The incluse. The wet nurses. Arturo Barea Square (Madrid)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:27:41 +0000

The video, which is 4.48 minutes long and chronologically presented, is part of “Madrid, Ciudad de las Mujeres”, a cultural and tourist application where the traces of women in the city of Madrid are recovered http://madridciudaddelasmujeres.es/. As indicated in the presentation on the website, to which we refer for this description, the Inclusa de Madrid was a charitable institution dedicated to collecting abandoned children that in 1807 was installed in a large house located in the Plaza de Arturo Barea. The institution, founded two centuries earlier, took in an average of a thousand children a year. Some were abandoned in the adjoining Casa de la Maternidad and others in the lathes that were scattered around Madrid. According to its statutes, the objectives of the Inclusa were to “prevent infanticide and save the honour of mothers” as well as to collect “all children born of illegitimate conception”. Although it could function as a place of temporary abandonment or a place of redistribution of abandoned children among the families of the neighbourhood in exchange for a small amount of money, with the construction of this building it was planned to house them up to the age of seven. The wet nurses of the incluse are a clear example of how care has historically been entrusted to women, especially those from the most fragile economic strata, who made their milk available externally. Women who practised the so-called “mercenary breastfeeding”, a widespread custom among the middle and upper classes. Their working conditions were not good, and not only because of the possibility of falling ill, but also because of their low economic compensation. The Inclusa became a privileged setting in which to debate about care, payment for care and its impact on women’s lives.

The post The incluse. The wet nurses. Arturo Barea Square (Madrid) first appeared on History Lab.

Surveillance of sexuality. The prison for adulteresses. Calle de Atocha, 87 (Madrid)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:27:41 +0000

The video, 4.33 minutes long, is part of “Madrid, Ciudad de las Mujeres”, a cultural and touristic application where the traces of women in the city of Madrid are recovered http://madridciudaddelasmujeres.es/. As the video recounts, the galleys and hospices of Madrid have, since the beginning of modern times, been a place of reclusion and torture for a whole series of women who did not comply with the established rules. These included poor women, “rogues”, “fortune tellers”, prostitutes and adulteresses. As we entered the 18th century and under enlightened and charitable precepts, the quality and diversity of places of confinement for women diversified, with houses of seclusion and repentance where many women who practised prostitution would end up apart from society and subjected to a regime of beatitudes. Touched, veiled and living under a strict rule that they would only leave to get married or take religious vows. They were also places of confinement for a wide variety of petty crimes such as stealing clothes or vagrancy, and moral offences such as adultery or the highly punishable female adultery. A hospice was founded in the building at Calle de Atocha, 97, in Madrid, which also housed the Colegio de San Nicolás de Bari at the beginning of the 18th century, an institution for women who, “forgetful of their honour or conjugal fidelity, incurred in some crime of impurity”. The video tells the story of some of these condemned women.

The post Surveillance of sexuality. The prison for adulteresses. Calle de Atocha, 87 (Madrid) first appeared on History Lab.

Ilegitimidad - History Lab

The incluse. The wet nurses. Arturo Barea Square (Madrid)

Surveillance of sexuality. The prison for adulteresses. Calle de Atocha, 87 (Madrid)