05401 - The Second Oldest Profession: The Wet Nurse, Revered and Reviled

Hello. Good morning. Um, my name is Diane Gayer and um, I'm going to be interviewing Barbara Zooker and um, but first I want to say this is part of 0541 program. We're starting to do live interviews. Manny Leone started 0541 about 30 years ago, which as many of you know is a journal full of interviews, writings, poetry, photography, art, um, by Vermonters, about Vermonters, but greater than that and urban design and just everything that we think of in terms of coloring how we live within a cultural context. Um and so in recognizing that the journal is still being produced maybe quarterly maybe annually um we've started to do some live interviews with various folks in the same vein as what the publication looks like and um so to that um Barbara Zuker is here and she's a American sculptor an author a feminist art pioneer who co-founded did AIR gallery in 1972 in New York. Um she moved to Vermont when she became chair of the art department at University of Vermont. Um and is a professor of art at UVM. Um the dates were something like 1979 to 2001. So, a long career in the arts including articles and now a book, a beautiful book called the second oldest profession, the wet nurse reved and reviled. Sorry about that. Um, and so I'll let um you say a few words about the book and then I'll ask you some questions. >> There are so many words I could say about the book. just that in a sense the book found me. I never intended to make a book. I had done I'll tell you about how I got started later but >> I made a lot of work that was relevant sculptures drawings uh other kinds of works on paper and uh it did not seem sufficient to whatever I was after and ultimately I realized that I had done so much research and I had traveled and I had done more more sort of delving in this subject than anything else I'd ever done and I realized it had to be a And so then then my focus shifted and um that's how that's how I got started. >> So just even stepping right into the title, who were the wet nurses? What how >> Yes. You know, it's funny. If you ask some people what a wet nurse is, they really have no idea. They don't know what they were or what they still may be. And the wet nurses were were everywhere. They were throughout history, at least it's been chartered for 2,000 years. They were women who suckled other women's children. So >> for pay. >> Well, yes. Yes. And and I mean, incidentally, there still is tandem wet nursing where a good friend who also has milk has a baby, they might share it. They might give another child suck. But yes, so second oldest profession to guess what the prostitute. And so this it the profession has never been respected. >> Well, I shouldn't say that has alternately been respected and hated and is considered I don't know bad, vile, um, inappropriate, wrong. So I would say that about prostitution as well as the wet nurse, they're necessary. And in fact, wet nurses, women who gave stuff to other women's children, kept millions and millions and millions of babies alive throughout history until the 20th century, until the late 20th century because even in the 40s there were wet nurses >> in United States. So backing up just a little bit, I think in reading the book, even in Egypt, we have drawings, freezes that showed absolutely the suckling of babies or Yeah. Um [cough and clears throat] and so it goes throughout deep time, deep history. Um but there was also training, wasn't there? Training the the the nurses, >> yes, >> had a whole Now I'm jumping centuries probably. >> Go ahead. Um but at some point in um was it the Middle Ages or or more recent 18 19th century that there were training schools for the nursing? >> No. >> Because all you really had to do was whip out a breast with a nipple on it. >> Oh, but there was no training. Okay. >> There were brokers. There were wet nurse brokers like it was a business, you know, and uh some men and some women had >> homes, houses, and wet nurses either live there until they found employment or they were there for the day. So, they were they were brokered. So, there there's some images in the book of women hanging out who had given birth >> recently or had wet nursed someone else's baby recently. And incidentally, once you had given birth, once you had milk, you could have it throughout your productive years. You could you could be a milk fountain for a very long time. So anyway, there were brokers uh and there were places where uh mostly husbands >> could go to find the right witness. And and I think you talk about in the the tests that they ran. Yes. The testing and the >> squirting and the Yes. [laughter] >> So so I thought speak briefly about the squirting. >> I mean because that leads to one of your sculptures. >> Yeah. Yeah. So when when the husbands big surprise when the husbands would come to choose the proper wet nurse for their child, one of the things that women did, I don't know if they did this everywhere, but they certainly did do it in France, they would squirt their milk. >> They would squirt it as far as they could. And usually the woman who squirted farther, farthest got the job. And you know, I mean, kind of like also in the book there's a, you know, the pissing putty, the little sculptures of little boys peeing. And so this kind of gave gave equality to women because they could make the same arc with something productive. >> So there's a a Yes. There a sculpture that you made. >> Yes, it is. It's called milk fountain. And if you can't tell, it's a boob. There's a breast >> with milk splashing out. >> Milk splashing out. Yes. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> It's extraordinary. It's It's about two feet. >> Three >> three >> three three-ish a little over that. >> But >> yes. >> Um but so for me it it fits with and I guess I thought it was that they came out of schools like nannies were trained in schools. Um but you have a an image of a woman in a costume with epilelettes and all sorts of um >> You mean that one? >> Yes. >> Yes. So that's an interesting subject. Um if a wet nurse was hired from a specific area, France, Italy, wherever, they often had regional costumes and they were dem it was demanded that they wear them because it was considered a kind of sign of status. It was status. Um they also got certain rewards. So in that image that you saw, >> there were these big silver balls that went into their hair. was a gift that they got after a certain amount of service >> and >> if they didn't have a regional costume or even if they did in France in Paris they were sent to the bul mare which is fancy fancy department store that has existed for hundreds of years and their affluent employers would buy them an entire set of clothing >> for winter for summer for spring and they were these elegant women who were giving milk to their infant and they were paraded around you know and it's kind of an analogy that I made was they were like the best chev if they came from France in a certain area called the morva and if you got a wet nurse from the moran you had scored like you had the best cheese in the world you know that's the analogy I would make >> anyway >> it was also an era where people were in in Paris um France maybe more in general >> you were supposed to wear the clothes of your status You were identified in the street by what you wore and you were supposed you could get stopped by the police if you weren't wearing your appropriate dress. Yeah. So, so that to me fit in that hierarchy piece of it. And I think there's a lot of hierarchy in all of this >> of like who can afford a wet nurse. >> Absolutely. Well, well, that's >> And didn't they have children at home? >> Yes. So one of the questions that people have asked me often is what happened to these women's babies >> because first they had to give birth in order to earn the money to be a witness and there were many things that happened. Uh, one thing would be the baby is left left with the parent and maybe you know the grandmother or something and maybe there's a f maybe there's a relative maybe there is maybe the baby will be given milk and maybe not and if not they were given maybe pap which was not really nutritious and a lot of infants died some did not you know but the child was abandoned and or >> the infant of an affluent family could be sent away to the wet nurse to the wet nurs's family in the country somewhere. Get this, they'd never seen this place. They didn't know what it looked like. They would send their infant off to be suckled for over a year. Some of them died, some of them didn't. But the infant would love the person who was giving them milk. And the wet nurse often loved the baby. And so then after a year there was this wrenching sorrow because the child was whipped away >> from from the person to whom he she was attached >> to go back to his mother >> her mother >> and to no longer be nursed >> and some of them died. Some of them more of them died if they were in the country because the mother and father could never see what was going on and they were getting paid. Fewer died but infants did die. you know, there were no medication, no nothing. So, it's it's kind of >> and it was a rural urban divide, too, as well as a class divide in all this mix. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> I know. when I saw I accidentally found this subject >> because I was reading I was reading a book of essays um by a woman I respected a woman the late Linda Nland who was a critic and there was a picture which you probably know of a Berth Maurico who was an impressionist who's now very hot who wasn't considered so hot then anyway painting of a a little kid on the lap of a woman and It turns out that the little kid was her little kid and the woman was in fact a wet nurse and she was painting the wet nurse. She had hired to feed her baby. >> Yeah. >> And that was just that was it like what you know what's that? And um >> so that triggered a whole lot. >> It triggered the whole thing. >> Yeah. So, people have asked me, well, how did you get interested in this and how did you write a book and blabby blabby and what I've also said is that if you're an artist and you get an idea >> and you have to have the courage to follow out that idea, >> it sort of leads you to what medium you're going to use. And so, to me, this was in effect another medium, another way to get at what I was looking for, what I wanted to say. >> Well, it's a whole creative story. It's a whole creative evolving and how long did it take you? >> You ready? >> Yes. >> This is embarrassing. >> No, we know this stuff. >> It took me to a long time five years to do this. But you have to realize I had no idea I was making a book, right? I was making process along the way. >> Making drawings. I was making things that went in the wild. I was making research. I was going to France. I was going to Italy. And I thought, what is this, right? >> What are you really doing? And the box in Italy. Oh, >> you mean the archives? Yeah. >> Oh, so before the internet, remember that did exist that time. Before the internet, before you could look up anything, >> you almost had to go somewhere to see it. And I I uh I found archives at the I think it's archive Alinari. It's no I think Fatellia Alionari in Rome and you would sit there and you'd make a request. You had to prove you were either an artist or you were a scholar or whatever. They put a big box in front of you and you could just go through the box and you could look at all the photographs and all the information. And incidentally, that was also true at the New York Public Library. >> Yeah. >> I would go to the New York Public Library maybe three times, sit down, they bring you a box and you could finger everything. You look at all the photographs, you look at all this stuff and a lot of the images put them out on the table. Yeah. >> A lot of the images from the New York Public Library images I either took a picture of or I was able to get. Aliari I had to buy them initially for my inspirational work. But then once it became serious then the publisher had to purchase them. >> Do we have a photo of one of the from that box from that archive? >> Yes. the woman whom you just whom we just saw at that fantastic that extraordinary outfit >> and the bells and the silver bells. >> Oh, also um >> Oh, so this photo, what's this photo? >> So, this is a famous a very famous photographer. I don't know if I'm pronouncing his name correctly, Nadar. And I am still not sure from the title whether this was his baby or not. It was unclear. But it's but it is a famous Nadar photo. A rare one apparently. >> It's quite posed. So in in a studio. >> Yes, it is. It is a studio photo. >> So I mean there you have it. And absolutely I would say shameless. >> You know the thing about it is that wet nursing was so common that you know people just did it. Whereas now, if one is >> feeding one's infant, >> you're asked >> to you're not in you're not welcome to just whip it out. You have to go to one of those little aluminum things and you know do it privately private. Yeah. But there was I don't know maybe 10 years ago somebody on an airline was arrested >> taken off the airplane because she nursing >> nursed her child. We have a very prudish attitude, >> i.e. puritanical. Yes. Yes. Attitude. Right. >> But it's not just babies who've been nursed. >> No, it isn't. >> Right. I mean, >> because you have a whole section on that. >> Yes. Yes. Well, um, adults were nursed uh if they were ill >> uh or perverted. And um there's something called interspecies feeding in which uh a woman might feed a baby bear for example. There's an American woman in the early 20th century. I forget where she lived. There's a photo in the book. >> I thought it was in Maine, but yeah. >> Maine in the country, right? And there's a photograph of her. Her infant is on one breast. The little baby bear is on another breast. and she wrote a small note about how proud she was of being able to nurse both. And I think she gave the bear a name. I'm not sure, >> but there is an image that you'll see in a while. >> There it is of a woman, I think it's in Peru, where she's nursing a baby lamb. And um also sometimes a woman had too much milk >> and so she might nurse >> extra >> something. >> Yeah. another animal. This was not, you know, and this was not unusual. >> Uh, one incident that's in the book is the fact that a goat, a goat was the animal that's the closest to the substance that an a mother, a human has. And so if a mother died >> sometimes or didn't want a nurse, the goat would be a standin. And there is there is a small bit in the book about uh >> the orphanage. >> No. Okay. >> A particular goat was feeding a particular child and the goat fed this child and one day another goat came and the child refused the goat and the child most probably died. >> Wow. And the goats also if they were nursing in an orphanage, which they did if there weren't enough women who who women wet nurses, >> the get the the goat knew its baby. Yeah. >> And the goat would tried in and position itself and the baby would be held up and the baby would be drinking milk from his or her personal goat. >> Yeah. I mean, that's amazing. the the relationship to animals that that we know is strong, but but it's so visceral in this case. I mean, it's >> well, it's a sculpture, you know, like Romulus and Remis. No big deal. Oh, look. Right. >> Very famous bronze sculpture that I think most people know and uh it's actually by two different artists. So, there's a there's a a sculpture of of a >> founding story of of Rome. Really? >> Yes. Yeah. >> And these little babies or are sucking milk from the teeth of this wolf. >> And I think we've taken that sculpture for granted. We've never really looked at it, right? We've never looked at the implications of that sculpture. >> Well, because I so I loved reading about it and understanding that sculpture much more. As a child, when I went to Rome and I brought an astray back to my mother of Romulus and Remis and the wolf, my mother was horrified. She re she was like, "Oh my god, this is horrifying." And she quickly put it in a drawer, got rid of it. So So you know there is it's very interesting. So you know, however many decades later to really understand the whole mythology around that is pretty important. >> Yes. >> Yes, it is. >> Wow. >> Um I want to just throw in something Diane before you ask me something again. I wanted to tell you who St. Katherine is initially many months ago um I was supposed to do an event on February 5th which didn't happen and the reason is because St. Katherine was is and was the patroness of breastfeeding. >> Um she was a teenager. She loved God. She found God. She was a a a devout Christian and some big monkey monk in her town wanted her to be his lover girlfriend. >> Okay. >> And so uh he tried and she was married to Christ and refused and ultimately he had her breast removed >> and she is the patron saint of breastfeeding and breast cancer in fact >> and became canonized and became a saint. She's canonized and there's a place somewhere in Italy, I think in Sicily, there's a wall and the the wall has been sculpted and it's a boob wall that's dedicated to her. I I recently saw a picture of that. >> Wow. >> So, >> but there's some contemporary artists who are working with this as well. >> I'm sure. >> Okay. I'm sure >> I think of well I can't come up with >> I have a question for I mean for you I assume we still have time >> and maybe a question for anybody who's watching like >> why do you think that almost no one knows what a wet nurse is? Why has she been erased from history? Why don't people understand how incredibly important she was as a being to keep millions of people alive and yet people are turned off by it? Have not acknowledged her presence. Why is that? What is that about? I still don't get it. >> So when let's see, you did a presentation at the firehouse under BCA. I did >> and and raised a version of that question and so we at home have been talking about it >> and and a couple pieces I don't think it's the answer but a couple thoughts have come into it. One is post World War II or during World War II, women went into the workforce and they started getting paid for working in the economic structure of the industrial changing economy. Um so to go back to sort of dis domestic work if we can call it this that for the moment I don't think that there was an the the world world was modernizing and people were getting paid jobs in a very different way and I think that broke some of it um women weren't available as as nursemaids in the same way as they had been previous to World War II and I think that's true both in the US and in Europe um because the number of of well the poverty in in in Europe was more extreme after World War II. Um so there was a lot more available domestic help for a while but not for very long. So I think that cut the habit. >> Well I'm not really that wasn't really my question but but actually >> what did happen was because of the war women were not able to travel. Mhm. >> What nurses were not able to travel and and be paid and so it ended. >> Uh also um formula had been developed. Nestle had developed formula and now you didn't need to have anyone. You didn't need a wet nurse and you didn't need to feed your child yourself, >> right? >> You had formula and that was like the magic answer for a long time until that too had been reversed and now we know how good breast milk is and how bad, you know, etc., etc. and and people babies are more and more allergic. I just learned, you know, from a recent story of a particular baby that I'm a familiar with and came off mother's milk came off formula 1 2 3 and finally was okay on formula 4 at the expense of all the others. So I don't know how this sensitivity stuff is is sort of unfolding. >> So that has that's recent. Yeah, >> there are incidentally >> in the last year. Yeah. >> Oh, >> yeah. >> There are milk banks. >> There are in the United States and in Europe where women some women donate their milk and some women I think pay um are paid and and one of the things >> so you can go to the cooler like >> hey yeah you want some milk a little bag of milk >> right >> baggy milk baggie >> right milk bank. So I think part of it seems to be that you can get paid for all kinds of work, >> but to be paid for something that comes from your body except you can give blood, >> right? >> For free. >> Yes. For free. >> Yeah. >> Unless Yes. [snorts] Um anyway, trying to sell your milk from your breast is considered >> inappropriate, >> trashy, >> wrong. >> Oh well, without getting into all the rest of the things of our body that we can sell, it's interesting that this is not >> it's the one thing >> you can sell your hair. >> You can also donate it. I'm just saying, you know, think about it. Yeah. >> So really I mean I guess I'm kind of back to my question which is why is this profession which is which it was ubiquitous in the entire world >> this is a major profession right there are doctors dentists you know photographers I don't know other kind of steel workers ers minors. We know about those professions. I mean, we know about them historically. Why don't we know about the wet ners? This is still something that that I I don't understand. And I can only think that it's a prejudice >> about women who are supposed to be, which I've written, sexy. You can wear a fancy dress and show your boobs, not the nips. You can show your boobs, but if you're really also at the same time, if you simultaneously are giving suck to a baby, well, that's just not cool. It's inappropriate. Somehow, >> we used to hide pregnancy and then >> we did >> and then and then Hollywood sort of said, "Oh, it's okay." Or some >> and now you can show that you're pregnant and have close fitting clothes. not only close fitting >> but now there's something I don't know >> astonishing >> it's >> so >> it's a world that's maybe always beyond understanding but when you look at the breadth of of how long women have been feeding babies and it's such a natural thing >> forever >> forever or else we wouldn't be here >> correct >> um >> we wouldn't I know. >> Yeah. There's a disconnect and it's okay in another culture. It's not okay in our culture. >> Oh, I wanted to say that it is still thought that in developing countries wet nursing persists. >> Um, you can't I can't say for sure because my my book stopped short there, but I don't think I don't think it's ever really ended. And I didn't say there was something that I wanted to bring up which was something called affluent infant death >> because some women didn't want you know wealthy women and their husbands wanted their women's the breast to stay the same. >> They didn't and they wanted to party down. They couldn't party. So, so um stuff stuff that happened was the the kid would only be having some kind of substitute or or and and they died. >> Yeah, >> they died. >> Well, there's no bonding familiar. >> There's an image that came up just now that I wanted to talk about briefly uh which is a very important. >> Oh, there's this one here. >> Yes. Which are very important. Um, slaves nursed white babies. Uh, slaves were nursed white babies even at the expense of their own. I mean, they had to have their baby. And so, it was yet another way >> in which they were hugely exploited. >> Um, and and you can tell from that photograph that baby is perfectly happy, that little white baby, as relaxed as any baby could be. This is from um 1873, I think. And it's just a few not much not much later than the the war. >> And uh she's not a slave. >> Civil War. >> Yes. Civil War. And she's not a slave, but she's still doing it. >> Oh, yeah. And you know the difference between nannies and nursemaids and maids and I mean there's a whole hierarchy there but the the nursing part of that you know does taper off but the domestic may stay within the household or not depending on what their role is. >> Yes, there is something called in Italy there's something called a dry nurse or a wet nurse >> a bala auta >> and I can't remember what the other one is. So if if a if a wet nurse was beloved >> and lived with a family, she could go on as a kind of governness until the child child was grown. And >> my husband has a cousin, Italian cousin. And what he told me was that his father used to go every year to visit his wet nurse. >> Oh yes. >> When he was an adult. when he was an adult, he would go and see her because I mean, think about it. You see, >> it's a bonding that's >> you see what happens when a when a baby is being nursed. It's like happy time, right? And it's perfect. It's a perfect time. And how could if if it's successful, if the wet nurse is kind, >> if the wet nurse is loving, how could you not, right, develop an attachment >> to to that women? And um incidentally my husband who is quite old now he was wet nurse but he doesn't know by whom. >> And all of his friends had wet nurses. Every one of them. We're talking the 1930s. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And >> well a friend of mine my age, so I'm in my 70s. She didn't have a wet nurse, but she had a nanny. And the nannies outlived her parents. >> And she still bonded. >> Huh. She still goes to visit her. >> Huh. >> Yeah. >> So, you know, I mean, >> I I feel like what you know, my my mission I've never had one before really, you know, [laughter] I mean, I guess being an artist is a slightly selfish profession. I work in my studio. I want the work to be seen, but it's mine. And this is kind of the first time in my life that I have felt so strongly about something that really these women should be written back into history. And it has been my modest effort to make that happen. >> So is it translated into Italian or French? >> Lancor. >> Oh, all right. Maybe soon. That would be nice. I mean, I think it needs >> an expanded life. I hope so. >> Yeah. So, where can you get the book? >> Oh, yes. Well, if you go if I don't know where you all are or if you are all, but you can order it directly [clears throat] from Abyville Press. Um, you could go to Phoenix Books in Burlington and beg them to to offer it again. You could go to BCA, which is Burlington City Arts. They [clears throat] had some. I think they're still selling them. And do I dare say this out loud? You could order it on Amazon. >> No, you can't. You can go to Crow Bookstore. Top of Church. >> I forgot. Wait. No. No. I have to go to Crowbooks because I'm sure they'll be interested. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yes. Good. Thank you. >> Bye. >> Thank you all. Thank you all for watching. >> Yes. I hope you did. >> One more 0541 live.