Revealing the Breastfeeding Body in 19th- and Early 20th-Century Brazil: Images of Race, Gender, and Labor

This paper seeks to understand the significance of 19^th and early 20^th century images of breastfeeding women in Brazil. Examining paintings and drawings by artists like Johann Moritz Rugendas, Henrique Bernadelli, and Pedro Bruno, as well as the rise of studio and commercial photography, the paper questions the work these images did to create, reflect, or support racialized understandings of breastfeeding and the labor of infant care. In so doing, it pays attention to the meanings of the exposed and lactating breast, asking how renderings of breastfeeding women intersected with contemporary social attitudes around privacy, intimacy and bodily autonomy.