Childbirth

Adirondack Gentrification: Depletion (The Devil’s Due, Part 3)

August 3, 2021 by Eliza Jane Darling Leave a Comment

In the autumn of 2015, the Adirondack Research Consortium in partnership with the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government held a panel to discuss the diminishing demography of the Adirondacks. The all-male affair it convened to lead this conversation was typically partisan, casually excluding the perspectives, positions and participation of those primarily burdened with the labor of Adirondack propagation.

While this august assembly of middle-aged men sat pondering the problem with pie charts and furrowed brows, back home in the mountains, the keystone species of the demographic ecosystem – Adirondack mothers – got on with the business of raising children in a climate that is notably inimical to their interests even within the auspices of nation that is generally hostile to the working conditions of those who shoulder the bulk of the responsibility for social reproduction. [Read more…] about Adirondack Gentrification: Depletion (The Devil’s Due, Part 3)

Motherhood in Early America

May 15, 2019 by Liz Covart Leave a Comment

Mother’s Day became a national holiday on May 9, 1914 to honor all of the work mothers do to raise children.

But what precisely is the work that mothers do to raise children? Has the nature of mothers, motherhood, and the work mothers do changed over time?

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, Nora Doyle, an Assistant Professor of History at Salem College in North Carolina, has combed through the historical record to find answers to these questions. Specifically, she’s sought to better understand the lived and imagined experiences of mothers and motherhood between the 1750s and 1850s. [Read more…] about Motherhood in Early America