Erin Maglaque, “Care Work and the Family in Catholic Reformation Tuscany,” Past & Present 253:1 (November 2021), pp. 119-150.
The Society for Italian Historical Studies is delighted to award this year’s Article Prize for Medieval and Early Modern Italian History to Erin Maglaque for her article “Care Work and the Family in Catholic Reformation Tuscany,” published in Past & Present in November 2021. Maglaque’s article examines the records of rural wet nursing commissioned by Florence’s Spedale degli Innocenti to reveal the ways that these women manipulated the hospital’s system of paid care work for young foundlings. Maglaque productively argues that the economies of mothering have not always been unwaged, and that paid care work is inextricable from the fluid social, religious, and cultural boundaries defining the family. Maglaque’s article is a theoretically sophisticated piece of engaged scholarship. The author draws on impressive archival work and a breadth of critical approaches including labor history, feminist studies, and the long tradition of social and cultural history in early modern Italy. Congratulations to Erin Maglaque on this important contribution to our field of study!
In the below-provided video, Dr. Amanda Madden and Dr. Maglaque discuss the research behind “Care Work and the Family in Catholic Reformation Tuscany,” among other topics.