Unintended consequences: the transformation of wet nursing in the late Habsburg monarchy

Historians have argued that wet nursing declined in the latter half of 19th-century Europe. Taking the example of wet nursing in the Habsburg monarchy, this article challenges this argument and posits that wet nursing did not decline in the latter part of the 19th century; rather, it became tangled with medical debates about infectious diseases, especially venereal diseases, and thus experienced a transformation. The transformation of wet nursing encompassed the increasing medico-police surveillance of lower-class women, dramatically affecting various kinds of work included under the umbrella of the servant occupation. This form of surveillance wreaked considerable damage on the network of private middlemen and placement agencies, and it drove increasing numbers of working-class women into forced confinement in state foundling institutions. In other words, what perhaps started as a noble endeavour on the part of the Habsburg state in the 18th century to improve the condition of foundlings within the monarchy through the establishment of imperial foundling homes led by the end of the 19th century to widespread exploitation of wet nurses.