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.

Collection: Aplications

Project: 4. Family, daily life and social inequality in Europe., 8. Women and the change for gender equality in Europe.

Chronology: XVIII, XIX

Scope: Secondary Education, Baccalaureate

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D4asByW2b8

Resource type: Video

Format: Multimedia

Source: Madrid, Ciudad de las Mujeres

Language: Spanish

Owner: Francisco García González (Modernalia)

Copyright: Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Abstract: Video about the Inclusa in Madrid, abandoned children and milkmaids

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