, the mother also falls asleep, unconscious in her sleep, she turns slightly: but the face of little Germaine is so close, turned sideways, applied against the mother ... she suffocates ... she is unable to defend herself, this frail creature, in a minute her mother could wake up, she, however, will have ceased to live, suffocated, gagged, so to speak ... Very well, the baby does not want to sleep in his cradle, he cries out, and instead of looking for the cause of his cries and his agitation, you lay him close to you ... He does not want to sleep in his cradle because you have accustomed him to lie near you.116 Even though several artists illustrated babies who had fallen asleep in their mothers’ beds after nursing,117 the devoted mother, who was expected to nurse her children herself, as portrayed by Stevens and de Jonghe, was commanded to train them to sleep alone.118 “Children should be accustomed to falling asleep in their crib,” wrote Tarnier and his associates, “not on their knees or in their arms.”119 Such understandings of the primacy of maternal devotion are demonstrated in a silver medal titled These Are My Ornaments (Haec sunt mea ornamenta), designed in 1901 by Henri Eugène Nocq (fig. 6.18). The work’s title is drawn from a quotation attributed to the aristocratic Roman woman Cornelia, mother of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, who epitomized the ideal mother and wife. According to the Greek historian and essayist Plutarch, following her husband’s death, Cornelia decided to remain a widow and continued caring for her three children with love and devotion. When one of her wealthy neighbours showed her jewels and asked to see hers, Cornelia pointed at her children and said: “these are my ornaments.”120 Even though this scene was depicted in late-eighteenth-century French art as an expression of the glorification of maternity in the spirit of Rousseau,121 Nocq chose to condense it to the mother and her children without including any additional figures. Furthermore, he endowed the mother with a contemporary, modern look, substituting the Roman mother with a contemporary bourgeois French woman – identified by her stylish hairstyle and delicate dress – as a reflection of the late-nineteenth-century maternal ideal. The back of the medal completes the depiction and emphasizes the child’s centrality in bourgeois family life. As the ornaments endowing the : 213 :
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Fig. 6.18. Henri Eugène Nocq, Haec Sunt Mea Ornamenta (These Are My Ornaments), 1901, silver, D: 11.8 cm. Private collection.
bourgeois mother with charm, the children underline Jules Simon’s words, cited in chapter 3, drawing an equation between femininity, maternity, and motherliness. The beautiful, elevated mobile crib, toy horse, and ragdoll are likewise indicative of the family’s social status, testifying to the existence of a children’s room, which became a separate, designated space in bourgeois homes during the nineteenth century. At the same time, however, the elevated crib represents the vast impact of the medicalization process on everyday life. These “non-human” objects were initially designed to shape human action and decisions, while at the same time shifting from serving as mediators to acting as intermediaries. Yet, according to Latour, no matter how vital objects may be, they tend to recede into the background, “and the greater their importance, the faster they disappear.”122 The evolution of the modern crib testifies to the veracity of this statement. After being “de-naturalized” through medical guidance, which negated prevalent sleeping methods, insisting on children’s secluded sleep in their own beds, the crib became “naturalized,” conventional, and customary.
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Fig. 6.19. André Kertész, At the Grands magasins du Bon Dieu. Careful Manufacturing … (Aux Grands magasins du Bon Dieu. Fabrication soignée … ), 1926, photograph, 9 × 6 cm, Charenton-le-Pont, Médiathèque du patrimoine et de la photographie. Photograph © Ministère de la Culture – Médiathèque du patrimoine et de la photographie, Dist. RMN -Grand Palais / André Kertész.
Its very commonness made it nearly imperceptible in historical research, as well as in real life. Located on the reverse of Nocq’s medal, the elegant crib ostensibly signifies homeliness by depicting childhood objects belonging to the private, intimate domain of life. In doing so, however, it denotes the doctors’ insistence on the laws of hygiene, which purportedly presented ways of purification for the child’s body, and eventually sterilized the body itself, while replacing, to a certain extent, human warmth with a sanitized, solitary sleeping environment. Unlike the previously accepted bassinets and cradles, which facilitated contact between parent and child, the new cribs enhanced the independence of infants. Enclosed in their own sleeping realm, which kept them from harm’s way, children gained autonomy. Freed from their swaddling clothes, they were expected to overcome the fear-provoking liminality of sleep, replacing the adult “sleeping agents” with an agency of their own. This agency is epitomized in André Kertész’s photograph At the Grands magasins du Bon Dieu, Careful Manufacturing, capturing the serenity and confidence of the sleeping baby (fig. 6.19). The image’s title, referring to the Bon Marché department store, replaces the thriving infant-centred industry with the ingenuity of God’s creation (“Bon Dieu”). Nonetheless, rather than presenting the eighteenth-century ideal of the naturalness of sleep, this image mirrors the modernization and medicalization of children’s sleep. Fully clothed and accompanied by a doll, the baby is lying on its back, resting on a pillow in a metal, enamelled crib, in complete accordance with nineteenth-century medical instructions. In his two-volume treatise The Civilizing Process, Elias argues that, during the eighteenth century, sleep gradually retreated to the back stage of social life, turning into a private activity that implied man’s growing mastery over himself.123 Infants’ sleep, however, initially turned into a maternal enterprise, involving sleeping practices and devices related to the temporal, sensual, physical, and mental aspects of sleep. Enduring until present time, hygienic cribs, translucent veils, special sleeping garments, comfortable bedding, warm blankets, feathery pillows, lucky charms and talismans all take part in what has become the strategic operation of putting a child to sleep, which, as stressed by the fin-de-siècle baby’s diary, “constitutes the true and supreme happiness.”124
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AF TERWORD
Sleepless Babies Epidemic: Contemporary Trends and Tactics Respect the child’s sleep, and consider it a subject of public health in the same way as tobacco, alcohol, and food.1 —Dr Elsevier Masson, 2010
In a long list, published by Brochard in February 1881, detailing the proper method of taking care of newborns, the good doctor compared what is done (“ce que l’on fait”) with what should be done (“ce qu’il faut faire”). The first category included squeezing its head, swaddling it tightly, covering its head with three bonnets, laying it down in its mother’s bed, breastfeeding it unceasingly, lifting it as soon as it cries, rocking it excessively, letting it sleep in its mother’s arms, never washing it, never cutting its nails, giving it boiled cow’s milk, avoiding vaccination, taking a young baby out in a carriage, and finally, cutting its hair “at the new moon.” Such habits, according to the good doctor, are incredibly hazardous, since newborns must be raised according to the laws of hygiene: You must wash it with plenty of water, you must not squeeze its head, you must leave its arms free … you must put a single cap on its head, you must feed it exclusively with his mother’s or his nurse’s milk … you have to leave him in its cradle, you must hardly rock it, you have to put it to sleep in its cradle … you have to wash it every day, you have to clean its head like
Fig. A.1. De l’eau, de l’air, de la lumière, 1900, coloured lithograph 105 × 120 cm, in Collection de tableaux muraux Armand Colin (Paris: Draeger, 1900), pl. 14. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cabinet des Estampes et de la photographie (photograph provided by gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France).
the rest of the body … you have to cut its nails … you have to vaccinate them … children should not be put in these small cars until they are eight or ten months old, very young children must be carried in the arms. Finally, stressed Brochard, the baby’s hair “must be cut, without paying attention to the phases of the moon.”2 Similar accounts were also publicized visually. In Water, Air, Light, a sizeable pedagogic poster issued in 1900 by the French publishing house Armand Colin, the list of “for and against” was accompanied by images, as, presumably, a picture is worth a thousand words (fig. A.1). Based on the natural elements as the primary hygienic guidelines, the text on the left orders: “Up to 14 months, nothing but milk for children. No tight swaddles, no tight corsets. Confined air: stale air. Keep your windows open during the day and half-open at night (in summer). No curtains in bed, no alcoves. When the sun is absent, the doctor is present.” Accordingly, the upper image in the left column – illustrating the pros – portrays two women, wet nurses, judging by their attire, nourishing babies through breastfeeding and bottle-feeding. Unswaddled, they are adequately covered with loose clothing that protects them from the cold. Likewise, their cribs – identical to those sold in department stores, such as Au Bon Marché and Le Grands magasins du Printemps3 – perfectly exemplify medical endorsements. Made of iron, elevated above the ground, and unrockable, they offer comfort, sterility, safety, easy access, and supervision. The caption elucidates: “Milk up to 14 months (good), airy cradles (good).” On the right, however, the caption says: “Boiled soups (bad), enclosed cradles (bad).” In view of that, the mother on the right feeds her baby porridge using a spoon, while the child is fully swaddled, wrapped in numerous layers that cover its head. Although the cradle is located near the mother’s bed, as required, it is covered with a large, tattered cloth, impersonating a curtain. The poster’s supplementary images illustrate the proper, hygienic way of living, eating, working, exercising, and playing. Although the use of baby carriages, repeatedly condemned by nineteenth-century pediatricians, has become widespread, many of these recommendations are still being followed today. It can be assumed that most Western babies are not confined in windowless rooms and : 219 :
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do not wear three caps or constricting corsets. Much like everyday washing or breastfeeding, which became fashionable in the last decades of the twentieth century, up until recently, vaccination was also largely considered mandatory among Western parents of all classes.4 Nonetheless, while many infants have individual beds, contemporary parents are not necessarily inclined toward motionless iron cribs, do not leave their babies to sleep on their own, and often use unique devices that rock them to sleep. Such alterations, however, did not arise from a process of demedicalization, which occurs, as argued in the last chapter, when a problem is no longer defined as medical or when the suggested treatment seems unsuitable.5 Quite the contrary; out of desperation, contemporary parents spend enormous amounts seeking advice regarding their babies’ sleep through multiple channels, including pediatricians, psychologists, and sleeping experts, child-care manuals, online medical and psychological sites, instructional DVDs, friends, and relatives. To preserve their babies’ sleep, Western parents often embrace the practice of swaddling, and even hire night nannies, who have replaced the previously accepted employment of gardes.6 Others attend infants’ sleep clinics, while some participate in special courses held at “sleep schools,” in which parents, mainly mothers, check in with their babies for several nights and learn from the nurses how to help their infants sleep.7 Whereas, during the course of the twentieth century, some so-called diseases, such as masturbation or homosexuality, were completely demedicalized,8 in contemporary society, insomnia, in general, and infants’ sleeplessness, in particular, have been hyper-medicalized. In his book 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep, Jonathan Crary argues that the twenty-first century has eroded all distinctions between day and night. The marketplace pushes us into constant activity while eroding forms of communal and political expression, which damages the fabric of everyday life.9 Judging by the vast number of child-care manuals dedicated to children’s sleep over the last two decades, a large number of those insomniac adults are parents to young infants. Since most modern urban apartments are often relatively small, infantile insomnia can easily disturb all household members. Electric lights, constant noise, and cities that never sleep add considerable weight to such occurrences. Indeed, surveys conducted in the United States : 220 :
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by the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) reveal that some 60 per cent of adults – approximately forty million Americans – and nearly 50 per cent of children suffer from sleep deprivation.10 Similar findings are repeated in the United Kingdom. According to a headline in the Daily Mail, “Parents of Newborns Miss Out on Six Months’ Worth of Sleep in Their Child’s First Two Years.”11 Even though the American journalist Pamela Druckerman argued in a bestseller, based on her observations while living in Paris, that French babies sleep through the night at an early age,12 surveys conducted in France reveal similar data. According to the association France Insomnie, founded in March 2016, nearly 40 per cent of children and adults experience insomnia at one time or another in their life, 10 per cent of whom have a severe form of sleeping disorder.13 “How can we make a child who does not want to go to bed sleep? How to teach an infant to sleep well, how to no longer get up at night?” ask the pediatricians Marie Thirion and Marie-Josèphe Challamel in Le sommeil, le rêve et l’enfant, a top-selling sleep guide published in France in numerous editions from 1988 onward. “These irritated, constant, sometimes desperate questions, repetitively asked by everyone sooner or later, have become the bread and butter of family physicians and pediatricians,” they claim.14 As contemporary parents replaced the nineteenth-century maternal smile with sighs and yawns, it is hardly surprising, then, that one of the most successful children’s books, translated into dozens of languages, French included, and sold in millions of copies to tired parents, is titled Go the Fuck to Sleep, followed, due to enthusiastic demand, by Seriously, Just Go to Sleep.15 Written by the American author Adam Mansbach and illustrated by Ricardo Cortés, the book reached the number-one position on the Amazon.com bestseller list a month before its release, due to a viral marketing campaign. The author explains that the book was inspired by his never-ending efforts to put his two-year-old daughter, Vivien, to sleep, which triggered him to write on Facebook: “Look out for my forthcoming children’s book, Go the — to Sleep.”16 Although disguised as a children’s book, it is, in fact, much like the sleeping guidebooks sold to millions of parents, a “children’s book for adults.”17 While this title is somewhat unorthodox, the abundance of traditional medical child-care manuals, published on what seems to be a weekly basis, attests to the continuing prominence of the problem : 221 :
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in Western society. Much like Mansbach’s bestseller, it indicates that Elias’s civilizing process has failed, to some extent, for babies’ sleep continues to be a significant part of parental, and particularly maternal, responsibility.18 Dormir sans larme:Un sommeil paisible et sans pleurs (Peaceful Sleep without Tears ); or Enfin, je dors ... et mes parents aussi (Finally, I Sleep … and My Parents, Too), as well as The Baby Sleep Book: The Complete Guide to a Good Night’s Rest for the Whole Family; The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night; Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child; or Sleeping with Your Baby: A Parent’s Guide to Co-sleeping are only a few popular items from a long list of publications issued in the new millennium throughout the West to help parents regulate their children’s sleep.
“Cry-It-Out” and Sleep Training Originating with Donné’s prominent manual of 1842, the majority of these sleeping guidebooks support some form of cry-based sleep training, arguing that, to enhance a child’s emotional security, autonomy, and self-reliance, babies ought to be trained to self-soothe and to fall asleep on their own.19 This approach was described in detail in a babies’ education manual published in 1922 by the French pediatrician Pierre Pironneau. “Formerly,” he claimed, “our mothers installed the Moïse in the room where they received … Today it is the opposite; one does not talk … if the child’s room is next to the living room.” Arguing that children are the first to suffer from such indulgent habits, he added: “It is a matter of habituating the child from the very first days to sleep despite the noise … The baby must be subjected to good habits from birth.”20 By maintaining that babies can sleep well once they accept their own separateness, Thirion and Challamel propose a similar method in their widely read sleeping manual, published in France in 2011. Claiming that healthy three-month-old babies should sleep through the night, they offer a behavioural treatment for bedtime problems and night waking, recommending saying “good night” and laying them in their cradles when they are wide awake, so that, when they wake up during the night, they are not surprised or anxious to be in bed. While urging parents to dissociate falling asleep with breastfeeding and gradually to reduce : 222 :
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the duration of nightly feedings, they recommend regulating naps and feedings over the day. Before going to bed, parents are advised to put a transitional object in the form of a little blanket or a soft toy with the mother’s scent in the baby’s cradle. Instead of rushing to their babies when they cry at night, parents should wait a few minutes to let them fall asleep on their own.21 “Knowing how to intervene by adopting a firm but not rigid educational attitude makes it possible to solve many problems,” they write. “This intervention will be all the more effective if it is early and supported by an attending physician.”22 In her successful manual, L’enfant et son sommeil (The Child and His Sleep), published in 1998, the well-known Parisian pediatrician and sleep specialist Helene de Leersnyder offers similar advice. Based on Winnicott’s renowned article “The Capacity to Be Alone,” which suggests that this aptitude depends on, and begins with, the child’s experience of being alone in the presence of a mothering figure,23 she maintains that “The little baby learns in his cradle that he can be alone from time to time, without being hungry, without being thirsty, without sleeping, just being calmly awake. At a very young age, he needs time alone, and he needs to go to sleep and wake up without being immediately watched by his mother.” The mother, too, she stresses, deserves some time alone, forgetting her baby and focusing on herself. “She now takes her own shower, gets dressed, puts on makeup, becomes beautiful for her own pleasure.” To further convince her readers, she adds: “If he [the baby] wakes up ten times at night, [the mother] cannot go to work the next day. So that makes the baby understand that – voila – he cannot wake up ten times a night.”24 Although Donné’s method gained repute in America at the beginning of the twentieth century,25 it reached international acclaim through the writings of Dr Richard Ferber, director of the Center for Pediatric Sleep Disorders in Boston and one of the pre-eminent babytraining advocates. In his book Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems, published between 1985 and 2006 in numerous editions and translated into French in 1990,26 he maintains that parents often believe that if their child is a restless sleeper, it is by nature a poor sleeper. Yet, “These beliefs are almost never true. Virtually all children without medical or neurological disorders have the ability to sleep well … while it is normal for a child (or an adult) to wake a few times briefly during the : 223 :
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night … a child should go back to sleep easily on his own.” To achieve this desirable goal, he recommends using the “cry-it-out” method, also known, due to the doctor’s growing reputation, as “Ferberization,” allowing a baby to cry for a specified period of time before the parent offers it some comfort. Like Thirion and Challamel, Ferber encourages caregivers to put their babies in a crib at bedtime and leave the room after speaking to them briefly. “If he learns to fall asleep with you out of the room,” he argues, “you will have more freedom in the evening.” By encouraging parents to do the same at night, Ferber stresses the significance of self-governance – parents can check on the baby at scheduled intervals, as long as the baby learns to sleep by itself. Even when the child sleeps in his or her parent’s bed, they are encouraged to “treat the sleep problems exactly as if the crib were elsewhere: put him down at bedtime, leave the room, and return for brief visits at increasing intervals. He will learn to fall asleep in the room alone and without rocking or patting.”27 Similar instructions appear in the successful sleeping manual The Complete Guide to Helping Your Baby Sleep Through the Night So You Can Too, published in 2010 by Dr Jessica Linnell. “Learning to sleep involves teaching a baby to put himself to sleep,” she explains. “Unless you plan to be present every night for the rest of your child’s life, he will eventually need to learn to fall asleep and stay asleep without your intervention.”28 Being well aware of the problematic nature of this supposedly simple task, Linnell adds: “do not give up on sleep training if the first strategy does not work. Consistency is key for the success of any sleep strategy.”29 The last sentence echoes Brochard’s arguments to the letter, including Linnell’s awareness of the potential difficulties inherent in championing this method due to the parents’ sensibilities and apprehensions.
Natural Parenting and Bed-sharing It is not surprising that, concurrently, during the second half of the twentieth century, a contrasting view gained popularity among Western pediatricians and psychologists, suggesting that, instead of generating self-sufficiency and independence, sleeping alone can inflict “sleep anxieties” on both babies and their caregivers.30 Influenced by the : 224 :
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writings of the British psychoanalyst John Bowlby, who coined the term “attachment” in the 1950s to refer to a child’s bond with her or his mother,31 some of his Western successors rejected the use of strict rules and discipline. “The rigidity of feeding schedules or bottles, the golden rule of infant food hygiene twenty years ago, is now considered responsible for sleep disturbances,” wrote Fraser Davidson and Olivier Brunet in a manual published in France in 1967. Instead of letting the baby cry all night out of hunger, they urged parents to feed them “to save the sleep of the whole family.”32 By emphasizing the importance of recurring rituals, which serve as “testimonies of permanence and protection,” they recommended using a cherished toy, “like a stuffed animal or a doll,” accompanied by maternal caresses, humming words, and repeated gestures that help the baby feel secure.33 Even though contemporary research repeatedly shows that the French have been slower to adopt free parenting, such as doulas, home births, or prolonged breastfeeding,34 such views became popular in France in the twenty-first century, when the practice of co-sleeping gradually gained parental recognition.35 Pondering why so many parents complain about their baby’s sleeping problem, Claude-Suzanne Didierjean-Jouveau, former president of La Leche League, maintains that “there is a practice that is widespread in the history of mankind and still present in many countries: shared sleep or co-sleeping.” Since babies constantly need human presence and warmth, sharing sleep with their mothers allows the latter to respond quickly to their needs. “This physical proximity is a factor of increased security, but also a powerful factor of attachment between mother, father, and baby,” she writes.36 Whereas such methods are still unconventional in France, where the disciplinary technique remains prevalent,37 during the last decades, antagonism to the “cry-it-out” practice flourished in the United States.38 The idea “that babies can and should learn to ‘self-soothe,’ without any physical or emotional interaction with parents, is incorrect,” writes Dr Paul Fleiss in this respect. “The best and most effective way for a child to learn to lull himself quietly back to sleep after experiencing a night waking is for parents to have demonstrated their dependency and availability.” Accordingly, if a baby learns that its parents will arrive whenever it awakens in distress, it is more likely to develop into a self-reliant and self-assured child. Depriving a baby or a child of : 225 :
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emotional support “runs the risk of creating an emotionally unstable child and eventually an emotionally unstable adult.”39 Unlike the “cry-it-out” method, based on the principles of nineteenth-century hygiene, such views embrace the sanctions of several late-eighteenth-century pediatricians, who strongly opposed the use of wet nurses or swaddling clothes due to their unnaturalness, while emphasizing the significance of bodily interaction between mother and baby.40 In a similar vein, contemporary researchers, who have continually demonstrated the importance of “skin-to-skin contact” after birth, argue that it helps babies adjust to life outside the womb and is highly important for supporting mothers in initiating breastfeeding. As reported in 2019 by UNICEF, such close physical contact calms and relaxes both mother and baby; regulates the baby’s heart rate and breathing; stimulates digestion; improves oxygen saturation; and enables the colonization of the baby’s skin with the mother’s friendly bacteria, thus protecting against infection. Aware of potential hazards, the report encourages mothers to recline in a semi-recumbent position to hold and feed their baby, while ensuring that the head is supported, so that the infant’s airways do not become obstructed.41 As a result of such views, numerous contemporary sleeping specialists promote natural parenting. Unlike the views of the renowned American pediatrician Benjamin Spock, who repeatedly argued from 1946 onward that parents should trust their instincts, since “You know more than you think you do,”42 this method favours a child-rearing approach that considers the children themselves to be the best experts in defining their own needs.43 In addition to advocating breastfeeding on demand and extensive infant carrying, they encourage co-sleeping arrangements, claiming that bed-sharing, namely the co-bedding of parents and infants, prevents sleep deprivation while providing babies with an ideal environment for optimal psychological and physiological growth. Sleeping next to a young child at night, in this view, ensures a deeply rooted sense of security and safety, promotes better interpersonal skills, and produces confidence and independence.44 Major research conducted by a group of American pediatricians found that bed-sharing – which has vastly increased in the United States in the new millennium – facilitates prolonged breastfeeding; promotes bonding between the caregiver and the baby; and improves the quality of sleep : 226 :
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for both babies and their parents.45 Dr William Sears, a well-known bed-sharing advocate, argues that co-sleeping shortens nighttime awakenings and yields greater comfort and ease of mind for the entire family. “Mothers whose opinions are not skewed by American sleep books and ‘sleep experts’ do not regard co-sleeping as optional. They believe it’s the only natural thing to do,” he argues. “Just because it’s nighttime doesn’t mean my baby needs me any less.”46
The Capacity to Sleep Alone Undoubtedly, Sears’s disregard for those so-called “sleep experts,” essentially denoting the “cry-it-out” advocates, also responds to the third group of sleeping experts, who, albeit opposed to the first method, maintain that co-sleeping may cause accidental suffocation and imperil the baby’s life.47 This attitude is manifested in the latest policy statement regarding babies’ sleep from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), issued in October 2016, which reversed its past support of bed-sharing. As part of the recent efforts to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), the APP recommended room-sharing: “share a bedroom with parents, but not the same sleeping surface.” Accordingly, they recommend placing the baby on its back in a crib or bassinet, arguing that room-sharing decreases the risk of SIDS by as much as 50 per cent.48 Albeit novel in the twenty-first century, this approach, too, is based on nineteenth-century medical treatises that recommended placing the baby’s cradle next to its mother’s bed (see, for example, fig. 4.4). Given such endorsements, several new devices have been developed in recent years, aiming to generate a comfortable and safe sleeping area for young babies, while helping their parents maintain their own sleep. It is little wonder, then, that a vast number of those sleeping apparatuses entail twofold mobility, combining portability and inner motion. Indeed, rocking – strictly prohibited by nearly all doctors from the late-eighteenth century to the early-twentieth century – has regained public interest over the past few decades. Whereas opiates are still generally prohibited,49 rockable cradles of every conceivable size, colour, and shape, including mechanical devices that rock the child without the assistance of its parents, have once again become extremely : 227 :
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popular in the current market. Although the majority of these ingenious appliances are created by industrial designers, several popular items have been developed by physicians, much like the creations of their late-nineteenth-century predecessors. One of the bestsellers, a bassinet branded SNOO – which is gradually also increasing in popularity in France50 – was invented by the American pediatrician and sleeping guru Harvey Karp, the author of The Happiest Baby Guide to Great Sleep, published in 2002.51 Mediating between the strict “cry-it-out” method and the “co-sleeping” system, his manual has sold more than a million copies, and remains among Amazon’s top-ten bestselling parenting books, “a category killer,” according to the publisher. The accompanying DVD, released the following year, in which Karp makes house calls across Santa Monica to the homes of screaming babies, swaddling and handling them into submission, quickly became the most-watched child-rearing DVD ever. Unlike advocates of the “cry-it-out” method, or of the opposite, natural parenting, Karp tells parents to “keep an open mind, but don’t let your brain fall out.” Though he admits that he is closer to Sears’s opinion, he says: “I try to be an omnivore and just reflect on each issue and judge it on its own merit or lack of merit.”52 After several years of field research, he developed a method he calls “the 5 S’s,” which combines swaddling, side-and-stomach sleeping positions, soothing shushing sounds, swinging the baby in rhythm, and sucking. Harvey maintains that swaddling is the cornerstone of calming, as it recreates the snug packaging inside the womb, thus decreasing incidences of startling and increasing sleep. Unlike the nineteenth-century pediatricians, who endorsed “modern swaddling,” which freed the babies’ arms,53 Karp recommends wrapping the arms straight down the side of the body, but allowing the hips to remain loose. Whereas nearly all French pediatricians recommended using a supine sleeping position, he insists on side or stomach positions, arguing that sleeping on the back is the worst position for calming fussiness. Additionally, he encourages parents to use repetitive white noise, specially engineered on his DVD, which calms crying and boosts sleep. In contrast to his French predecessors, the fourth S is swinging, namely, rocking babies with small, quick motions while supporting their heads. Finally, he
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sanctions allowing sucking, claiming that many babies calm themselves more efficiently with a pacifier.54 While the majority of these endorsements stand in unequivocal opposition to those maintained by nineteenth-century French pediatricians, most of Karp’s proposals also challenge the 1992 recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which endorses – like their French predecessors – sleeping on the back.55 Indeed, the 5 S’s are, in fact, all based on long-lasting eighteenth-century methods that the hygienic medicalization of babies’ sleep aimed to extinguish, as he himself maintains in his book: “from swaddling to swinging to shushing, almost every traditional baby-calling technique returns babies to the cuddly, rhythmic prenatal world.” Although such methods were completely overlooked until the mid-1990s, Karp underlines their effectiveness, based on the understanding that “for thousands of years, experienced moms and grandmas have intuitively rocked and shushed babies to soothe them.”56 Consequently, the $1,200 cradle he designed with his wife, Nina Montée, openly encourages the ancient, muchscorned practice of rocking. The SNOO is a robotic bassinet that rocks and plays white noise continuously and is equipped with sensors that respond to the baby’s cries by changing intensities. It keeps the baby swaddled and fastened inside the crib and can be controlled from afar through the use of a smart phone. Comparing the SNOO to the advent of penicillin, he insists that it can save lives by stopping babies from rolling into unsafe positions in their sleep.57 Much like the recurrent recommendations made during the last decades of the nineteenth century by physicians such as Donné, Brochard, and Bouchut, contemporary child-care advice has become a capitalist product, demonstrating extreme diversity. Some caregivers rely on discipline and conformity – still prevalent in France – while others believe in the importance of bonding and individuality; some parents prefer cribs and cradles, others favour room-sharing, while still others prefer the co-bedding routine. Yet all of these strategies have something in common: they all assume parental – or, more specifically, maternal – responsibility for their babies sleep. Indeed, as in the nineteenth century, the emotional and physical care of babies at night is still chiefly provided by women, who are routinely most vulnerable to sleeplessness.58
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(Un)happy Sleepless Mothers The firm association between motherhood and infantile sleep, stressed by Hall and Brochard and cited in chapter three, was repeated throughout the nineteenth century. Already in 1803, Leroy argued that whereas some babies cry during the night due to malnutrition, “at other times these cries, like those of all the animals in the absence of their mother, call her so that her closeness and soft warmth provides them with the beneficent contact which strengthens them. The child is silent as soon as he enjoys this proximity, so necessary to amplify his life.” As Leroy believed in following the laws of nature, he maintained that a human baby, like other living beings, will sleep through the night undisturbed, so long as it is “fortified by the humid heat of its mother.”59 “When a child is doing well, when he has slept well,” argued Brochard in the same vein in 1873, “he usually wakes up laughing, especially if he sees his mother near his crib.”60 Decades later, similar assertions were underlined by Davidson and Brunet, who insisted that “the mother plays an essential role both in the genesis of sleep disorders and in their recovery.”61 Such views gained international acclaim through the writings of Heinz Kohut, founder of self-psychology, who argued that babies – even when sleeping – need intense watchfulness and libidinal investment to attain mental health. Being watched by their mothers guarantees their health, as babies can experience early omnipotence, which is essential to their physical and emotional well-being. Accordingly, he described early interactions between children and their mothers as involving the infants’ “self ” and their “selfobject.” Coining the term “selfobject,” he referred to external objects that function as part of the “self-machinery,” which are not experienced as separate or independent from the self.62 Whether persons, objects, or activities, such mechanisms “complete” the self and account for the experience of continuity, coherence, and well-being. “Depending on the quality of the interactions between the self and its selfobjects in childhood,” he maintained, “the self will emerge either as a firm and healthy structure or a more or less seriously damaged one.”63 As Kohut believed that individuals need a sense of validation and belonging to establish their conceptions of self, he stressed the importance of mirroring, namely “the gleam in the mother’s eye, which mirrors : 230 :
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the child’s exhibitionistic display” and confirms the child’s self-esteem.64 Through mirroring, he argued, children can develop a greater sense of self-awareness and self-control, as they can see their emotions within their mothers’ faces. Infants also learn to feel secure and validated in their own emotions through mirroring, as the mothers’ imitation of their emotions may help children recognize their own thoughts and feelings. Once they grow, this sense of security and well-being is internalized through the mother’s echoes and acceptance.65 When mirroring and idealized “selfobjects” are lacking, Kohut maintained that the baby lacks joyful responses to its existence and assertiveness. Consequently, it is destined to be massively depleted of self-esteem and vitality and may suffer from depression.66 Such assertions gained acclaim in France through a renowned book on infant sleep published in 1959 by the psychiatrists Robert Debré and Alice Doumic. By arguing that most babies have insomnia due to disharmonious relations with their mothers, they offered psychoanalytical advice regarding selfobject relations, insisting – like Kohut – on constant maternal gaze and attendance.67 Based on such recurring theories, echoed in the last quarter of the twentieth century in Carol Gilligan’s and Nancy Chodorow’s writings regarding women’s commitment to care for others,68 Andrea O’Reilly describes modern motherhood disapprovingly as a “sacrificial motherhood,” characterized by several interconnected terms. First and foremost, children can only be properly cared for by their biological mother, who is expected to turn to experts for instruction. Accordingly, this kind of mothering must be provided at all times, since a mother must be selfless, always putting her children’s needs before her own. Naturally, such an uncarnated, self-sacrificing mother is fully satisfied and fulfilled in motherhood; thus, mothers must lavish excessive amounts of time, energy, and money on the raising of their children.69 Following the rising fertility rates, making France the continental European leader in fecundity, similar understandings were repeated over the last decade by French intellectuals. The historian Elisabeth Badinter contends that the politics of the last few decades have produced three trends that have affected the concept of motherhood and, consequently, women’s independence: ecology and the desire to return to simpler times; a behavioural science based on the study of animal : 231 :
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behaviour; and last – essentialist feminism that venerates natural child care. All three trends, she argues, boast about their ability to bring happiness and wisdom to women, mothers, families, society, and all of humankind, while, in fact, turning babies into “the best allies of masculine domination” and inducing enormous guilt in women who cannot live up to this false ideal.70 Similar ideas are voiced – albeit humorously – in Corinne Maier’s bestseller No Kids: 40 Reasons for Not Having Children, which coined the word “merdeuf,” a conflation of mère de famille (i.e., a housewife) and the combination of merde and oeuf (“egg-shitters”).71 “The education of children has become a sacrament,” she writes. “Always on call, smiling, attentive, teacherly, and responsible … Becoming a parent means giving up everything else.”72 Like Badinter, Maier sees the generous maternity-leave provisions and its healthy cash payments for additional children as tools of oppression, arguing that, by rewarding motherhood, the state is keeping women out of the workforce, trapping them in a prison of domesticity. Among a long list of personal freedoms denied to women who become mothers, she mentions “sleeping through the night,” citing sleeping disorders as one of the primary diseases that have multiplied over the last twenty years, resulting in stress, moodiness, anxiety, and additional health problems.73 Her grievances regarding sleep deficiencies are reinforced by contemporary sociologists, who have shown that sleep presents gender differences during adult life, and women’s sleep practices are structured by their gender role as wives – and particularly as mothers.74 Based on a study conducted at the University of Michigan, 32 per cent of women reported their sleep being interrupted to take care of the baby, compared with just 11 per cent of men. “Working mothers have odds of interrupted sleep about 2.5 times greater than those of their male counterparts,” maintains sociologist Sarah Burgard, stressing that this burden may not only affect the health and well-being of women but could also contribute to continuing gender inequality in earnings and career advancement.75 Yet history tells us that this was not always the case. Although we can safely assume that babies have always suffered from occasional sleeplessness, maternal responsibility for this liminal activity is a modern, Western phenomenon, much like the abundance of sleeping : 232 :
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manuals, specialized cradles and cribs, travel cots, bedside bassinets, white-noise machines, cozy pajamas, sanitary mattresses, and luxurious bedclothes, sold in our day in every department store. Alas, unlike the hundreds of contemporary manuals dedicated to this problem, this book does not offer a satisfactory solution except suggesting, maybe, waiting a few minutes before rushing to the nursery. Termed “Le Pause” by Druckerman, this simple method, recommended by French pediatricians such as Thirion, Challamel, and De Leersnyder,76 gained international recognition in the last decade.77 “Sometimes when babies sleep, their eyes move, they make noise, they suck, they move around a bit,” De Leersnyder writes. “But in reality, they’re sleeping. So you mustn’t go in all the time and disturb him while he’s sleeping. You have to learn how the baby sleeps.”78 Similar observations were repeated by the French pediatrician Michel Cohen, who maintained that “the parents who were a little less responsive to late-night fussing always had kids who were good sleepers, while the jumpy folks had kids who would wake up repeatedly at night until it became unbearable.” Accordingly, “don’t jump on your kid at night. Give your baby a chance to self-soothe … even from birth.”79 Indeed, as sleep cannot be forced upon any being without the use of medications or drugs, parental endurance may be the only solution to the sleepless nights accompanying the birth of a baby. As a formerly exhausted mother, I can only say that, after trying at first to put babies to sleep, now, some years later, we spend hours trying, in vain, to wake them up. As an art historian, however, I wish to remind readers that the numerous artworks representing happy mothers gazing tenderly at their babies contributed to the promotion of a new notion regarding sleep. Rather than being reporters, many nineteenth-century genre artists performed as novelists, replacing daily events with visual schemes that had the power to form reality, affect emotions, and shape behaviour, choices, attitudes, and actions, making spectators believe that serene sleep was a collective, uncontested reality. That said, we can always content ourselves with Daumier’s caricatures, which often seem to represent the exasperating – though extremely diverting – reality.
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N OT E S
Unless otherwise stated, all translations from French are by the author.
Introduction 1 Cited in Foldvary-Schaefer, Getting a Good Night’s Sleep, 100. 2 The term juste milieu originated in the 1830s, describing paintings that reconciled Classicism and Romanticism in the days of Louis Philippe, and continued into the Third Republic, when it balanced academic style, Naturalism, and Impressionism. For further information, see Boime, Art, 272–9. 3 See, for example, Putti Sleeping, ca. 1760, white marble, 21 × 49.5 × 20.5 cm, Versailles, Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon. 4 See, for example, Anonymous, The King of Rome Sleeping, 1814, marble, 100 × 175 × 91 cm, Rueil-Malmaison, Châteaux de Malmaison et Bois-Préau. 5 Higonnet, Berthe Morisot (1995), 91. 6 See, for example, Pieter de Hooch, Mother Nursing Her Child, ca. 1674–76, 79.7 × 59.7 cm, Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts. 7 Douglas, Risk and Blame, 108–9. 8 Zola, Doctor Pascal, 325. See also Zola, Fruitfulness, 106. 9 For a detailed overview, see Williams, Sleep and Society, 9–36. 10 Sheldon, Ferber and Kryger, Principles and Practice, 1–16. 11 Chekhov, “Let Me Sleep,” 191–6. 12 Martin, Counting Sheep, 4. 13 Meyer-Wolf, The Slumbering Masses, 145–58. 14 Ford, The Complete Sleep, vii. 15 Ferber, Solve Your Child’s Sleep. 16 Karp, The Happiest Baby (2012). 17 Ibid., back cover. 18 “Endormir,” Larousse, Langue française. 19 “Endormir,” The Cambridge Dictionary. 20 Heywood, Growing Up, 120; Müller, Fashioning Childhood, 6.
21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37
38
Taylor, “Unconsciousness,” 2–3. Crary, 24/7, 11; Meyer-Wolf, The Slumbering Masses, xiii. Maslow, “A Theory,” 370–96. Taylor, “Unconsciousness,” 465; Williams, Sleep and Society, 3; Aubert and White, “Sleep,” 46–54; Aubert and White, “Sleep,” 1–16; Williams, “Dormant Issues,” 137–60; Marinache, “Sleep,” 17–29. Williams, Sleep and Society, 4–5, table 1. See, for example, Lee, “Awake, Asleep,” 57–74. Taylor, “Unconsciousness,” 464. See also Williams, Sleep and Society, 5, table 1. Conrad, The Medicalization, 4. Foucault, “The Crisis,” 5–19. Pinell and Jacobs, “The Genesis,” 117–51; Weiner and Sauter, “The City,” 23–42. For further information, see Ventura, Maternal Breastfeeding, 3–80. For further information, see Kosso and Scott, The Nature. See, for example, Donné, Conseils (1842), 17–20; Chamoüin, Des soins, 56–64. Ekirch, At Day’s Close, 324–339. See also Ekirch, “Sleep,” 343–63; Ekirch, “The Modernization,” 149–92. See for example, Baldini, Metodo, 66; Frank, System, 289, 629; Smith, Letters, 99–102. See, for example, Churchill, The Diseases, 47–9; West, Lectures, 80–1, 139, 243, 251; Herbert, On the Hygienic Management, 60–2, 93–4, 96, 119, 121. In the 1890s, several German doctors recommended introducing regular sleep schedules early in the baby’s life. See, for example, Kübler, Das Buch. For further details in regard to sleeping advice in Germany, see Bergstermann, “Seit wann müssen Kinder.” Similar advice was repeated from the 1890s onward in America. See, for example, Holt, The Care, 162; Fullerton, Obstetric Nursing. For further details, see Stearns, Rowland, and Giarnella, “Children’s Sleep,” 345–66; Mayefsky, “The Development,” 178–82; Jones, “Sentiment,” 79–96. In other countries, the decline in mortality preceded the decrease in fertility by several generations. Rapid population growth followed throughout much of Europe until fertility declines began to slow the expansion rate in the twentieth century. In France, however, the mortality and fertility declines began almost simultaneously at the end of the eighteenth century, and so, for the next hundred years, French population growth was very slow. For further details, see Accampo, Blessed Motherhood, 7, 35–6; Dupâquier, Histoire, 351–78; Szreter, Fertility, 7–66; Van de Walle, “La fécondité,” 35–45; Offen, “Depopulation,” 648–76. : 236 :
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39 Knibiehler and Fouquet, L’histoire des mères, 138–74. For further details regarding the eighteenth-century fears of depopulation and the loss of women’s reproductive potential, see Tuttle, Conceiving the Old Regime. 40 For further details, see La Berge, Mission and Method, 318–9; Colón and Colón, Nurturing Children, 185–7; Seidler, “A Historical Survey,” 181–97. 41 Chu, “Dormeurs,” 5–18. See, for example, Eugène Carrière, Four Sketches of the Head of a Sleeping Child, ca. 1889, pencil on paper, 35.8 × 23 cm, Paris, Musée d’Orsay. 42 See, for example, Chu, “Dormeurs,” 5–18; Müler, “Le sommeil,” 19–33. Several scholars briefly discussed sleep while investigating other, related, subjects. See, for example, Fried, Absorption; Chu, Hémery, Percival, and Postle, Figure de fantaisie, 51–63. 43 For further discussion, see Rubin, Impressionism, 3–38. 44 Baudelaire, The Painter, 12–15. 45 For further discussion of the Janus-faces of modernity, see Fer, “What Is Modern?” 6–15; Thomassen, Liminality, 8–9. 46 Koslofsky, Evening’s Empire, 2. 47 Schivelbusch, Disenchanted Night, 137. For further discussion concerning artificial light in nineteenth-century Paris, see Clayson, Illuminated Paris. 48 Stearns, Rowland, and Giarnella, “Children’s Sleep,” 345–52; Meyer-Wolf, The Slumbering Masses, 129–98; Chu, “Dormeurs,” 5–18. 49 Ekirch, At Day’s Close, 324–39; Schivelbusch, Disenchanted Night, 179–89, 276. For a discussion of artificial light and sleep deprivation, see Nunn, Samson, and Krystal, “Shining,” 227–43; Crary, 24/7, 12; Meyer-Wolf, The Slumbering Masses, 130. 50 Delattre, Les douze heures, 187–90; Meyer-Wolf, The Slumbering Masses, 129–98. 51 Alpers, “Is Art History?” 1. 52 Ginzburg, Clues, Myths, 21. 53 Damisch, A Childhood Memory, 1. 54 Baudelaire, Charles Baudelaire, 821. 55 Castagnary, “Salon de 1863,” 103. 56 Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, 40. 57 For Warburg’s idea of social memory, see Forster, “Aby Warburg’s,” 169–76; Confino, “Collective Memory,” 1386–92; Assmann and Czaplicka, “Collective Memory,” 125–33. 58 Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, 67. 59 Moxey, Visual Time, 53. For further discussion on using images in historical research, see Schwartz and Przyblyski, “Visual Culture’s,” 3–14; Rosenstone, “History in Images,” 1173–85; Didi-Huberman, Confronting Images. : 237 :
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60 Mitchell, What Do Pictures Want? xiv, 93. 61 Moxey, Visual Time, 53–75. 62 Fillonneau, “Exposition universelle,” 2. For further details, see Tinterow and Loyrette, Origins of Impressionism, 3–54. 63 For details, see Mainardi, “The Death,” 219–26; Mainardi, The End of the Salon, 9–35. 64 Rigot, “Le salon de 1876,” 489–95. 65 House, “History without Values?” 262. 66 Graham, “Un étranger,” 4; “Chronique,” 1. 67 “Le buffet,” 375. 68 Cited in Mainardi, The End of the Salon, 42. 69 Castagnary, “Salon de 1863,” 103. 70 Stevens, Impressions, 7, 11, 17, respectively. 71 Mainardi, The End of the Salon, 32–44. 72 Vauvert, “Salons d’exposition,” 15. 73 Carteron and Carteron, Introduction, 36. 74 Baudelaire, The Painter, 4. 75 Estignard, Jean Gigoux, 102. For similar claims, see Martin, Le parfait connaisseur, 25–6. Several scholars argued that seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury artists valued detailed paintings of everyday life as a way of knowing the world. See, for example, Alpers, The Art of Describing, xviii–xx; Siegfried, “Femininity,” 14–37. 76 Rigot, “Le salon de 1876,” 489–95. 77 See, for example, Clarétie, “Beaux-arts,” 3; Lenthéric, “Le salon,” 1. 78 Rigot, “Le salon de 1887,” 643. See also Monod, Les beaux-arts, 29–32. 79 Rigot, “Le salon de 1887,” 643. 80 Hamerton, Painting in France, 64. 81 Tinterow and Loyrette, Origins of Impressionism, xiv–xv, 3–55. 82 Gueullette, Les peintres, 14. 83 For further details, see Fildes, Wet-Nursing, 229–31; Sussman, Selling Mothers’ Milk, 111–12, 156, 168, 177, 312. 84 For further information regarding infant mortality rates, see Badinter, L’Amour en plus, 112–18; Allan H. Pasco, Sick Heroes, 40–5; Malanima, PreModern European Economy, 36–9. 85 Latour, Reassembling the Social, 80–1. 86 Conrad, “Medicalization,” 226. 87 Sadeh, Mindell, and Owens, “Why Care?” 335–7. 88 Frankel, “Baby Sleep”; Laura Potter, “Can Baby Sleep.” 89 For further details, see, for example, Shimizu and Teti, “Infant Sleeping,” 1–23.
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Chapter One
1 Leroy, Recherches, 92. 2 Rousseau, “Lettre,” 117–18, cited in Fried, “Absorption,” 163. 3 See Jean-Baptiste Greuze, A Boy Asleep over His Book, 1755 (Salon of 1755), oil on canvas, 65 × 54.5 cm, Montpellier, Musée Fabre; Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Young Knitter Asleep, 1759 (Salon of 1759), oil on canvas, 68 × 58 cm, San Marino, California, Huntington Library. 4 See also François Boucher, Sleep, ca. 1760, engraving, 23.6 × 18.8 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre, Collection Rothschild; François Boucher, Composition with Putti, ca. 1760, oil on canvas, 65.6 × 98.5 cm, Toulouse, Fondation Bemberg. 5 See, for example, Joseph Franque, The Empress Marie-Louise Watching over the Sleep of the King of Rome, 1811, oil on canvas, 525 × 463 cm, Versailles, Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon. 6 For a detailed analysis, see Ventura, “‘Ceci n’est pas un Berceau,’” 323–39. 7 Lavisière and Tinterow, Prud’hon, 116–17, 208–9. The painting was later reproduced in print. See Achille Désiré Lefèvre, The King of Rome, Son of Napoleon I Sleeping in a Landscape, 1825, engraving, 51.9 × 53.5 cm, Providence, RI, RISD Museum. 8 See, for example, Smith, Letters, 103. 9 Fried, Absorption, 30–1. 10 Ariès, Centuries of Childhood. For critics, see, for example, Classen, Childhood, 1–66; Cunningham, Children and Childhood; Kottek, “Quelques remarques,” 359–67. 11 Duncan, “Happy Mothers,” 201–20. 12 Rousseau, Ếmile, 46. His ideas extensively influenced the art world, which hastened to depict the joy of motherhood in several artworks presented at the Salon. See, for example, Jean Baptiste Greuze, The Beloved Mother, 1769, oil on canvas, 99 × 131 cm, Madrid, Laborde Collection. 13 See, for example, Duncan, “Happy Mothers,” 201–20; Jones, “Sentiment and Science,” 80–81; Austin, “Children of Childhood,” 75–98; Green, French Paintings, 2–19; Müler, “Le sommeil,” 19–33; Popiel, Rousseau’s Daughters, 1–25; Thomas, Impressionist Children, xvii–xxi. 14 Accampo, Blessed Motherhood, 35–6; Dupâquier, Histoire, 351–78; Van de Walle, “La fécondité,” 35–45; Offen, “Depopulation,” 648–76. 15 Van Teijlingen, Midwifery, 19; O’Reilly, Encyclopedia, 500–1; Foucault, “The Politics,” 118–19. 16 Colón and Colón, Nurturing Children, 188–90, tables 8.1a and 8.1b. 17 See, for example, Underwood, A Treatise (1784), 35–8; Daunou, Méthode, 16; Frank, Traité, xv–xvi; Leroy, Médecine maternelle, 154–5.
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18 Diderot and d’Alembert, “Femme,” 475. 19 For a survey of numerous aspects of the concept of “nature, “including natural science and political, aesthetic, and moral theory, see Ehrard, L’idée de nature en France. 20 Denis and d’Alembert, “Nature,” 752–5. 21 Cited in Everson, “The ‘De Somno,’” 502. For similar arguments, see Godart, La physique de l’âme, 289; Leroy, Recherches, 92; Leroy, Médecine maternelle, 155. 22 Denis and d’Alembert, “Sommeil,” 368. 23 Ibid., 372. The emphasis on the night is repeated in the entry dedicated to “sleeping.” See Diderot and d’Alembert, “Dormir,” 268. 24 Diderot and d’Alembert, “Sommeil,” 374. See also: Diderot and d’Alembert, “Narcotique,” 712–13. 25 Diderot and d’Alembert, “Sommeil,” 314–17. 26 Ibid., 370. For a similar omission, see, for example, Adanson, “Narkotikes,” 633. 27 Pressavin, L’art, 151. 28 Ibid., 333. 29 Chabert, Du sommeil, 14. 30 Ibid., 16, 21–2. 31 Ibid., 32–3. 32 Ibid., 14, 21, 32. 33 Ibid., 10. For similar claims see Filangieri, La science, 77–9. 34 See, for example, Andry, L’orthopédie. For a comprehensive list of pediatricians who dedicated books to children’s illnesses from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, see Meissner, Grundlage. Kotek mentions thirty-five child-care manuals published between 1740 and 1805 that deal with education, illnesses, and nourishment (“Quelques remarques,” 364–5). 35 Ibid., 364. 36 Harris, De morbis. His manual, published in Latin in eighteen editions, was translated into English in 1721 and issued in French in 1730. 37 Harris, Traité des maladies, 2–3. For the English translation, see Harris, Treatise, 32. For similar rationalizations, see Underwood, A Treatise (1784), 4–8. 38 Harris, Traité des maladies, 4. 39 Foucault, “The Politics,” 118–19. 40 Kottek, “Quelques remarques,” 364–5; Stolberg, “Medical Popularization,” 95. 41 Harris, Treatise, xi. 42 Ibid., 73–6. 43 Ibid., 186. 44 Mauriceau, Traité (1668), n.p. The book appeared in several editions and was : 240 :
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45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62
63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71
translated into seven languages. For the English translation, see Mauriceau, The Accomplisht Midwife, iii. Ibid., iii–vii. Ibid., 61. The same advice is repeated in later editions. See, for example, Mauriceau, The Diseases, 51. Mauriceau, The Accomplisht Midwife, 358, 368–9. Ibid., 368–9. Lefébure, Le manuel, 87. Sussman, Selling Mothers’ Milk, 5–7, 19; Benkheira, “Donner le sein,” 5–52. Mauriceau, The Accomplisht Midwife, 368–9. See, for example, Cadogan, Essai, 539–40; Desessartz, Traité, 114; Frank, Traité, 98; Leroy, Médecine maternelle, 32. See, for example, Smith, Letters, 101–2; Verdier-Heurtin, Discours, 1–17; Leroy, Médecine maternelle, 154–5. Martin, Dairy Queens, 120–9. Fildes, Breasts, Bottles, and Babies, 98–9, 112, table 3.6; Fildes, Wet-Nursing, 70–2, 96–7. Joubert, Annotations, 125. Mauriceau, The Diseases, 368. Rousseau, Ếmile, 203. Ibid., 41–8. See, for example, Harris, Treatise, 16. For an elaborate discussion regarding the employment of wet nurses in France, see Ventura, Maternal Breastfeeding, 193–242. The French edition was published in 1768. For further information, see Colón and Colón, Nurturing Children, 162–4; Rendle-Short, “William Cadogan,” 288–309. For further details regarding the veneration of breastfeeding in the eighteenth century, see Morel, “Théorie et pratique,” 393–427; Ventura, Maternal Breastfeeding, 3–45. Cadogan, An Essay (1748), 13, 10–11. Ibid., 20. For the French translation, see Cadogan, Essai, 539–40. Cadogan, An Essay (1748), 16. For similar claims, see, for example, Daunou, Méthode, 25–6. Cadogan, An Essay (1748), 33. Cadogan, An Essay (1764), 40. This supplement was also added to the ninth and the tenth editions (1771, 1772). Desessartz, Traité, 113, 135, 119. Ibid., 135, 119. Ibid., 98–100. Leroy, Médecine maternelle, 155.
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72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79
80 81 82 83 84
85
86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97
Leroy, Recherches, 92. Nicolas, Le cri, 104, 107. Emsley, Britain and the French, 65–6; Farr, The Work of France, 44. Spary, Feeding France, 125–8. See also Martin, Dairy Queens, 114–57. Pressavin, L’Art, 333. Baldini, Manière d’allaiter, 56. Ibid., 45. His hospital, the Dispensary for Poor Children, was discontinued in 1781 for a lack of financial support. For additional details, see Charney, “George Armstrong,” 824–6; Colón and Colón, Nurturing Children, 166–8. Armstrong, An Essay, 134. For identical claims, see Caillau, Avis, 85. Armstrong, An Essay, 23, 135–6. Armstrong, An Account, 167. Ibid., 167–8. For similar recommendations regarding the feeding bottle, see De Rosenstein, Traité des maladies des enfants, 4–5; Petit, Traité des maladies, 299; Smith, Le guide, 61–2; Baldini, Manière d’allaiter, 139. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, however, physicians replaced the old rivalry between mothers and wet nurses with a new dispute between the mother and the feeding bottle as a reaction to the growing use of this practice. For further information, see Ventura, “‘Long Live the Bottle,’” 329–56. Ashwa, The Founders, 78–9; Dunn, “Michael Underwood,” 150–2. The last edition prepared by Underwood was issued in 1819. Samuel Merriman edited the eighth in 1826, and Marshal Hall compiled the revisions in 1835. In the United States, four separate editions were issued between 1793 and 1842, while the German translation was published in 1848 (Ashwa, The Founders, 79). Underwood, A Treatise (1784), iii. Underwood, A Treatise (1789), 3. Griffiths and Griffiths, The Monthly Review, 300. Underwood, A Treatise (1799). Underwood, A Treatise (1784), 268–9, 272; Underwood, Traité, 463–6. For similar claims, see Formey, Traité d’éducation, 295–6. Underwood, A Treatise (1784), 35–7. Ibid., 268–9; Underwood, A Treatise (1799), 156–7, 159. Smith, Letters, 90. Ibid., 101–2. Rousseau, Ếmile, 129. Ibid., 60. Ibid., 129–30. : 242 :
NOTES TO PAGES 39–44
98 Ibid., 412. 99 Leroy, Médecine maternelle, 34. The same term was mentioned in the critique of Underwood’s new manual: “We were rather surprised, too, at finding the Spartan women, in any way, proposed as examples for our lovely countrywomen to imitate. We are aware that Dr U. may plead to the sanction of Rousseau’s opinion on this point (Émile liv. 5)” (Griffiths and Griffiths, The Monthly Review, 300). 100 Leroy, Médecine maternelle, 34–5. See also Grivel, Théorie, 348. 101 See, for example, Georges de La Tour, The Adoration of the Shepherd, 1644, oil on canvas, 107 × 131 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre. For further details with regard to swaddling, see Diderot and d’Alembert, “Emmailloter,” 243–5; Auvard and Pingat, “Mémoires originaux,” 906–7, 919–22, figs. 18–19, 45–8; Dayan, “L’emmaillotement,” 47–54; Azanza, “L’évolution du costume,” 770–83. 102 Rousseau, Ếmile, 44. See also Caillau, Avis, 23; Nicolas, Le cri, 46–8. 103 Rousseau, Ếmile, 43–5; Marvick, “Nature versus Nurture,” 269–70. 104 Cadogan, An Essay (1748), 10–11. See also Armstrong, An Account, 168; Grivel, Théorie, 287–96; Underwood, A Treatise (1874), 228–31; Nicolas, Le cri, 46–8, 81–2; Baldini, Manière d’allaiter, 89; Smith, Letters, 100–3; Leroy, Médecine maternelle, 32–3. 105 Cadogan, An Essay (1748), 10–11. 106 See Baron François Pascal Simon Gérard, Caroline Murat, 1803, oil on canvas, 32 × 24 cm, Versailles, Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon. 107 Grivel, Théorie, 295. 108 For further details, see Ventura, Maternal Breastfeeding, 3–78. 109 Fried, Absorption, 191; Brookner, “Jean-Baptiste Greuze,” 158. 110 Durantini, The Child in Seventeenth-Century, 6–38; Franits, Paragons of Virtue, 111–19, 227. See, for example, Nicolaas Verkolje, Mother Nursing a Baby, ca. 1720, oil on canvas, 58 × 51 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre. 111 Söntgen, “Mariology, Calvinism, Painting,” 175–8; Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches, 540. 112 Milner, Hardness of Heart, 524–6. 113 See, for example, The Sleep of Christ, mid-eighteenth-century engraving, Abbeville, Musée Boucher de Perthes. The lithograph is based on Charles Le Brun, The Sleep of Christ: Silence, 1655, oil on canvas, 87 × 118 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre (Collection Louis XIV). 114 Grivel, Théorie, 295; Smith, Letters, 100–3; Leroy, Recherches, 84–5. 115 See, for example, Leroy, Recherches, 84–5; Underwood, A Treatise (1784), 268–72; Daunou, Méthode, 26; Caillau, Avis, 47; Smith, Letters, 99–100; Lefébure, Le manuel, 205–6; Brochard, “Causerie” (1880), 177–9. 116 A Translation of Galen’s Hygiene, 89. : 243 :
NOTES TO PAGES 44–7
117 Mauriceau, Traité (1712), 477; Mauriceau, The Diseases, 313–4. 118 Smith, Letters, 99. 119 Desessartz, Traité, 99–100. For similar claims, see Armstrong, An Essay, 1767, 136; Lefébure, Le manuel, 205–6. 120 Grivel, Théorie, 295. In a similar vein, see also Baldini, Manière d’allaiter, 86–8; Lefébure, Le manuel, 205–6; Smith, Letters, 99. 121 Caillau, Avis, 46, 48–9. For similar advice, see Leroy, Médecine maternelle, 32–3; Breton, Avis, 16–19, 23. 122 See, for example, Nicolas-Bernard Lépicié, Louis-Philippe, Duke de Valois, in His Cradle, 1774, oil on panel, 53 × 41 cm, Versailles, Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon. 123 See Louise-Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France, and Her Children, 1789, oil on canvas, 275 × 216 cm, Versailles, Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon. 124 See Baron François Pascal Simon Gérard, Caroline Murat, 1803, oil on canvas, 32 × 24 cm, Versailles, Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon. 125 Navi and Sandberg, Thermo-Hydro-Mechanical Wood, 22. 126 See, for example, Cradle, ca. 1780, wood, height: 38cm, width: 35.5 cm, length: 82 cm, Marseilles, Musée des civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée. Such cradles were portrayed in many paintings; see, for example, Marguritte Gerard, Reading a Letter, 1817, oil on canvas, 56 × 46.5 cm, CherbourgOcteville, Musée Thomas Henry; Jean Frédéric Schall, Thought on the Brevity of Life, 1806, oil on canvas, 55 × 66 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre. 127 See, for example, Underwood, A Treatise (1874), 37–8; Daunou, Méthode, 16; Leroy, Médecine maternelle, 154–5; Donné, Conseils, 149. 128 Lefébure, Le manuel, 87; Mauriceau, The Accomplisht Midwife, 368–9. 129 Underwood, A Treatise (1784), 268–9; Underwood, A Treatise (1799), 156–7, 159; Smith, Letters, 99–101. 130 Desessartz, Traité, 100. 131 Leroy, Médecine maternelle, 32. 132 Théré, “Women and Birth Control,” 552. 133 Senior, “Aspects of Infant Feeding,” 376. 134 Le Rebours, Avis (1767), iii–iv. 135 Desessartz, Traité, v. 136 Le Rebours, Avis (1799), v. 137 See, for example, Rousseau, Ếmile, 54–5, 122. 138 Le Rebours, Avis (1799), 61. 139 Le Rebours, Avis (1775), xiii. 140 Le Rebours, Avis (1799), 38, 71, 87, 112–19, 203–53; compare with: Rousseau, Ếmile, 45–6, 48–50, 59–60, 63, 127–9. : 244 :
NOTES TO PAGES 48–53
141 Despite his idyllic account of sleep in nature, Rousseau did not advocate a return to a complete state of nature but an intermediate state between absolute savagery and advanced civilization. For further discussion, see Lovejoy, “The Supposed Primitivism,” 14–37; Kelly, “Rousseau’s ‘Peut-Etre,’” 75–83. 142 Le Rebours, Avis (1775), 198. 143 Perrot and Martin-Fugier, “Roles and Characters,” 201; Papiernik, “Histoire de l’accouchement,” 142; Gélis, “De la matrone,” 29. 144 Le Rebours, Avis (1775), 198. 145 Ibid., 212. 146 Cadogan, An Essay (1748), 13. 147 Baldini, Manière d’allaiter, 45. 148 Le Rebours, Avis (1775), 212. For information with regard to Godfrey’s Cordial, see Jordan, “The Keys,” 19–22; Milner, Hardness of Heart, 102–3. 149 Le Rebours, Avis (1775), 229. 150 Milner, Hardness of Heart, 524–6. 151 Mauriceau, Traité (1712), 477; Mauriceau, The Accomplisht Midwife, 368–9; Mauriceau, The Diseases, 313–14. 152 See, for example, Lefébure, Le manuel, 186; Daunou, Méthode, 10; Frank, Traité, 100; Baldini, Manière d’allaiter, 44. 153 Le Rebours, Avis (1799), 159. 154 Ibid., 163. 155 Le Rebours, Unterricht für Mütter. 156 Buchan, Advice, 11. 157 Ibid., 33. On Cadogan’s influence on Buchan, see Rendle-Short and RendelShort, Father of Child Care, 18–20. 158 Buchan, Le Conservateur, 206–7. 159 Ibid., 100–1. 160 Caillau, Avis, 89. 161 Underwood and Hall, A Treatise, 69. 162 See, for example, Grivel, Théorie, 368; Caillau, Avis, 52; Armstrong, An Essay, 135–6; Buchan, Advice, 206. 163 Underwood and Hall, A Treatise, 67. 164 Buchan, Advice, 206. 165 See, for example, Grivel, Théorie, 308; Lefébure, Le manuel, 206; Daunou, Méthode, 26; Caillau, Avis, 47, 75, 263. 166 Rousseau, Ếmile, 130. 167 Daunou, Méthode, 6; Armstrong, An Essay, 135–6; Underwood, A Treatise (1784), 268–9; Smith, Letters, 101–2. 168 Lefébure, Le manuel, 206. Consisting of a small barrel organ, this mechanical musical instrument appeared in the first half of the eighteenth century in : 245 :
NOTES TO PAGES 53–7
169 170
171
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eastern France and was used to teach tunes to canaries. Its name is derived from the French serin, meaning “canary.” For further details, see Ord-Hume, “Bird Organ,” 605. Leroy, Médecine maternelle, 156. See Marguerite Gérard, Sleep, My Child, 1788, oil on canvas, 55 × 45 cm, Karlsruhe, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe. A similar scene was painted in the 1830s by Louis Hernest, who illustrated a mother standing by her baby’s cradle, as a lute is depicted on the floor. See Young Mother Watching Her Sleeping Baby, the Good Mother, 1830s, oil on canvas, Dieppe, Château Musée. Walker, A Mother’s Love, 133; Robertson, “Marguerite Gérard,” 25–55, 159–64, 262–3. See, for example, Marguerite Gérard, The Happy Mother, ca. 1795– 1800, oil on canvas, 60.5 × 51.5 cm, St Petersburg, Hermitage Museum. Frank, Traité, 98. See also Cadogan, Essai, 539–40; Desessartz, Traité, 114; Chabert, Du sommeil, 21.
Chapter Two
1 Donné, Conseils, 183. The English translation is cited in Donné, Mothers, 188–9. 2 Ekirch, At Day’s Close, 324–39; Bremner, Insomnia, 110. 3 Green, The Spectacle, 49–50. 4 The legislation of the law on alienism in 1838 further underlined this new medical expertise, as it authorized the setting up of asylums throughout the country, thus increasing the jurisdiction of the medical specialists over the certification of the insane. For further details, see Green, The Spectacle, 49–50; Castel, L’ordre psychiatrique, 40–61. 5 See, for example, Chrétien, Esquirol, and Pariset, Instructions. 6 Cole, The Power, 2–5. The fight against infection was a result of the growing industrialization, as well as the changing concept of personal cleanliness, which became associated with the idea of personal filth as a cause of disease. For further details, see Delaporte, Disease and Civilization. 7 Grivel, Théorie, 368; Caillau, Avis, 52. 8 Girault, Conseils, 38. 9 Jones, “Sentiment,” 79–80. 10 Stearns, Perrin, and Giarnella, “Children’s Sleep,” 349–58; Meyer-Wolf, The Slumbering Masses, 129–30, 196–8. 11 Burke and Pomeranz, The Environment, 98. 12 Green, The Spectacle, 5–6. 13 Kalba, “Blue Roses,” 88–97; Hyde, Cultivated Power, 58–76. 14 See, for example, Silbert, Traité pratique; D’Hettanges, Notice; Mazery, De l’anus artificiel. : 246 :
NOTES TO PAGES 57–63
15 Waterfield, Hidden Depths, 105–15. See, for example, Pierquin, Réflexions philosophiques, 6–27; Lélut, Rapport, 2–37. 16 Moreau, La psychologie, 144–6. 17 Ibid., 144–6. This distinction was termed in the mid-twentieth century as “REM sleep” (Rapid-eye-movement sleep), a unique sleeping phase distinguishable by random movement of the eyes, accompanied by low muscle tone throughout the body, in which dreams chiefly transpire. The REM phase is also known as paradoxical sleep due to its physiological similarity to waking states, including rapid, low-voltage desynchronized brain waves. For further information, see Kryger, Roth, and Dement, Principles and Practices, 92–111; Pace-Schott, Solms, and Blagrove, Sleep and Dreaming, 51–8. 18 Liébeault, Du Sommeil, 4. See also in the same vein: Liébeault, Le sommeil provoqué. 19 Liébeault, Du sommeil, 34–5. 20 Conrad, “Medicalization,” 223. 21 Deranty, Petherbridge, and Rundell, Recognition, 190–2. 22 Rampal, Le médecin, 4–5. 23 Ibid., 4–6; Martin, Rapports, 5. For further information, see Quinlan, The Great Nation, 146–7; Cole, The Power, 2–5; Hildreth, Doctors. 24 Descieux, L’enseignement, 4–6. 25 See, for example, Langlois, Contributions; Yung, Le sommeil; De Manacéïne, Sommeil. 26 Pepper, Contribution, 9. 27 Ibid., 10, 36. For similar claims, see also Langlois, Contributions, 8–9; Debay, Les mystères; Fouquet, De l’insomnie; De Lagrave, Hypnotisme, 7, 139; De Manacéïne, Sommeil, 129, 142–3, 173–4, 205. Such understandings were later echoed in Marcel Proust’s popular novel, Swann’s Way, 7–8 28 See, for example, Dancel, Hygiène, 18, 40; Hygiène, 10; Ris-Paquot, Hygiène, 47. 29 Hygiène, 10–11. 30 Lunel, Dictionnaire, 395. 31 Hygiène, 10–11. For similar arguments, see Lunel, Dictionnaire, 393–5; Dancel, Hygiène, 18, 40; Ris-Paquot, Hygiène, 47. 32 Rampal, Le médecin, 5. In 1877, Bertillon published data revealing that, while for every one thousand married women between the ages of fifteen and fifty, England produced 248 births, Prussia 275, and Belgium 279, Frenchwomen provided a paltry 173 (Accampo, Blessed Motherhood, 36). At the 1889 World’s Fair, several pavilions were dedicated to children’s hygiene in order to bolster the public’s interest. For further details, see Congrès international, 22–3; Rollet, La politique, 171–4. : 247 :
NOTES TO PAGES 64–6
33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42
43 44 45 46 47 48
49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62
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Pepper, Contribution, 11, 52. Manacéïne, Sleep, 60, 154–5. For similar instructions, see Hygiène, 10–11. Marbeau, Des crèches, 84. Cited in La Berge, “Medicalization,” 68. See, for example, Degoix, Hygiène, 33–4; Brochard, “Causerie” (1881), 145–8. Magnuson, Education, 99. Rogers, “Le Catholicisme,” 82–100; Curtis, “Supply,” 51–72. Harrigan, “Women Teachers,” 593–610; McMillan, France and Women, 116–17; Quartararo, Women Teachers, 84, 90–1; Lacy, “Science,” 25–37. Conrad, “Medicalization,” 223; Armstrong, “The Rise,” 393–404; Maturo, “Medicalization,” 122–33. D’Albrays, “Hygiène morale” (May 1898), 99. Brochard and Adrien, Jeu, 7. Marie Adrien exhibited regularly at the Salon from the late 1870s, and between 1886 and 1906 at the art exhibitions of the Union des femmes peintres et sculpteurs. For further information about her career, see Cambon and Cambon, Marie Adrien Lavieille. See, for example, Brochard, L’ouvrière mère; Brochard, Le guide pratique. La Berge, “Medicalization,” 65–87. Conrad, “Medicalization,” 218. Brochard, “Hygiène,” 101–6. La Berge, “Mothers and Infants,” 22. Most of his suggestions were derived from his own observations of infants at the Parisian hospitals La Charité and Hôtel-Dieu, resulting in detailed instruction vis-à-vis infant hygiene and well-being (ibid., 22). Donné, Mothers, 21–2. Ibid., 302–3. Ibid., 226–7. Ibid., 22–4. Ibid., 248, 44. Ibid., 173–88. Conrad, The Medicalization, 5. Donné, Mothers, 175, 177. Ibid., 178–9. See, for example, Ferber, Solve Your Child’s Sleep. Donné, Mothers, 178–82. Donné, Conseils (1846), 5. “Sciences et Arts,” 186–7. See, for example, Le Barillier, Traité (1859), 25, 48, 81, 88–90, 105; Blanche, Hygiène, 27; Girault, Conseils, 36–8; Chamoüin, Des soins, 56–64; De Manacéïne, Sommeil, 5–9, 276–84; Rouvier, Précis d’hygiène, 209–10. Brochard, “L’éducation” (1875), 40–1. : 248 :
NOTES TO PAGES 66–72
64 Bouchut, Hygiène (1874), 274. For similar claims, see Blache, Hygiène, 27; Girault, Conseils, 36–8; Rouvier, Précis d’hygiène, 209–10. 65 Donné, Mothers, 45. 66 De Manacéïne, Sleep, 159. 67 Ibid., 155. Contemporary research published in 2015 by the American National Sleep Foundation established that, for healthy individuals with normal sleep, the appropriate sleep duration for newborns is between fourteen and seventeen hours, infants between twelve and fifteen hours, and toddlers between eleven and fourteen hours. As this amount of sleep gradually lessens as the child grows up, adults need approximately seven to nine hours of sleep. See Hirshkowitz et al., “National Sleep,” 40–3. 68 Grivel, Théorie, 368. See also Caillau, Avis, 52; Rousseau, Ếmile, 129. 69 Bachelet, Conseils, 235. See also Langlois, Contributions, 12–13. 70 See, for example, Barjon, “Allaitement,” 134; Bachelet, Conseils, 23; Antelmem, Conférence, 21. 71 Girault, Conseils, 38. See also Donné, Mothers, 182; Le Barillier, Traité (1860), 89. 72 Donné, Mothers, 182–4. 73 Courgey, “Mémoires, chapitre 12,” 74. 74 Le Barillier, Traité (1860), 88–9. 75 De la Carrièr, “La constipation,” 53. 76 Courgey, “Mémoires, chapitre 2,” 217. 77 Courgey, “Mémoires, avant-propos,” 215. 78 Courgey, “Mémoires, chapitre 6,” 13–14. 79 Courgey, “Mémoires, chapitre 16,” 109–10. 80 D’Albrays, “Hygiène morale” (June 1898), 126. 81 Degoix, Hygiène, 33–4. 82 See, for example, Baldini, Manière d’allaiter, 45; Desessartz, Traité, 99. 83 Le Barillier, Traité (1860), 89. See also Tarnier, Chantreuil, and Budin, Allaitement, 75–6. 84 Barjon, “Le coucher,” 49–50. For similar arguments, see Tarnier, Chantreuil, and Budin, Allaitement, 78. 85 Bouchut, Hygiène (1874), 274–5. For similar advice, see Triaire, Entretiens, 65–7; Girault, Conseils, 38. 86 Brochard and Adrien, Jeu, 7. 87 See, for example, Le livre; Alphabet. 88 D’Albrays, “Hygiène morale” (March 1898), 56. 89 Courgey, “Mémoires, chapitre 14,” 97. 90 Courgey, “Mémoires, chapitre 15,” 98. 91 Ibid., 133. : 249 :
NOTES TO PAGES 72–7
92 See, for example, Courgey, “L’éducation,” 38–40; Brochard, “Le sommeil,” 60; Brochard, “Médecine,” 113–14, 123–7; Brochard, “Causeries” (1887), 130–1. 93 Caradec, “A mes lectrices,” 1–2. 94 La jeune mère (November 1873), title page. 95 Brochard, “A mes lectrices,” 1–2. 96 Brochard, “L’éducation” (1873), 6. 97 Brochard, “Hygiène,” 104–6. 98 See, for example, Blanchemain and Fortin, Le Chant, title page; Carreño, Le sommeil; Brochard, “Littérature,” 671. 99 See, for example, Bouchut, Practical treatise. 100 See, for example, Bouchut, Traité, figs. 3, 7, 16, 17–21, 23–8. Others illustrate different instruments designed to carry babies outdoors or help them move indoors without danger. See, for example, “La promeneuse,” representing a special instrument to carry babies outdoors (fig. 37). See also figs. 39 to 42. 101 Bouchut, Hygiène (1874), 355, fig. 46. 102 See, for example, Strauss, Dépopulation; Variot, Projet d’un Institut; Variot, L’Hygiène infantile, 24–35. 103 The same image appeared on the title page of the next editions. See, for example, Bouchut, Hygiène (1885). 104 Foucault, “The Crisis,” 117–55; La Berge, “The Early,” 363–79. 105 Donné, Mothers, 302–3.
Chapter Three
1 Brochard, “Les accidents” (1876), 70–1. 2 Brookner, “Jean-Baptiste Greuze,” 158. 3 See, for example, Baron François Pascal Simon Gérard, Caroline Murat, 1803, oil on canvas, 32 × 24 cm, Versailles, Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon. 4 Dumas, Catalogue (1883), 20; Le Rappel, 2. 5 Madeleine repeatedly modelled for her husband’s paintings, as acknowledged by contemporary critics. See, for example, Énault, “Le salon de 1881,” 3; Véron, Salon de 1881, 82; Dalligny, Agenda, 150. 6 See in comparaison to Théâtre national de l’Odéon: l’arlésienne, mlle. Valentine Page, rôle de rose mamaï in Alphonse Daudet l’arlésienne, 1885, photograph, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, département arts du spectacle. 7 Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Young Knitter Asleep, 1759 (Salon of 1759), oil on canvas, 68 × 58 cm, San Marino, California, Huntington Library. 8 Habermas, The Structural Transformation. 9 Balducci and Jensen, Women, 2–5. : 250 :
NOTES TO PAGES 77–86
10 Perrot, Les femmes, 162–5; Balducci and Jensen, Women, 2–5. For a short list of pioneering essays on the matter, see Nochlin, The Politics; Nochlin, Representing Women; Iskin, Modern Women; Balducci, Gender. 11 For further discussion, see Offen, Debating, 13–152, 157–304; McMillan, France and Women, 41–4, 75–8, 81–90, 135–7. 12 Perrot and Martin-Fugier, “The Family Triumphant,” 99–113. 13 Frédéric Le Play, for example, argued that the liberties that came with modernity would lead to chaos if they untangled paternal authority (Le Play, La reforme). For further discussion, see Stewart, For Health, 195–6; Accampo, Blessed Motherhood, 7–8, 35–6; Smith, “Gender,” 299–300; Offen, Debating, 53–132. 14 Between 1871 and 1914, a total of 358 physicians won elections as deputies or senators. During this period, French physicians constituted between 10 and 12 per cent of each legislature, a higher proportion than in England, Germany, or other European states. For further details, see Ellis, The Physician, 1–16. 15 McMillan, France and Women, 102. Several scholars condemn pediatricians as another example of “experts” manipulating information to define acceptable feminine behaviour, restricting their personal autonomy, while enhancing their own prestige and economic status. See, for example, Rothman, Woman’s Proper Sphere; Ehrenreich, For Her Own, xi–xx. 16 Popiel, Rousseau’s Daughters, 92. For similar arguments, see also Roulston, Narrating Marriage, 129; Pasco, Sick Heroes, 40–5; McMillan, France and Women, 41–4. 17 De Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 124. See also “The Mother,” in ibid., 467–504. 18 Pollock, “Modernity,” 50–90. 19 Frank, Traité, n.p. See also Levret, Observations, 3, 31, 74, 81, 114. Some doctors addressed fathers, although it was highly exceptional. See, for example, Lasserre, Manuel du père. 20 Le Rebours, Avis (1799), 5–6. 21 See, for example, Donné, Conseils (1842), 3, 10, 12, 14; Chamoüin, Des soins, 5, 8, 11; Girault, Conseils, 3, 4, 8, 10. 22 Clerc, La maternité, i. 23 Underwood and Hall, A Treatise, 102–3. 24 Brochard, “Bibliographie,” 14. For similar advice, see also De Manacéïne, Sommeil, 329; Rouvier, Précis d’hygiène, 210. 25 See, for example, Brochard, “Correspondance” (1875), 60; Caradec, “Médecine maternelle,” 39–45; Ducor, “Correspondance,” 151–4. 26 Courgey, “Troisième mois,” 98. A similar account appears in Fruitfulness : 251 :
NOTES TO PAGES 86–9
27 28
29
30 31 32
33 34 35 36
37 38 39 40 41 42
43
of 1898, describing Marianne and Mathieu gazing together at their sleeping child (Zola, Fruitfulness, 106). Greuze’s engraving was praised by contemporary critics. See, for example, De Goncourt and De Goncourt, “Greuze,” 520. For further discussion regarding the changing attitudes toward marriage and family life, see Habermas, The Structural Transformation, 46–7; Roulston, Narrating Marriage, 127–8. See, for example, Marie Geneviève Bouliard, Portrait of Monsieur Olive, Treasurer of Brittany, with His Family, ca. 1790s, oil on canvas, 145 × 113 cm, Nantes, Musée des Beaux-Arts. For further information in regard to the changing attitudes toward fatherhood, see Tuttle, “Celebrating,” 366–81; Merrick, “Prodigal Sons,” 107–18; Howells, “Patriarchy,” 47–62; Geva, Conscription, 28–31. See, for example, Lefébure, Le manuel, 204. Donné, Mothers, 179–80; Courgey, ”Troisième mois,” 98. See, for example, Nicolas, Le cri, 107; Le Rebours, Avis (1799), 159; Brochard, “Bibliographie,” 14; De Manacéïne, Sommeil, 329; Rouvier, Précis d’hygiène, 210. Michelet, Priest, 245–9. Pailliet, Manuel de droit, 133, 712. For further information, see Desan, The Family, 291–310. Geva, Conscription, 28, 31–7, 42; Walton, Eve’s Proud Descendants, 43. Annales du Sénat, 228. For additional laws regarding fatherhood, see Boistel, Le droit, 55–64; Teulet, Dictionnaire, 378–80, laws nos. 331–42. For further discussion, see Geva, Conscription, 53–9; Schafer, “When a Child,” 98–115. Sarcey, “La place,” 401–37; Perrot and Martin-Fugier, “The Family Triumphant,” 99–113; Rogers, From the Salon, 19–22. Simon, La femme, 190–203. Surkis, Sexing the Citizen, 1–11. Simon, La femme du vingtième siècle, 67, 189. Donné, Mothers, 179–80. See, for example, Maurice Denis, Sleeping Baby, Paul, 1894, Album 25, fols. 3, 11, pencil, black ink, graphite, and wash on paper, 11 × 18 cm, Paris, Musée d’Orsay; Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, The Betrothal Album, Sketch of a Sleeping Baby, Louise Sleeping, ca. 1870, charcoal on paper, 10 × 14.5 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre, département des arts graphiques; Pierre Auguste Renoir, Studies of a Baby Sleeping and a Baby Nursing, mid-1885, graphite and ink on paper, 23 × 34.5 cm, private collection. Lynn Hunt argues that a similar phenomenon was evident in nineteenthcentury literature, which mainly disregarded fatherly figures (The Family : 252 :
NOTES TO PAGES 90–2
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45
46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
61 62 63
Romance, 22). For a detailed discussion of masculinity, see Down, The Man Question, 67; Adams and Coltrane, “Boys and Men,” 232–3. See Adrien Godefroy, after Adolphe Eugène Gabriel Roehn, Hope and Prosperity, The Emperor, the Empress, and the King of Rome, 1811, engraving, 33.1 × 42 cm, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, département des manuscrits. See Honoré Daumier, Sense of Hearing, from the series Parisian Types, pl. 41, lithography, 22.2 × 19.7 cm, published in Le charivari 28, no. 6 (6 January 1843). Another Daumier series that illustrated the relationship between fathers and children in a humorous way was Les papas (The Fathers), which contains twenty-three lithographs, published in Le charivari between December 1846 and June 1849. See Brochard, “Le berceau,” 9. Donné, Mothers, 179–80. See, for example, La Jeune mère 1, no. 2 (December 1873): title page. Michelet, Priest, Women, 245–9. Donné, Mothers, 188–9. D’Alq, Essais, 106. Lagrange, “Le salon de 1861,” 53–4. Courgey, “Mémoires, chapitre 17,” 123. See, for example, Le beau jeu; De Saillet, La poupée; Education de la poupée. Brochard, “Une consultation,” 106–7. Rich, Of Woman Born, 274–5. Encyclopedia of Motherhood, viii. Perroni, Motherhood, 9–10. For further information, see Walton, Eve’s Proud Descendants, 2–5, 124–37; Schor, George Sand, 6–7, 75–6; McMillan, France and Women, 75–8, 81–90. Offen, The Woman Question, 71–82, 154–9, 200–15. Offen, “Depopulation,” 648–76; Cova, Maternité, 35–7; Offen, Debating, 15–151; Accampo, Blessed Motherhood, 37–9; McMillan, France and Women, 135–7, 141–52. Jones, “Sentiment,” 85; Geva, Conscription, 53–9; Schafer, Children, 43–86. Roussel, “Encore,” n.p., cited in Accampo, Blessed Motherhood, 11. For further information, see Cova, Féminismes. La société protectrice de l’enfance was founded in Paris in 1865 to help poor mothers, married and unmarried alike, while encouraging maternal breastfeeding in the spirit of Rousseau, for the benefit of the mother, the child, and society as a whole. For further details, see Ader, Société protectrice, 5–6; Segay, Des moyens, 11–12. Similar groups were established in France in the late-eighteenth century, before and after the French Revolution.
: 253 :
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64
65
66 67
68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75
76
For further details, see Adams, Poverty, 9–26; Burton, Napoleon, 125–6; Fuchs, Poor and Pregnant, 36, 126–7. See, for example, De Vienne, “Appel!” n.p. In the same spirit, the Parisian Maternal Society (Société maternelle parisienne: la pouponnière), founded by Madame Charpentier and Madame Manuel in Paris in 1890, sought to encourage poor mothers to nurse their children for the first few months of life, granting each of them fifty francs per month of nursing. For further information, see D’Haussonville, Paris charitable, 104. Bulletin de l’œuvre (1902), 10. Similar lists appear in every journal of the society; see, for example, Bulletin de l’œuvre (1904), 25–6, 28–32, 69–70. The members of the society gifted food items, medication, clothing, blankets, and household items to needy mothers. These items were donated by volunteers, including the entire editorial board and, chief among them, the society’s founder, who generously donated supplies to benefit mothers and their infants. For an elaboration on this subject, see Béquet and Dupré, Répertoire, 460; Strauss, L’enfance malheureuse, 205. For a long, exemplary list of contributions, see Bulletin de l’œuvre (1902), 8–11, 26. “A quoi,” 60. See Dumas, Catalogue (1884), 25, no. 946. Fleury regularly exhibited in the Salon. As one of the most successful female exhibitors in the history of the Paris Salon, she received an honourable mention at the Salon of 1881 (“Mention honorable,” 489). Consequently, her paintings gained acclaim in the United States; see, for example, The American Magazine, 429–30. See Recueil, 14; Anatole Louis Godet, Album, n.d., n.p. Mitchell, Picture Theory, 61; Mitchell, Image Science, 18–19. Le vieux docteur, “Causerie,” 50. “Les trois amis,” 93. Champfleury, “Le premier regard,” 42. See Le Déluge and Agar et Ismaël dans le désert, in La Sainte Bible, 36, 100. Brochard, “Les bonnes mères,” 41–2. See, for example, Léon Bonnat, Italian Mother, ca. 1870, oil on canvas, 68 × 59 cm, Bayonne, Musée Bonnat; Alexis Perignon, Sleep, 1874 (Salon, no. 1461); Edmond Lebel, An Italian Mother and Her Child in a Cradle, 1876 (Salon, no. 1279); C.L. Godeby, Child’s Sleep, 1879 (Salon, no. 922); Roger Jourdain, Baby’s Sleep, 1879 (Salon, no. 1301); Paul Seignac, The Young Mother, ca. 1880, oil on wood, 30.5 × 25 cm, private collection; Guillaume Laurrue, The Cradle, 1890 (Salon, no. 1382); William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Innocence, 1893, oil on canvas, 100 × 52.5 cm, private collection. Bouguereau received the Prix de Rome in 1850, at the age of twenty-six, followed by a first-class medal from the Paris Salon in 1857, and he was : 254 :
NOTES TO PAGES 99–102
77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85
86 87
88 89 90
91
92 93 94 95
granted the Légion d’Honneur in 1859. For further details, see William Bouguereau, 10–13, 96–7, 103–12; Jensen, Marketing Modernism, 32–3. William Bouguereau, 102, 105; Bartoli and Ross, William Bouguereau, 237–86. White and White, Canvases and Careers, 94–8, 156–61; Verhoogt, Art in Reproduction, 57–8, 118–20, 206. See, for example, Laurens, Théorie. Shaw, “The Figure of Venus,” 541–9. Blanc, Grammaire historique, 9–11, 35. Rondelet, “De la mortalité,” 547. Cited in Louise D’Argencourt, “Bouguereau,” 100. Tardieu, “La peinture,” 2, cited in Walker, “Biography,” 54. For further discussion regarding the invention of the innocence of childhood, see Austin, “Children of Childhood,” 75–98; Müller, “Le sommeil,” 19–33. Pope, “Immaculate,” 173–200; Harris, Lourdes, 1–10. Rogers, From the Salon, 91–3. This notion is clearly demonstrated by one of Alfred Stevens’s paintings, depicting bourgeois happiness at its best: a man works diligently at his desk full of books, while his elegant wife finds her joy in her children. See Complete Happiness, Family Scene, ca. 1880, oil on canvas, 51.5 × 65.3 cm, Paris, Musée d’Orsay. Stevens, Impressions, 34. See, for example, Giovanni Battista Slavi, Baby Jesus Sleeping, ca. 1660, oil on canvas, 77 × 61 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre (since 1816). The Madonna’s sorrow was repeated in engravings and paintings illustrating her as she tenderly embraces her child while desolately pondering their imminent parting. See, for example, Giovanni Battista Slavi, Baby Jesus Sleeping, ca. 1660, oil on canvas, 77 × 61 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre. Diderot and d’Alembert, “Sommeil,” 367. In a French dictionary issued in 1787, the author concluded that the word “cemetery” (cimetière) stems from the Greek word for sleep, as the early Christians saw death as a kind of sleep (Féraud, Dictionnaire, 447). See also Leroy, Restaut, and Rondet, Traité de l’orthographe, 542–7. See, for example, Chabert, Du sommeil, 4–8; De Nemours, Quelques mémoires, 143–4; Sage, Le sommeil, 60–1. Donné, Mothers, 42. Geva, Conscription, 53–9. Veil-Picard and Sergent, “Des améliorations,” 3–8. Jean-Baptiste Victor Théophile Roussel was a physician appointed to the Third Republic’s National Assembly after the Franco-Prussian War. In this capacity, he proposed a law for the protection of children in March 1874, which was
: 255 :
NOTES TO PAGES 102–5
96 97 98 99 100
101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108
109
110 111 112
ratified in December of the same year (Sussman, Selling Mothers’ Milk, 121–9). Strauss, Dépopulation, 2, 6, 36–7, 40–1, 45, cited in Fuchs, Poor and Pregnant, 69–70. See also Offen, Debating, 383–431. See, for example, a mother weeping next to an empty cradle, while an undertaker leaves the house with a small-scaled coffin: “A propos,” title page. De Fère, “Salon de 1836,” 155. For similar reviews, see Philipon, “Salon de 1844,” 1. Farcy, Journal des artistes, 186; Catalogue des peintures, 8, cat. 73. The entry in the sale catalogue of the artist’s belongings states that it is rare: “L’ange gardien, d’après M. Decaisne (rare), encadrée.” See Catalogue de tableaux, 20, items 193, 195. In 1860, Decaisne’s œuvre was reproduced as a lithograph by Félix Laurent. See Explication des tableaux, 8, cat. 42. See, for example, Marguerite Gérard, Sleep, My Child, 1788, oil on canvas, 55 × 45 cm, Karlsruhe, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe. Jones, The Smile, 2–10; Norton, Fiction, 1–24. Baudrillard, The Consumer Society, 50. Burns, Sleeping Beauty; Kershner, “Framing Rudy,” 265–92; Bolloch, “Photographie,” 112–45. See, for example, Glairon, Catalogue d’estampes, items 4, 11; Féral, Catalogue, 13. Whitaker and Clayton, The Art of Italy, 202. Nochlin, Realism, 112–21, 133–4; Rubin, Courbet, 35, 51–3, 57–9; Dewerpe, Le monde, 11–12, 25–8; Godard, Les paysans, 9, 42. For further details in regard to mothers and babies in the fields, see Ventura, Maternal Breastfeeding, 296–340. For further information, see Académie royale, 17; Lacroix, Revue universelle, 63; Lagrange, “Le salon de 1864,” 513; Auclair, Léon-Basile Perrault; Pelle and Guegan, The Condé Museum, 10, 275. See Léon Basile Perrault, The Brood, 1866, in Album de photographies. See, for example, Le-Brun, “Exposition de Troyes,” 235. See, for example, Léon Basile Perrault, Love and Innocence, 1884, oil on canvas, 142 × 113 cm, private collection, in The Art Collector, 10, 208. Many of his other paintings of motherhood were sold by Durand-Ruel’s gallery to American private collectors. See, for example, The Art Amateur 47–8, 94; American Art Annual, 315; Sanguinetti and South, The Utah Museum, 131–2. The following paintings, all of which illustrate young women watching sleeping babies, are owned by American collectors. See, for example, Léon Basile Perrault, The Guarding Sister, 1878, oil on canvas 123.2 × 84 cm, private collection; Léon Basile Perrault, Sleep, Baby, Sleep, 1884, oil on canvas, 101 × 111.8 cm, private collection. Other paintings focus on sleeping babies; see, for : 256 :
NOTES TO PAGES 106–13
113 114 115 116 117 118
119 120 121
122
123 124 125 126 127
example, Léon Basile Perrault, Sleep, 1885, oil on canvas, 73 × 112 cm, private collection; Léon Basile Perrault, The Infant’s Dream, 1890, oil on canvas, 42 × 58 cm, private collection. Ferguson, Signs and Symbols, 27–8. See, for example, Master of the Legend of St Magdalene, Virgin and Child Holding an Apple, ca. 1520, oil on panel, 21 × 13 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre. See in comparison to Sebastiano del Piombo’s Holy Family, ca. 1533–35, oil on canvas, 112 × 88 cm, Naples, Museo Nazionale di Capominote. See Jean-François Millet, Woman Sewing beside Her Sleeping Child, 1870–72, oil on canvas, 100.6 × 81.9 cm, New York, Frick Collection. See Rembrandt, The Holy Family, 1645, oil on canvas, 117 × 91 cm, St Petersburg, Hermitage Museum. Such occurrences are represented in photography. See, for example, Charles Géniaux, Woman Spinning Next to a Baby in a Cradle, photograph, ca. 1890, Marseilles, Musée des civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée. Gibson, “The Thread,” 46–54. See, for example, Exposition universelle, 25, cat. 216; Explication des œuvres, 29; De La Chavignerie, Dictionnaire, 187. See Léon Emile Caille, Mother’s Pride, ca. 1876, oil on canvas, 18 × 24 cm, Toronto, Odon Wagner Gallery, in comparison to Benevenuto Garofalo, Baby Jesus Sleeping, ca. 1560, oil on panel, 53 × 40 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre. See Léon-Emile Caille, Young Woman Praying beside a Baby’s Cradle, 1864, graphite with coloured pastel on woven paper, 22.6 × 17.5 cm, Baltimore, Walters Art Museum. Like many French illustrations of motherhood, it was acquired in 1870 by the American collector William T. Walters, who bequeathed it in 1931 to the Walters Art Museum. See, for example, Coste, “Un petit enfant,” 125. See, for example, Auguste Toulmouche, The Prayer, 1858, oil on canvas, 73.7 × 59.1 cm, private collection. Solicari, “Selling Sentiment.” Hamerton, Painting in France, 74–5. Bourdieu, Distinction, 6.
Chapter Four
1 Donné, Mothers, 46. 2 See Alfred Stevens, The Widow and Her Children, 1883, oil on canvas, 114.5 × 160.5 cm, Brussels, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. 3 Bertillon, La statistique, 162, 56. 4 Dargenty, “Chronique,” 172. : 257 :
NOTES TO PAGES 113–21
5 See in comparison to contemporary fashion plates in La mode illustrée 9 (4 March 1883): 68; La mode illustrée 49 (4 December 1881): 388. 6 Similar baby’s attire appears in a fashion plate representing a nurse sitting on a park bench, holding a sleeping baby: La mode illustrée 18 (9 May 1883): 137. 7 See, for example, La mode illustrée 7 (18 February 1883): 52. 8 Ekman and Friesen, “Felt,” 238; Ekman and Ruch, “The Expressive,” 426–43. 9 Lefebvre, Alfred Stevens, 66, 187, nos 39–40. For further details, see Flammarion, “Une statue,” 133–5. 10 Hymans, “L’exposition,” 302. 11 Jouin, “Expositions diverses,” 78. For similar accounts, see Sertat, “Beauxarts,” 1257. 12 Bergerat, “Beaux-arts,” 10375. 13 Graham, “Un étranger,” 4. 14 See, for example, Alfred Stevens, Temptation, ca. 1865, oil on canvas, 37 × 46 cm, London, The National Gallery; Alfred Stevens, Melancholy, 1876, oil on panel, 76.8 × 54.6 cm, private collection. 15 Donné, Mothers, 24. 16 In the first half of the nineteenth century, some 50 per cent of newborns were sent to rural wet nurses in the week following their birth, and many others, whose exact number is unknown, were fed by wet nurses residing in their parents’ homes. Even though in the 1880s their number decreased to approximately 29 per cent, some 35 per cent of babies were sent to “dry-nurses” (nourrice sèche, i.e., bottle-feeding nursemaids). Albeit rarely, night nurses appeared in contemporary literature (see, for example, Zola, Fruitfulness, 129). They were also mentioned in Q&A columns (“correspondence”) in women’s magazines. See, for example, Brochard, “Correspondance” (1882), 45. For further details regarding wet nursing, see Ventura, Maternal Breastfeeding, 193–242. 17 Fourreau, Berthe Morisot, 37; Higonnet, Berthe Morisot (1995), 91. 18 Cited in Thomas, Impressionist Children, 96. 19 Prouvaire, “L’Exposition,” 3, cited in Dayez, Hoog, and Moffett, Impressionism, 168. 20 Leroy, “L’Exposition,” 2, cited in Rewald, The History of Impressionism, 322. 21 See, for example, Barotte, “Berthe Morisot,” 1–2; Stuckey and Scott, Berthe Morisot, 50. 22 See, for example, Angoulvent, Berthe Morisot, 36–7; Fenéon, “Berthe Morisot,” 133–5; Higonnet, Berthe Morisot (1995), 91; Wilhelm, “The Cradle,” 288–90; Thomas, Impressionist Children, 95. 23 See David, “Toilette d’intérieur,” 102.
: 258 :
NOTES TO PAGES 121–5
24 Higonnet, Berthe Morisot’s Images, 84, 120–1. For similar arguments, see Schirrmeister, “La dérnière mode,” 103–15; De Young, “Representing,” 99. 25 See, for example, in comparison of a detailed description of the latest fashion: “Toilette d’intérieur,” 532–3. 26 See, for example, La jeune mère (December 1873; January 1874). 27 See, for example, La jeune mère (April 1874; September 1874). 28 See, for example, Caradec, La mère, title page. 29 See, for example, Massola, “Hygiène infantile,” 11–13. 30 Thomas suggests that she may have been influenced by Jean Monet in His Cradle, painted by Claude Monet in the winter of 1867–68 (Impressionist Children, 95). 31 Higonnet, Berthe Morisot’s Images, 84–122. 32 Underwood and Hall, A Treatise, 102–3. 33 Brochard, “L’éducation” (1873), 6. 34 Ibid., 6. Identical advice was repeated in numerous manuals. See, for example, Triaire, Entretiens, 69–70. 35 Brochard, “Le berceau,” 8–9. 36 Brochard, “L’éducation” (1873), 6. 37 See, for example, Berthe Morisot, In the Parc, ca. 1874, pastel on paper, 72.5 × 91.8 cm, Paris, Musée du Petit Palais; Bethe Morisot, The Butterfly, 1874, oil on canvas, 46 × 56 cm, Paris, Musée d’Orsay. 38 Brochard, “L’éducation” (1873), 7. 39 Kessler, “Reconstructing Relationships,” 24–8; Adler and Edelstein, Perspectives, 8; Rey, Morisot, 82; Kapp, “The Cradle,” 358–9; Clancy, The Depiction, 156. 40 Patry, “Berthe Morisot,” 28. 41 Kessler, “Reconstructing Relationships,” 27. See Berthe Morisot, The Artist’s Sister, Edma, with Her Daughter, Jeanne, 1872, watercolour over graphite on laid paper, 25 × 25 cm, Washington, National Gallery of Art. 42 Kessler, “Reconstructing Relationships,” 27. 43 Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts, 67–78. 44 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 200. 45 Bescherelle, Dictionnaire national, 1134. For further details regarding boredom, see Fisher, “Boredom,” 365–417; Spacks, Boredom, 12–13; Majumdar, Prose, 22–3. 46 Donné, Mothers, 22–3. 47 Marcé, Traité de la folie, 163, 170–1. 48 Adler, Berthe Morisot, 9; Patry, “Berthe Morisot,” 26. 49 Stuckey and Scott, Berthe Morisot, 187–207.
: 259 :
NOTES TO PAGES 125–30
50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64
65 66 67 68
69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78
Cited in Delafond and Genet-Bondeville, Berthe Morisot, 56. Higonnet, Morisot, 22. Cited in Clairet, Mantalant, and Rouart, Berthe Morisot, 25. Cheyne, Carriere, and Smilek, “Absent-Mindedness,” 578–92. Patry, “Berthe Morisot,” 28. Jamot, “La dame,” 158–9. Crary, Techniques. Crary, Suspensions, 1–2. Jay, “Scopic Regimes,” 7. De Amicis, “L’éternel refrain,” 127. Merleau-Ponty, Sense and Non-Sense, 52–3; Crossley, “The Politics,” 409–11. See, for example, Berthe Morisot, Wet-Nurse and Baby, Blanche Pontillon and Her Breton Nurse, 1872, pastel, 48 × 63 cm, private collection. See, for example, Caillau, Avis, 75; Brochard, “Le Berceau,” 8; Brochard, “L’éducation” (1873), 20. Wilhelm, “The Cradle,” 297–8. See, for example, Edgar Degas, Portrait of Madame Ernest May, 1881–82, pastel on paper, 41 × 30 cm, private collection; Edgar Degas, Study for the Curtain of the Cradle, ca 1881–82, charcoal and pencil, private collection. See, for example, Edgar Degas, A Wet Nurse in the Luxembourg Gardens, 1875, oil on canvas, 65 × 92 cm, Montpellier, Musée Fabre. For further details, see Boggs, Degas, 158–9. Nochlin, “A House,” 48. See, for example, Donné, Mothers, 185–6. For further discussion regarding wet nurses and breastfeeding outdoors, see Ventura, Maternal Breastfeeding, 193–244. Esquirol, “De l’aliénation mentale,” 601–2. For further information, see Loudon, “Puerperal Insanity,” 76–9; Theriot, “Diagnosing Unnatural Motherhood,” 69–88; Marland, “Destined,” 137–56. Esquirol, “De l’aliénation mentale,” 602. Marcé, Traité de la folie, 166–9, 264–7. See also Joulin, Traité complet, 1206–10; Éloy, Considérations cliniques, 31–8; Rocher, Étude sur la folie, 26–48. Marcé, Traité de la folie, 161. See also Cazeaux and Tarnier, Traité théorique, 515–6. Régis, Manuel pratique, 233. Marcé, Traité de la folie, 174–5. Ibid., 264–7; Éloy, Considérations cliniques, 31–8; Rocher, Etude sur la folie, 26–48; Joulin, Traité complet, 1206–10. Marcé, Traité de la folie, 190–1, 209, 270. Ibid., 262. : 260 :
NOTES TO PAGES 130–5
79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89
90
91 92 93 94
95
96
97 98
Ibid., 207. Dechambre, Dictionnaire, 135–6. Marcé, Traité de la folie, 196–7. Ibid., 43. Ibid., 82, 242, 262, 295, 305; Marland, “Destined,” 145. Ibid., 267–8. Ibid., 378. Winnicott, “Ego Distortion,” 37–55; Winnicott, The Collected Works, 61–4. Marcé, Traité de la folie, 166–9. Baumann and Karabelnik, Degas Portraits, 221; Wilhelm, “The Cradle,” 297–8. Four other versions of this portrait are exhibited in The Art Institute of Chicago, The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Kröller-Müller Museum, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. For a detailed analysis of the entire series, see Lister, “Tracing a Transformation,” 63–82. Letter 723 to Theo, Arles, 1 December 1888 (emphasis in the original). Unless otherwise noted, quotations from van Gogh’s letters are taken from http:// www.vangoghletters.org. Letter 740 to Arnold Koning, 22 January 1889. Letter 739 to Paul Gauguin, 21 January 1889. Letter 743 to Theo, 28 January 1889, cited in Pickvance, Van Gogh, 246. Letter 743 to Theo, 28 January 1889, cited in Jiminez, Dictionary, 469. Several scholars have suggested reading this image as a modern Madonna; see, for example, Champa, “Masterpiece” Studies, 107–12; Sund, “Van Gogh’s ‘Berceuse,’” 205–25. Gayford, The Yellow House, 190–6; White and Naifeh, Van Gogh, 723. The latter maintain that the later versions of the painting were made as a reaction to the news of Theo’s marriage, making Vincent contemplate his own childhood (ibid., 724). Based on X-ray and microscopic examinations of the Boston version, Kristin Hoermann Lister argues that van Gogh added the hands and rope at a much later stage (“Tracing a Transformation,” 73). She also maintains that the hands and rope were the aspects that troubled van Gogh most (ibid., 65). Likewise, Jan Hulsker argues that La berceuse was originally laid out simply as a portrait and only became The Lullaby later, through the addition of the rope (“Van Gogh,” 577). Caillau, Avis, 46, 48–9. See, for example, Cradle, early-nineteenth century, wood, 36 × 42 × 80 cm, Rouen, Musée Flaubert et d’Histoire de la médecine. See, for example, A French Doll’s Cradle, Auvergne, ca. 1820s, walnut wood, 36 × 42 × 80 cm, Rouen, Musée Flaubert et d’Histoire de la médicine.
: 261 :
NOTES TO PAGES 135–8
99 Bédelet, “On berce la poupée,” 50. 100 See, for example, letter 037 to Theo, Paris, 6 July 1875; letter 199 to Theo, The Hague, 8–9 January 1882; letter 234 to Theo, written on 1–2 June 1882; letter 242 to Theo, 2 July 1882. 101 See Vincent van Gogh, Girl Kneeling by a Cradle, March 1883, pencil and charcoal heightened with white, 7.2 × 6.4 cm, Amsterdam, Vincent van Gogh Foundation. This sketch is mentioned in letter 249 to Theo, 21 July 1882. Van Gogh made other sketches of this cradle, see, for example, Vincent van Gogh, Mother by a Cradle and a Child Sitting on the Floor, 1881, charcoal, black chalk, and watercolour, 46 × 59.5 cm, Otterlo, Kröller-Müller Museum. Otterlo (F 1070, JH 74). 102 Letter 245 to Theo, 6–7 July 1882. In letter 246 to Theo, 15–16 July 1882, he also mentioned Sien’s daughter. 103 See Rembrandt, The Holy Family, 1645, oil on canvas, 117 × 91 cm, St Petersburg, The Hermitage Museum. 104 See Vincent van Gogh, Woman Sitting by a Cradle, Spring 1887, oil on canvas, 61 × 46 cm, Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum. 105 Homburg, “Vincent van Gogh,” 46. 106 “Au Quai d’Orsay,” 4. 107 Angoulvent, Berthe Morisot, 46. 108 Jamot, “La dame,” 158–9. 109 Vaudoyer, “Un nouveau chef-d’œuvre,” 3. 110 Higonnet, Berthe Morisot (1990), 116–8, 149–50. 111 Cited in Rouart, Berthe Morisot, 115. 112 Rouart, Correspondance, 99. This is the only Impressionist exhibition in which Morisot did not participate, even though her name did appear in the preliminary publicity for the exhibition. For further details, see Adler and Garb, Berthe Morisot, 56. 113 Nochlin, “Morisot’s Wet-Nurse,” 231–6. 114 Berthe Morisot, Beneath the Lilac at Maurecourt, 1874, oil on canvas, 50 × 61 cm, private collection. 115 See, for example, Berthe Morisot, Luncheon in the Countryside, 1879, watercolour on paper, 14 × 22 cm, Paris, Galerie Hopkins-Thomas; Berthe Morisot, Nurse and Baby: Julie and her Nurse, ca. 1879–80, oil on canvas, 29 × 24 cm, Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. 116 Donné, “On Nursing by the Mother,” in Mothers, 35–57. 117 Ibid., 53. 118 Ibid., 35. 119 Donné, “Of Professional Nurses,” in Mothers, 58–137. 120 Donné, Mothers, 22–3, 46–7. : 262 :
NOTES TO PAGES 138–44
Underwood and Hall, A Treatise, 102–3; Brochard, “Bibliographie,” 14. Donné, Mothers, 47. Ibid., 51. Higonnet, Berthe Morisot’s Images, 226. See, for example, Berthe Morisot, Luncheon in the Countryside, 1879, watercolour on paper, 14 × 22 cm, Paris, Galerie Hopkins-Thomas. Although Morisot is not directly represented in this image, she nevertheless hints at her presence through an additional cup on the table, combined with the act of painting itself, which makes the artist present in her daughter’s life. 125 Roberts, “Julie Manet,” 6–9. 126 Valéry, “Au sujet,” 335–6; Valéry, “Eblouissante exposition,” 2.
121 122 123 124
Chapter Five
1 Bremond, “Causerie,” 177–9. 2 Wildenstein, Claude Monet, 38, 164–5, 168, cats. 101, 108. See also Wildenstein, Monet, 67, 74. 3 Gedo, Monet, 75. 4 Hugues Wilhelm maintains that the woman is the baby’s mother, arguing that Monet painted his son’s cradle in order to legitimize his birth, since he married Camille on 28 June 1870, after Jean was born (“The Cradle,” 277–9). Gedo argues that the woman is a garde. In addition to her plain clothing, Monet, she claims, consistently depicted Camille as “unmotherly,” which accords with her absence in the painting (Monet, 73–4). According to Ruth Butler, the nurse was hired by Théophile Beguin Billecocq (Hidden in the Shadow, 133–4). Andrew Forge suggests that the woman watching Jean is, in fact, Julie Valley, the companion of Camille Pissarro and Jean Monet’s godmother (Forge, Claude Monet, 36). 5 Cited in Butler, Hidden in the Shadow, 133. For further information on Monet’s financial situation, see Gedo, Monet, 71–5. 6 Taylor, “Unconsciousness,” 471. 7 Mauss, “Techniques,” 60–1. For further discussion regarding sleeping postures, see Williams, “Sleep and Health,” 178–9; Wallace, Scanning the Hypnoglyph, 144–97. 8 Elias, The Civilizing Process, 3–41, 136–9, 211, 245–59. 9 Habermas, The Structural Transformation, 43–6. 10 Elias, The Civilizing Process, 138. For a list of advised behaviour in the bedroom, see 136–7. 11 Perrot and Guerrand, “Scenes and Places,” 341–80. 12 Perrot and Martin-Fugier, “The Family Triumphant,” 99–113; Thomas, Impressionist Children, 74–5; Renonciat, “Quand la chambre.” : 263 :
NOTES TO PAGES 144–51
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33
34 35 36 37
Abécédaire, 26. Taylor, “Unconsciousness,” 466. Appadurai, “Commodities,” 13. Nicolas, Le cri, 84. See also Buchan, Le conservateur, 100-1; Caillau, Avis, 46, 48–9; Breton, Avis, 16–9, 23; Underwood, A Treatise (1874), 120, 233, 253, 234. Donné, Mothers, 198, 260. Plicque, “Traitement hygiénique,” 62–4. See also Triaire, Entretiens, 69; Degoix, Hygiène, 3. Girault, Conseils, 38–40. Toussaint, “La chambre,” 134–5. Stewart, For Health, 57–63, 196; Alain Corbin, Le miasme, 259–60; Classen, Howes, and Synnot, Aroma, 79–80; Segura, “The Dream,” 51–6. Barnes, The Great Stink, 100–4. Toussaint, “La chambre,” 134. See also Plicque, “Traitement hygiénique,” 63. Barnes, The Great Stink, 1. Barjon, “La mode,” 553. See also “Des médecins,” 176–7; Rivière, “Traitement,” 29–38. Stevens, Le salon de 1863, 206. Degoix, Hygiène, 68. Le Barillier, Traité (1860), 89–90. See also Triaire, Entretiens, 68. Brochard, “Le berceau,” 9. See also Barjon, “Le coucher,” 50; Triaire, Entretiens, 68; Chamoüin, Des soins, 67–8; Girault, Conseils, 37–8. Triaire, Entretiens, 69. Le Barillier, Traité (1860), 89–90. See, for example, Brochard, “Les petites voitures,” 44–5; Girault, Conseils, 37; Le Barillier, Traité (1860), 89; Bouchut, Traité, 268. Barjon, “Allaitement,” 134. Some contemporary doctors recommend “side sleeping” (see, for example, Busuttil and Keeling, Paediatric, 203). Yet, others claim that it may cause sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and thus favour a supine sleeping position (see, for example, Poets and von Bodman, “Placing Preterm,” 331–2). See, for example, Courgey, “Mémoires, chapitre 17,” 123. See, for example, Bouchut, Traité, 268; Chamoüin, Des soins, 69. Degoix, Hygiène, 33. See also Massola, “Hygiène infantile,” 13; Girault, Conseils, 13, 38; Chamoüin, Des soins, 69. Tarnier, Chantreuil, and Budin, Allaitement, 75–6. For similar advice, see Girault, Conseils, 37–8; Bouchut, Hygiène (1874), 284–5; Barjon, “Le coucher,” 50; Massola, “Hygiène infantile,” 13; Brochard, “Le berceau,” 8–10. Such bedding was sold in every department store. See, for example, “Petit matelas,” 109; “Couverture,” 169. : 264 :
NOTES TO PAGES 152–6
38 39 40 41 42
43 44 45 46 47 48
49
50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66
Tarnier, Chantreuil, and Budin, Allaitement, 77. See also Girault, Conseils, 38. “Toilette de nuit,” 154–5. Brochard, “L’éducation” (1873), 6. For similar claims, see Girault, Conseils, 33. See Georges Bertal, Who Loves Well Chastises as Well, in Album du journal pour rire 61, no. 2 (March 1848): n.p. Morel, “Le nouveau-né,” 411–2. For a review of the different swaddling methods through history, see Auvard and Pingat, “Mémoires originaux,” 892–902. Girault, Conseils, 33. Triaire, Entretiens, 56. Ibid., 55–6, 59. The last phrase is from Rousseau, Ếmile, 44. Girault, Conseils, 13. Tarnier, Chantreuil, and Budin, Allaitement, 75. Girault, Conseils, 33. For similar declarations, see, for example, Triaire, Entretiens, 55; Brochard, “L’éducation” (1875), 37–41; Rouvier, Précis d’hygiène, 136–8. Girault, Conseils, 41. In our day, doctors maintain that the best temperature for a child lies between sixteen to eighteen degrees, and that the room should be well ventilated (Busuttil and Keeling, Paediatric, 203). Bremond, “Causerie,” 177–9. Bouchut, Hygiène (1885), 45. See also Girault, Conseils, 341; Tarnier, Chantreuil, and Budin, Allaitement, 73–5. Bremond, “Le vêtement,” 145. See also Triaire, Entretiens, 56; Bouchut, Hygiène (1874), 291. Tarnier, Chantreuil, and Budin, Allaitement, 73–5. Girault, Conseils, 12. Chamoüin, Des soins, 107. Bouchut, Hygiène (1874), 290; Tarnier, Chantreuil, and Budin, Allaitement, 70–2. Rouvier, Précis d’hygiène, 136, fig. 20. Ibid., 136; Tarnier, Chantreuil, and Budin, Allaitement, 73–5. Brochard, “L’éducation” (1873) 6. Tarnier, Chantreuil and Budin, Allaitement, 73–5. Bouchut, Hygiène (1874), 291. See also Tarnier, Chantreuil, and Budin, Allaitement, 70–2. Brochard and Adrien, Jeu, 9. Courgey, “Mémoires, chapitre 2, suite,” 251. Courgey, “Mémoires, chapitre 15,” 98. Le Barillier, Traité (1860), 81. Brochard and Adrien, Jeu, 9.
: 265 :
NOTES TO PAGES 156–61
67 68 69 70 71 72 73
74 75 76 77 78 79 80
81 82 83
84 85 86 87 88
89 90
Triaire, Entretiens, 56. Brochard, “L’éducation” (1874), 38. Triaire, Entretiens, 58. See also: “Robe de nuit,” 109; “Chemise de nuit,” 307. Degoix, Hygiène, 32–3. See, for example, “Bonnet tricoté,” 155; “Petit bonnet tricoté,” 106–7. Iskin, Modern Women, 23; Tiersten, Marianne, 17–23. Some of the notable department stores that opened during the time of the Second Empire were Le Bon Marché (1852), Bazar de l’Hôtel de Ville (1852), Les Grands magasins du Louvre (1855), Le Printemps (1865), and La Samaritaine (1869). Iskin, “Material Women,” 35. Zola, The Ladies’ Paradise, 89, 176, 181. See, for example, “Lingerie pour enfant” (1868), 388–9; “Lingerie pour enfant” (1895), 140–1. Grands Magasins (1875), 300–1. Grands Magasins (1877), n.p. Le palais, 83. The Grands magasins du Louvre was inaugurated in 1855 in Paris, in time for the Exposition Universelle, at the request of Baron Haussmann, the prefect of the Seine. As one of the most successful department stores that retailed such products, in 1865, the store realized fifteen million francs in sales, a sum that catapulted ten years later to forty-one million, an average of three to four thousand francs a day. In 1877, after the store was enlarged and renovated, its fifty-two departments offered clothing, accessories, lavish fabrics, toys, and furniture for every taste (Nord, The Politics, 60–1). D’Aunay, Le Louvre, 12. Ibid., 48. See, for example, Grands magasins du Louvre (1876), 701–10; Grands magasins du Louvre (1877), 159–79; Grands magasins du Louvre (1890), 52–63, 76–195. Grands magasins du Louvre (1880), 141–95, figs. 801–8. For further information regarding this genre of embroderie, see Les arts français, 71. Grands magasins (1890), nos. 13–15, 19, 30. Clark, “Infant Clothing,” 47–59. See, for example, La mode illustrée 3, no. 25 (23 June 1862): 208; La mode illustrée 5, no. 24 (12 June 1864): 86; La mode illustrée 9, no. 15 (12 April 1868): 122. Bayle-Mouillard, Manuel complet, 294. Bassanville, La science, 149. See also Verdellet, Manuel géométrique, 15. : 266 :
NOTES TO PAGES 161–5
91 See Moniteur de la mode, 157. 92 Triaire, Entretiens, 56–7. 93 Thomas, Impressionist Children, 33. See also Markus, “Walter Benjamin,” 3–42. 94 Bertal, “Costume de bébé,” 170–1. 95 Brochard, “L’éducation” (1874), 38. 96 Salignac, “Mode pratique,” no. 301, 21. 97 See, for example, condensed swiss milk (“lait suisse condensé”), milk powder (“farine diastasée”), and beef broth (“Prime offerte,” n.p.). 98 See, for example, Donné, Mothers, 177, 183–4; Tarnier, Chantreuil, and Budin, Allaitement, 78; Triaire, Entretiens, 72–5; Girault, Conseils, 42–3; Bouchut, Hygiène (1874), 276–8. 99 Tarnier, Chantreuil, and Budin, Allaitement, 79–80. 100 Brochard, “Les petites voitures,” 44–6. See also Brochard, “Une chute,” 47. 101 See in Ventura, Maternal Breastfeeding, figs. 63–4, 66–71. 102 Thomas, Impressionist Children, 33. 103 Cited in Butler, Hidden in the Shadow, 131. 104 “Respect aux jouets,” 14. 105 Leroux, “Les jouets,” 7. 106 Fertiault, “Éducation maternelle,” 189. 107 Leroux, “Les jouets,” 5–7. 108 “Respect aux jouets,” 14. 109 Leroux, “Les jouets,” 5–7. See also Brochard, “Faits divers” (May 1888), 79–80; Bremond, “Les jouets,” 14–15. 110 Grenier, “Causerie,” 35. 111 D’Albrays, “Hygiène morale” (June 1898), 129. For similar claims, see Caradec, “Bébé,” 95–6. 112 Courgey, “Mémoires, chapitre 15, suite,” 109. 113 Courgey, “Mémoires, chapitre 17,” 122. 114 See Claude Monet, The Luncheon, 1868, oil on canvas, 231.5 × 151.5 cm, Frankfurt am Main, Städel Museum. 115 Thomas, Impressionist Children, 68. 116 Underwood and Hall, A Treatise, 102–3. 117 De Manacéïne, Sleep, 311, 328–30. See also Pepper, Contribution, 9. 118 D’Albrays, “L’éducation,” 180–4. For a similar description, see also D’Albrays, “Hygiène morale, 26,” 284–6. 119 D’Albrays, “L’éducation,” 183. Several letters were sent to La jeune mère by concerned readers who witnessed disturbing behaviour during their babies’ sleep. See, for example, Caradec, “Médecine maternelle,” 39–45; Ducor, “Correspondance,” 151–4. : 267 :
NOTES TO PAGES 165–71
120 Gedo, Monet, 75, 96. 121 Thomas, Impressionist Children, 68. 122 Baudelaire, “Morale du joujou,” 504–7. For the English version, see Baudelaire, “A Philosophy of Toys,” 198–202. 123 Winnicott, “Transitional Objects,” 5. 124 See, for example, François-Hubert Drouais, Girl Holding a Doll, ca. 1770, oil on canvas, 45 × 37.5 cm, Paris, Musée Cognacq-Jay. 125 See, for example, Etrennes, choix immense au Tapis Rouge, 67, faubg. St Martin & R. du Château d’eau, 54, 1873, lithograph, 132 × 94 cm, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France. For further information regarding the doll industry, see Curtis, “The (Play)things of Childhood,” 67–87. 126 Picard, “Chapitre 11,” 596, 604. 127 d’Aunay, Le Louvre, 28. 128 Le palais de l’industrie, 83. 129 See, for example, Ernest Antoine Auguste Hébert, Catherine du Bouchage, Child, 1879, oil on canvas, 88.2 × 66.5 cm, Paris, Musée Ernest Hébert. 130 Creux, “Les jouets,” 713–14. 131 Thomas, Impressionist Children, 41. 132 See, for example, Grands magasins du Louvre (1900), 2. For further information on dolls, gender, and fashion, see Thomas, Impressionist Children, 33–71; Green, French Paintings, 130–4; Peers, “Adelaide Huret,” 157–83. 133 Creux, “Les jouets,” 713–14. For further analysis regarding the proliferation of mass-produced novelty and technological playthings, which reflect the importance of scientific progress and commodity culture, see Curtis, “The (Play)things,” 67–87. 134 Picard, “Chapitre 11,” 596–7, 602–3. Although such cheap, unsophisticated dolls were usually not preserved, a few examples have survived, as well as several paintings depicting these dolls. See, for example, Poupard, ca. 1900, painted cardboard, height: 32 cm, Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, département des jouets. 135 Trimm, Les confidences, 65–6. For a similar description, see Ripart, “La pauvre,” n.p. 136 Théophile Alexandre Steinlen, Girl with a Doll, 1889, oil on canvas, 56 × 38 cm, Paris, Musée d’Orsay; Henri Rousseau, Girl with a Doll, 1905, oil on canvas, 67 × 52 cm, Paris, Musée de l’Orangerie. 137 See, for example, Gustave Doré, A Baby in a Cradle, Playing with a Doll, 1870, graphite on paper, diameter: 21 cm, Dijon, Musée Magnin; Guillaume Romain Fouace, Sleeping Baby, 1876, oil on canvas, 27.2 × 37 cm, private collection. 138 Crane, Fashion, 27. 139 Bremond, “Le vêtement,” 145. : 268 :
NOTES TO PAGES 170–5
Chapter Six
1 Auvard and Pingat, “Mémoires originaux,” 903. 2 Breuil, Leçons illustrées, 42. For a detailed discussion of similar children’s French books, see Renonciat, “Quand la chambre.” 3 Auvard and Pingat, “Hygiène infantile,” 38–40. 4 For further discussion regarding commodities, see Woodward, Understanding Material Culture, v–vii. 5 Latour, Reassembling the Social, 79–81. 6 Zeldin, A History, 430; Aronson, French Furniture, 19. 7 Oates, The Story, 43. 8 Marshall, “The Big Sleep,” 41–2; Montijn, “Beds,” 75–9. 9 McLaughlin, “Survivors and Surrogates,” 101–81. 10 See, for example, a Roman carbonized wooden cradle from the house of Pilius Primigenius Granianus, Herculaneum, First Century AD, Archeologici di Napoli e Pompei, Naples. For further information regarding sleep and beds in ancient Rome, see Nissinen, “Cubicula Diurna,” 85–107. 11 See, for example, Andrea Mantegna, Christ Child in the Manger, 1450, tempera on vellum, 27.3 × 28.3 cm, ms. Lat. IX, 1 (3496), ca. 133v, Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana. 12 Poulbot, “Lili Paillason,” n.p. 13 Petroski, The Evolution, 192; Petroski, Success, 107 14 Marshall, “The Big Sleep,” 41. 15 Diderot and d’Alembert, “Berceau,” 749. 16 Féraud, Dictionnaire, 265. 17 See, for example, Diderot and d’Alembert, “Berceau,” 749; Daunou, Méthode, 26. 18 Lefébure, Le manuel, 205. 19 For further details regarding the measurements of infants beds, see Thonet frères, 50–1; Au Chatelet, 9; Au Printemps, 154. 20 Massola, “Hygiène infantile,” 10, 12. For similar recommendations, see also Degoix, Hygiène, 32; Brochard, “L’éducation” (1874), 38. 21 Leroy, Médecine maternelle, 35. 22 Bremond, “Le berceau,” 79. 23 Brochard, “Le berceau,” 10. For similar views, see Chamoüin, Des soins, 67; Girault, Conseils, 37–8; Blache, Hygiène, 26–9; Clerc, Hygiène, 124–7; Brochard, “Les accidents” (1877), 69–71. 24 Brochard, “Le berceau,” 10. For a similar story, see Tarnier, Chantreuil, and Budin, Allaitement, 77. 25 Davies, Yesterday’s Children, 121. 26 Brochard, “Le berceau,” 8. : 269 :
NOTES TO PAGES 177–84
27 Massola, “Hygiène infantile,” 10, 12. For similar recommendations, see also Degoix, Hygiène, 32; Brochard, “L’éducation” (1874), 38. 28 See, for example, Brochard, “Le berceau,” 8; Bremond, “Le berceau,” 79. 29 Girault, Conseils, 37. For identical claims, see also Chamoüin, Des soins, 67; Barjon, “Le coucher,” 50; Bouchut, Hygiène (1874), 284; Brochard, “Le berceau,” 8. 30 Montijn, “Beds,” 75; Corbin, “The Secret,” 482. 31 Thoré, Salons, 37. See similar praises in Lagrange, “Le salon de 1864,” 533–4. 32 See “Salon de 1864,” title page. 33 Colomb, “Sur la condition,” 20; Heywood, Childhood, 17–18; Delouche, Les peintres, 59–60, 81, 116–27. 34 Salon de 1890, 138. 35 Brochard, “Le berceau,” 10. See also Chamoüin, Des soins, 67. 36 Auvard and Pingat, “Hygiène infantile,” 38–40; Rivers and Umney, Conservation, 106–7. 37 Cardon, L’art au foyer, 2. 38 See, for example, Stourme Frères, 16. 39 Marbeau, Des crèches, 5, 100, 137. 40 A print representing the crèche of Chaillot in 1844 appears in La Berge, “Medicalization,” 68. 41 See, for example, Bulletin de l’œuvre (1902), 10. A long list of other contributors is mentioned throughout the journal (ibid., 8–10, 12, 14, 18–19, 22–3, 25). Similar lists appear in every journal of the society, see, for example, Bulletin de l’œuvre (1904), 25–6, 28–32, 69–70. 42 Zola, Fruitfulness, 227. 43 “Société des berceaux,” 4. 44 Manuel des œuvres, 7. Such operations worked in other French cities during the second half of the nineteenth century. In Dijon, poor mothers received sixty-four francs in assistance, including children’s clothing and cradles. In Bordeaux, societies accorded each mother a layette, a cradle, and five francs for childbirth costs (Adams, Poverty, 153, 162–4). 45 See, for example, Barjon, “Le coucher,” 50; Bouchut, Hygiène (1874), 284; Triaire, Entretiens, 67. 46 Pariset and Gacon-Dufour, Nouveau manuel, 330. 47 Bauman, Liquid Modernity, 2–9. 48 Lagrange, “Le salon de 1861,” 53–4. 49 Cardon, L’art au foyer, 5, 115. For a description of a girl’s private, stylish bedroom, see, for example, De Villeblanche, Trois jeunes filles, 28–30. 50 Courgey, “Mémoires, chapitre 2, suite,” 251–3. 51 Magraw, France, 300. : 270 :
NOTES TO PAGES 184–91
52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80
81 82 83
See, for example, Au Printemps, 118. “Berceau,” 313. Salignac, “Mode pratique” (1903), 324–5. Courgey, “Mémoires, chapitre 14,” 97. Bremond, “Le berceau,” 79. The last sentence is cited from Rousseau, Ếmile, 129–130. Maison du petit St Thomas, 30. Salaires, 20. Oates, The Story, 169. See, for example, Ameublement, 168, fig. 80, nos. 696, 698. La Berge, “Medicalization,” 65–7. Oates, The Story, 155, 166–8, 174–7. See, for example, Rancy, Cradle, ca 1820, mahogany, height: 141 cm, length: 107 cm, depth: 54 cm, private collection. Esparbié, Le moniteur, 7. Dunnigan, “Michael Thonet,” 53. Bouchut, Hygiène (1874), 284. See also Chamoüin, Des soins, 68. See, for example, “Charpente du berceau,” 314. Au Bon Marché, 36. Brochard, “Le berceau,” 10; Girault, Conseils, 37–8. See, for example, “Lit portatif,” 106; “Berceau avec sa couverture,” 109; “Berceau et charpente,” 314. See, for example, “Toilette de nuit,” 155. D’Ans, “Courrier,” n.p. Salignac, “Mode pratique,” no. 309, 68, figs. 1–2. Salignac, “Mode pratique,” no. 310, 92. Similar endorsements were repeated in manuals for housewives. See, for example, De La Jonchère, L’enfant, 137, fig. 56. Brochard, “Causerie” (1880), 34. See also Brochard, “Causerie” (1884), 115. Toussaint, “Causerie,” 113–14. See, for example, Auvard and Pingat, “Hygiène infantile,” 38–40; Auvard and Pingat, “Mémoires originaux,” 903–26. Appadurai, “Commodities,” 3–58. Bouchut, Hygiène (1874), 287–8. Unlike the bottle-feeding industry that heavily relied on doctors’ brands, professional cabinetmakers and locksmiths chiefly governed the cradle market. For further information, see Ventura, “‘Long Live the Bottle,’” 329–56. Brochard, “Causerie” (1880), 179. See also Brochard, “Les accidents” (1876), 116–18. Annual Report, 145; Firmin Didot and Firmin Didot, Annuaire-almanach, 106. Bulletin de l’union, 190.
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NOTES TO PAGES 191–205
84 Les merveilles de l’Exposition, 542. 85 See, for example, Proust, Traité d’hygiène, 118. 86 Brochard, “Les accidents” (1887), 70–1. For similar views, see also Brochard, “Causerie” (1877), 33-4. 87 Denucé, “Berceau incubateur,” 723–4. 88 Garnier, Hygiène, 564. 89 Tarnier, “Des soins,” 819–25; Auvard, “De la couveuse,” 577–609; Berthod, Les enfants, 31–2. For further information, see Dunn, “Stéphane Tarnier,” 137–9; Rebovich, “The Infant Incubator”; Greene, “The Cradle,” 64–89. 90 For further information in regard to Dr Lucien Goussin’s methods, see Clerc, Hygiène, 125; Chereau, Le parnasse, 272. 91 Bouchut, Hygiène (1874), 355–63. 92 See, for example, Courgey, “Mémoires, chapitre 6,” 13–14. 93 See, for example, Courgey, “Mémoires, chapitre 10,” 39. 94 See, for example, Courgey, “Mémoires, chapitre 4,” 280–1; Variot, L’hygiène infantile, 24–55; Bouchut, Hygiène (1874), 355–63. 95 Conrad, “Medicalization,” 211. 96 Greene, “The Cradle,” 64–89. 97 Foucault, “The Crisis,” 13. 98 See, for example, Variot, Instructions, 6–7. 99 Donné, Mothers, 175. 100 Conrad, The Medicalization, 120. 101 See, for example, Bouchut, Hygiène (1874), 274–5; Triaire, Entretiens, 65–7; Girault, Conseils, 38. 102 See also Jean Georges Vibert, The First-born, 1872, watercolour, 35.9 × 44.5 cm, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art; Léon Lhermitte, Maternity, ca. 1899, pastel on paper, 60.4 × 47.6 cm, private collection; Maurice Denis, Maternity in Pink and Yellow, 1907, oil on canvas, 73 × 57 cm, private collection; Mary Cassatt, Sleepy Baby, ca. 1910, 64.1 × 52 cm, Dallas, Museum of Fine Arts. 103 See, for example, Maurice Denis, Sleeping Baby, 1894, Album 25, folios. 3, 11, pencil, black ink, graphite, and wash on paper, 11 × 18 cm, Paris, Musée d’Orsay; Maurice Denis, Baby in a Cradle, 1916, Album 26, folios. 8–9, charcoal, pencil, wash, and watercolour on paper, 15.6 × 9.8 cm, Paris, Musée d’Orsay. 104 See Denis Maurice, Noële Sleeping on the Beach, Le Pouldu, 1899, 12 × 15 cm, Paris, Musée d’Orsay. 105 During the first decades of the twentieth century, several artists photographed sleeping babies. See, for example, François Kollar, Sleep: Girl Sleeping with Her Doll, 1930, 13 × 18 cm, Charenton-le-Pont, Médiathèque du Patrimoine et de la Photographie; André Kertész, Child Sleeping with a Doll, : 272 :
NOTES TO PAGES 205–10
106 107
108 109 110
111
112 113 114 115 116 117
118 119 120 121 122 123 124
1932, photograph, 9 × 12 cm, Charenton-le-Pont, Médiathèque du Patrimoine et de la Photographie; André Kertész, Children Playing on a Blanket, 1932, photograph, 9 × 6 cm, Charenton-le-Pont, Médiathèque du Patrimoine et de la Photographie. See, for example, Eugène Carrière, Maternity, ca. 1890, oil on canvas, 54.8 × 73.3 cm, Cardiff, National Museums and Galleries. The artist and his spouse had four children; the last, Paulette, was born in 1904. For further details, see Uzanne, “Paul Helleu,” 263–71; Goubrin and Imhoff, Paul Helleu, 139–43. Girault, Conseils, 38. Brochard, “Correspondance” (1882), 45. Tarnier, Chantreuil, and Budin, Allaitement, 77. See also Girault, Conseils, 38; Chamoüin, Des soins, 29, 69; Le Barillier, Traité (1860), 48; Bachelet, Conseils, 218; de Manacéïne, Sommeil, 172–3. See, for example, Paul César Helleu, Alice, Two Months, 1896, drypoint on paper, 30 × 19.2 cm, Williamstown, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; Paul César Helleu, The Breast, ca. 1897, drypoint on paper, 57 × 41 cm, private collection. Perrot and Fugier, “Roles and Characters,” 201; Papiernik, “Histoire de l’accouchement,” 42; Gélis, “De la matrone,” 29. Courgey, “Mémoires, chapitre 2, suite,” 251–3. Le Rebours, Avis (1799), 159–63. Caillau, Avis, 23–4. Barjon, “Le coucher,” 50. For similar accounts, see Brochard, “Faits divers” (March 1888), 47; Brochard, “Faits divers” (1875), 175. See, for example, Guillaume Bodinier, Woman Sleeping with Her Baby, ca. 1845, charcoal and sanguine on paper, 44.3 × 58.3 cm, Angers, Musée des Beaux-Arts; Eugène Alphonse Lecadre, Sleep, 1872, oil on canvas, 170 × 195.8 cm, Nantes, Musée des Beaux-Arts. See, for example, Donné, Mothers, 175, 177; Barjon, “Le coucher,” 49–50. Tarnier, Chantreuil, and Budin, Allaitement, 78. Hemelrijk, Matrona Docta, 64–7, 93–4, 194–6; Fantham, Women, 264–6; Waterfield and Stadter, Roman Lives, 4, 8, 25, 34, 40. See, for example, Angelica Kauffmann, Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi, 1785, oil on canvas, 121 × 127 cm, Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Latour, Reassembling the Social, 79–81. Elias, The Civilizing Process, 138. For a list of advised behaviour in the bedroom, see 136–7. Courgey, “Mémoires, chapitre 15,” 98.
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NOTES TO PAGES 210–16
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22
23 24 25 26
Afterword
Masson, “Le sommeil,” 118. Brochard, “Préjugés,” 30. See, for example, Au Bon Marché, 29. For further information, see Sears, The Vaccine Book. Conrad, The Medicalization, 120. For further information, see O’Connor, “Is a Night Nurse”; Ajiboye, “What Is a Night Nanny?” For further information, as well as a long list of such facilities, especially popular in Australia, see The Complete List. For a discussion of demedicalization, see Scull, Cultural Sociology, 500. Crary, 24/7, 16–28. Carter, Hathaway, and Lettieri, “Common Sleep Disorders,” 368–77. Comparable data is also revealed in other Western countries, such as the United Kingdom (Williams, “Sleep and Health,” 186–7). “Parents of Newborns.” Druckerman, “Doing Her Nights,” in Bringing Up Bébé, 41–56. France Insomnie, http://franceinsomnie.fr/. See also Putois et al., “The French,” 56–65. Thirion and Challamel, Le sommeil, 8. Mansbach, Go; Mansbach, Seriously. The first book was translated into French (Mansbach, Dors). Harmanci, “A Whim”; Neill, “Spoof Kids.” Harmanci, “A Whim.” Venn, Arber, Meadows, and Hislop, “The Fourth Shift,” 79–97. Based on an analysis of forty popular parenting books, 61 per cent supported cry-it-out, while only 31 per cent did not, and 8 per cent took no position. For further details, see Ramos and Youngclarke, “Parenting Advice,” 1616–23. For further analysis regarding the popularity of sleep training, see Rosier and Cassels, “From Crying,” 1516–35. Pironneau, Comment élever, 81. Thirion and Challamel, Le sommeil, 99–132, 166–72, 180–6. Challamel, Le sommeil, 1, 17–18. See also Masson, “Le sommeil,” 110–18; Kahn, Le sommeil; Gurney and Marshall, Éduquer votre enfant; Bacus, Le sommeil; Martello, Enfin, je dors. Winnicott, “The Capacity,” 416–20. De Leersnyder, L’enfant, 44–5, 50–1, 55–6. Stearns, Rowland, and Giarnella, “Children’s Sleep,” 345–66. Ferber, Protéger le sommeil.
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NOTES TO PAGES 217–23
27 Ferber, Solve Your Child’s Sleep, 6, 76, 88. 28 Linnell, The Complete Guide, 42. For similar arguments, see also Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits; Douglas, Sleep Solutions; Jassey and Jassey, The Newborn Sleep Book. 29 Linnell, The Complete Guide, 107. A similar method is advised in Ezzo and Bucknam, On Becoming Baby Wise. 30 See, for example, Jouveau, Partager le sommeil; Henry and Wang, “Effects,” 863–75; Narvaez, “Dangers”; Sears, Sears, Sears, and Sears, “The Joys of Sleeping,” 103–33. 31 Bowlby, “The Nature,” 350–73. For further information, see Solter, The Aware Baby, 37–71. 32 Davidson and Brunet, “Le sommeil,” 93. 33 Ibid., 92. 34 See, for example, Gibbons, “In France”; Pasche-Guignard, “The In/Visibility,” 105–24; Fedele and Pasche-Guignard, “Pushing,” 131–49. 35 Riquet, Roussel, and Vigie, “Le sommeil,” 79–90. 36 Jouveau, Partager le sommeil, 1. 37 See, for example, Jouvet, Le sommeil; Klarsfeld, Les horloge; Lecendreux, Réponses; Desombre, Idrissi, Fourneret, Revol, and De Villard, “Prise en charge,” 639–44. 38 For further details regarding children’s sleep and breastfeeding, see Tomori, “Changing Cultures,” 115–30. 39 Fleiss, “Mistaken Approaches,” 22–3. 40 See, for example, Nicolas, Le cri, 107; Lefébure, Le manuel, 204; Caillau, Avis, 23–4; Le Rebours, Avis (1799), 159–63. 41 “Skin-to-skin contact.” See also Messmer, Rodriguez, Adams, Wells-Gentry, Washburn, Zabaleta, and Abreu, “Effect of Kangaroo,” 408–14; McRoberts, Is Skin-to-Skin Contact. Further support for co-sleeping has come from research in stress physiology, which maintains that it is stressful for infants to be left alone. See, for example, Gunnar, Larson, Hertsgaard, Harris, and Brodersen, “The Stressfulness,” 290–303. 42 Spock, The Common Sense, 3. 43 Schön and Silvén, “Natural Parenting,” 102. This approach to parenting is also called empathic parenting, instinctive care, or natural nurturing (ibid., 103). 44 Schön and Silvén, “Natural Parenting,” 102–83; Linnell, The Complete Guide, 107–8; Ball, “Bed-sharing,” 22–7. See also Jackson, Three in a Bed; McKenna, Sleeping with Your Baby. 45 Moreno, “Bed Sharing,” 1088.
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NOTES TO PAGES 224–7
46 Sears, The Baby Sleep Book, 103. 47 See, for example, Dell’antonia, “A Campaign”; Colson, Willinger, Rybin, Heeren, Smith, Lister, and Corwin, “Trends and Factors,” 1032–7; Suad, Warylin, and Danell, “Review of Hazards,” 1019–23. 48 “American Academy of Pediatrics.” 49 See, for example, Ducor, “Correspondance,” 151–4. 50 Isaac, “Snoo”; Cagan, “Berceau connecté Snoo.” 51 Karp, The Happiest Baby (2002). 52 Margalit, “How Harvey Karp,” 5, 12. 53 See, for example, Chamoüin, Des soins, 107. 54 Karp, The Happiest Baby (2015), 85–183. 55 “Positioning and SIDS,” 1120–6. 56 Karp, The Happiest Baby (2015), 10. 57 Margalit, “How Harvey Karp,” 1–2. 58 Venn, Arber, Meadows, and Hislop, “The Fourth Shift,” 79–97. 59 Leroy, Médecine maternelle, 154–5. 60 Brochard, “L’éducation” (1873), 19–20. 61 Davidson and Brunet, “Le sommeil,” 93. 62 Kohut, The Analysis, 3. For similar claims, see Winnicott, “Psychosis,” 219–28; Silverstein, Self Psychology, 51–62. 63 Kohut and Wolf, “The Disorders,” 413. 64 Kohut, The Analysis, 116. 65 Silverstein, Self Psychology, 51–62. 66 Kohut maintained that, in addition to mirroring, there are two supplementary kinds of selfobjects: idealizing, and twinship. For further details, see Kohut and Wolf, “The Disorders,” 414–16; Newman and Bacal, Theories, 232; Kohut, How Does Analysis, 200; Silverstein, Self Psychology, 51–62. 67 Debré and Doumic, Le sommeil. For similar claims, see Davidson and Brunet, “Le sommeil,” 92–3. 68 Gilligan, In a Different Voice, 171–2; Chodorow, The Reproduction, 4–5. 69 O’Reilly, Mother Outlaws, 64. See also Chase and Rogers, Mothers and Children; Hayes, The Cultural Contradictions. 70 Elisabeth Badinter, Le conflict. See also Green, “Feminist Mothering,” 36–50. 71 Maier, No Kids, 65–9. 72 Ibid., 2. 73 Ibid., 25, 83, 111.
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NOTES TO PAGES 227–32
74 Hislop and Arber, “Understanding Women,” 815–37; Arber, Hislop, Bote, and Meadows, “Gender Roles,” 182–99; Maume, Sebastian, and Bardo, “Gender,” 746–68. 75 Burgard, “The Needs,” 3–12. 76 De Leersnyder, L’enfant, 44–56; Thirion and Challamel, Le sommeil, 180–6. 77 See, for example, Canapari, “‘Le Pause’”; Pelley, “How French Parents”; Kerslake, “I Tried ‘Le Pause.’” 78 Cited in Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé, 53. 79 Ibid., 53.
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INDEX
Page numbers in italics indicate references to illustrations. Armstrong, George, Dr, 41, 57 Au Bon Marché. See grands magasins baby carriage (voitures d’enfants), 167, 208, 217, 219 Barjon, François, Dr, 75, 154–5, 212 basket, 27, 49–50, 58, 115, 150, 180–2, 184, 188, 190–1, 197, 199–200 bassinet, portable cradle, 24, 49, 51–2, 55, 58, 149–50, 180–2, 184, 187–9, 193, 196–7, 199–201, 216, 227–9, 233 Baudelaire, Charles, 14, 16–18, 123, 170 bedbugs, 185, 189, 201 bedding, 9–10, 23, 59, 78, 85, 99, 127, 152, 156, 167, 175, 178, 186, 188, 193, 197, 201 bedroom, 89, 126, 150–4, 173, 177, 212, 227 bed-sharing, 55, 224, 226–7 Béquet de Vienne, Marie, 98–9, 201, 203 bonnets. See clothing Bouchet-Doumenq, Henri, 85, 85, 97, 124, 167, 178 Boucher, François, 21, 29, 44 Bouchut, Eugène, Dr, 72, 75, 79, 80, 83, 203, 125, 127, 160, 203, 206, 229 Bouguereau, William-Adolphe, 22,
102–5, 104, 110, 113, 115, 116, 129, 136, 140, 175, 208, 209 breastfeeding, 27, 29, 36–46, 49, 52–7, 80, 98–9, 105, 126, 154, 190, 208, 211–13, 217, 219–20, 222, 225–6 Bremond, Félix, Dr, 150, 158, 175, 184–5 Brochard, André-Théodore, Dr, 67, 68, 69, 72, 75, 77–8, 83, 89, 96, 101, 126, 127, 128, 132, 144, 159–61, 166–7, 184, 200, 203, 205, 211, 217, 219, 224, 229–30 Budin, Pierre-Constant, Dr, 158–9, 205, 213 Cadogan, William, Dr, 37–8, 40, 45, 54, 56 Caille, Léon Emile, 82, 83, 97, 101, 117, 124, 160, 178, 257nn121–2 Caire, Marie, 186–7, 187 Caradec, Théophile, Dr, 77, 125 Chabert, Philibert, Dr, 32–3 Challamel, Marie-Josephe, Dr, 221–2, 224 Chantreuil, Gustave, Dr, 158–9, 205, 213 Christ. See Jesus Cibot, Edouard, 107–8, 107 clothing, 158–62; bonnets, 115, 150, 161–3, 167, 186, 188, 190, 208, 217; English manner (habille
à l’anglaise), 158–60; modern swaddling clothes (maillot modern), 158–60. See also swaddling co-sleeping, 23, 55–6, 178, 208–13, 211, 225–8 Courgey, Stéphane, Dr, 73–4, 90, 160, 190–1, 212 cradle, 3–6, 27–9, 44–52, 53–6, 177– 207, 227–9; baby-weighing cradle, 206–7; incubator cradle, 205–6; parachute cradle, 204, 204–5; wicker cradle, 49, 52, 58–60, 83–4, 115, 117, 180–1, 184, 187–8, 199–201; wooden cradle, 50–1, 85, 138, 178, 180, 184–8. See also Moïse crèche, 69, 188, 193–4, 194 crib, 80, 154, 179–99; metal crib, 150, 184, 189–90, 193–4, 197; wicker crib, 199–201; wooden crib, 189, 194–6 cry-it-out, 70–1, 222–8 D’Albrays, Georges, Dr, 67, 77, 168–70 Danloux, Henri-Pierre, 49–50, 50 Daumier, Honoré, 4, 5–6, 21, 59–61, 60, 61, 63, 73, 75, 83–4, 84, 90, 92–5, 94, 97, 101, 178, 187, 202, 233 death portraits, 105–9, 108 Decaisne, Henri, 106, 106–8 Degas, Edgar, 88, 124, 132–4, 133, 134, 139, 143–4, 167 Degoix, Casimir, Dr, 75, 156 De Hooch, Pieter, 46, 46–7, 52, 96 De Jonghe, Gustave Leonard, 154–5, 155, 158, 190, 213 De Leersnyder, Helene, Dr, 223, 233 De Manacéïne, Marie, Dr, 66, 72 demedicalization, 23, 208–13, 220
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INDEX
Denis, Maurice, 161–2, 162, 173, 197–9, 198, 210, 210 depopulation, 12, 37, 98, 236n38, 237n39 Desessartz, Jean-Charles, Dr, 39–41, 48, 53 Diderot and d’Alembert, Encyclopédie, 31–2, 46, 105, 181 doll novels, 67–9, 68, 75–7, 76, 96, 138, 154–5, 160–1 dolls, 96, 99, 148, 149–50, 160–2, 162, 166, 169–74, 174, 214, 216, 225 Donné, Alfred, Dr, 69–73, 90, 92–3, 119, 126, 129, 144, 153, 208, 222–3, 229 Émile: or, On Education. See Rousseau, Jean-Jacques Encyclopédie. See Diderot and d’Alembert English manner. See clothing Esquirol, Étienne, Dr, 134–5 Ferber, Richard, Dr, 7, 223–4 Fleury, Fanny, 99–100, 100, 135, 190, 208, 210, 254n67 gardes, 35, 38, 52, 55, 89, 124, 134, 150, 157, 209, 212, 220, 258n16 gaze, maternal. See maternal gaze germ theory, 153–4 grands magasins, 161, 164–6, 171, 187– 91, 194, 197, 199, 216, 219, 266n73; Au Bon Marché, 183, 196, 197, 219; Grands magasins du Printemps, 197, 202, 219; Grands magasins du Louvre, 159, 161, 164–6, 171 Greuze, Jean-Baptiste, 21, 26, 27–9, 45–7, 50–2, 51, 84, 86, 90, 96, 110–19, 119, 199
Hall, Marshal, Dr, 57, 88, 144, 169, 230 Harris, Walter, Dr, 33–4 Helleu, Paul César, 210–12, 211 hygiene, 13, 21, 23, 62–80, 93, 102, 106, 124, 126–7, 152–9, 168, 174–5, 184–6, 189–94, 197, 201, 205–8, 216, 218–19 indigestion, 32–4, 36–43, 55–7 insomnia, 7–8, 12–13, 35, 40–2, 47, 62, 65–6, 70, 74, 153, 220–1, 231 Jesus, 3, 4, 5, 29, 47, 90, 103–5, 110–15, 139, 156, 188 Jeune mère ou l’éducation du premier âge, journal, 74–5, 77–8, 89, 93, 96, 99, 101, 125–7, 127, 153, 166–9, 175, 184, 191, 199–201, 211–12 Karp, Harvey, 7, 228–9 king of Rome, 28, 29, 45, 92 Lagrange, Léon, art critic, 95, 189–90 Le Barillier, Édouard, Dr, 73, 75, 154–5, 160 Lefébure, Guillaume-René, Dr, 57, 182 Le Rebours, Marie-Angélique, 52–6, 88, 212 Leroux, Louis-Eugène, 185, 185–6 Leroy, Alphonse Louis, Dr, 27, 39, 44, 52, 57–8, 124, 184, 230 literacy, women, 66–7, 175 lulling, lullabies, 38, 47–8, 56–8, 73, 78, 115, 137–8, 178, 225 Madonna, 22, 46–7, 84, 102–18, 128, 136, 138, 140–1, 190 Marcé, Louis-Victor, Dr, 129, 135, 136 maternal gaze, 3, 6, 22, 84, 86–96, 100–1, 103–11, 124–33, 138, 140–6, 231 : 327 :
INDEX
Mauriceau, François, Dr, 129, 135–6 miasma, 153–4, 184 Millet, Jean-François, 114, 114–15, 117, 131, 138, 154, 156, 160, 167, 178 Mode illustrée, journal, 159, 163, 191 Moïse, 188, 199–201, 222 Monet, Claude, 148–50, 155, 160–1, 167–70, 173–4, 197, 148 Moniteur de la mode, journal, 124–6, 165 Morisot, Berthe, 2, 3, 5–6, 8–9, 16, 84, 87, 97, 101, 124–32, 139–46, 142, 143, 160, 189–90 motherhood, institution, 22, 96–7, 111–18, 128, 140–1, 145 mothering, 22, 96–7, 99, 123, 128, 131, 140–1, 145, 170 motherliness, 22, 97–100, 109, 112, 141, 144, 214 Napoléon, 5, 29, 45, 91–2 Nicolas, Pierre-François, Dr, 39, 153 night nurses. See gardes Nocq, Henri Eugène, 213–14, 214, 216 normalcy, 11, 29, 65, 80, 152, 207 opiates, 34, 39–42, 56, 227 Pavillon de l’enfant, 164, 172 Pepper, Edward, Dr, 65–6 Perrault, Léon Basile, 112, 112–15, 119–20, 120, 123, 128, 156 Pontillon, Edma, 5, 83, 124–32, 136–7, 140–5, 209 post-mortem photographs. See death portraits postpartum depression (folie puerpérale), 22, 24, 124, 132–40, 142, 231 poupard. See dolls
Prud’hon, Pierre-Paul, 28, 28–9, 45 puerperal insanity. See postpartum depression (folie puerpérale) Robert, Hubert, 48, 48–9 rocking, 8, 24, 39, 47–52, 55–6, 75, 115, 137–8, 183, 186, 208, 217, 224, 227–9 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 30, 37, 44–5, 50, 53, 57, 62, 103, 157, 213 Roybet, Ferdinand, 173–4, 174 Salignac, Colette, 191, 199–200 sleep training, 72–8, 217, 222–3 Smith, Hugh, Dr, 43–4, 48, 57, 70 snoo, 228–9 social medicine (medecine sociale). See hygiene Spartan method, 44 Stevens, Alfred, 18, 104, 119, 121–3, 122, 189–90, 208, 213 Strauss, Paul, Dr, 105–6 swaddling, 44–5, 49–50, 58, 157–61, 164, 166, 186, 190, 216–17, 219–20, 226, 228–9 Tarnier, Stéphane Étienne, Dr, 158–9, 205, 213 Thirion, Marie, Dr, 221–2, 224 Thonet, Michael, 195, 195–7 Toulmouche, Auguste, 95, 95–6, 101, 156, 167, 189–90 toys, 152, 165, 168–75, 200–1 transitional object, 170–4, 223 Triaire, Paul, Dr, 157, 161, 165
: 328 :
INDEX
Underwood, Michael, Dr, 42, 56–7, 169 vaccine, 69, 80, 141, 207, 217, 219–20 Van Gogh, Vincent, 124, 137, 137–40 Virgin. See Madonna wet-nursing, 22, 37–42, 53–7, 105, 124, 131, 133–4, 142–5, 157, 167, 180, 219, 226 Winnicott, Donald, 136, 170–1, 223 woman question, 22, 86–8 Zola, Emile, 6, 163, 188, 252n26, 258n16