From Malthus to Mussolini: The Italian Eugenics movement and fascist population policy, 1890-1938

This thesis examines the origins and impact of fascist population policy. The 'battle for the birthrate' inspired major social and institutional reforms under the dictatorship. Yet the question of why the regime should embark upon a pronatalist campaign remains largely unexplored. The study traces the origins of Mussolini's demographic campaign to the eugenics movement. This thesis begins with an analysis of the meaning of race in Italian scientific culture. A central concern is to show how the debates of prewar science shaped the agenda set by the fascist regime. The first part of this thesis is devoted to a discussion of the theories of prominent eugenicists. Their arguments provide the key to understanding the wider aims of the Duce's plans for state intervention to boost the birthrate. The thesis then proceeds to an examination of policy implementation. Welfare programmes stood at the centre of fascist population policy. The regime sought to provide encouragements to Italians to increase their reproductive output in the form of substantial health reforms. The second part of the thesis explores the institutional development of the National Organisation for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy. Created In 1925, ONMI established Italy's first comprehensive national health service for women and children. This section seeks to assess whether the regime built a viable and efficient state apparatus for the mass organisation of welfare. The third part of this thesis takes a closer look at public provision. As a considerable part of ONMI's budget was spent on a campaign to reduce levels of maternal abandonment, this section explores the impact of illegitimacy policy. To assess more fully the achievements of fascist welfare policy, the thesis attempts to describe the continuities and changes in state administration of social assistance from liberalism to fascism. One aim Is to uncover the legacy of Church charity in a Catholic country with a rich beneficent heritage. The transformation of pious institutions into a system of public welfare proceeded very haphazardly in Italy. The liberal state proved too timid a force for the unruly network of private charities which proliferated throughout the kingdom. This thesis will argue that fascism failed to consolidate this inheritance into a tight and efficient system of social services. The pattern of welfare development during the fascist period shows how uneasy and uneven institutional growth remained even under a centralising and modernising dictatorship

Bad Mothers in Eighteenth-Century Fiction

Focusing on texts written during the eighteenth century, and charting the connections between literary novels and contemporary discourse, this dissertation examines the role of the mother within this literature. I argue that contemporary fictional writers wrote important texts that reflect the wider historical conditions of the family, as well as the social, cultural and religious background of this period. Some of the narratives reflect public anxiety over the ever-increasing commercialization of England during the eighteenth century. Within family life, political, literary and philosophical hypotheses were compelled to adjust in a continuously changing society. Initially, the historical and ideological framework is set where the problems faced by the characters examined subsequently develop. The common theme within the novels is the female characters‘ shared experience as mothers and daughters. The narratives of these authors functioned as a means of critiquing the lack of maternal duty. With the exception of the Jean-Jacques Rousseau novel, the texts I discuss are written by English authors and centre on maternal affection or the lack thereof. The thesis continues by examining Daniel Defoe‘s Moll Flanders and Roxana. Both these novels reflect the conditions of poor and destitute mothers in eighteenth-century society, who are precariously positioned regarding their children. Eliza Haywood‘s Anti-Pamela, the antidote to Pamela, concentrates on the conduct of a mother who was a defective role model for her daughter. The thesis moves on to examine the novels of Samuel Richardson: Pamela I and II, Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison, novels that concentrate on the dynamics within various families with the emphasis placed on the role and behaviour of the mother. Richardson‘s women have pre-ordained roles in the society in which some of the female characters embody discourses of ideal motherhood. The following chapter analyses Jean-Jacques Rousseau‘s Émile and Julie, ou la Nouvelle Héloïse with his didactic tone and his appeals to mothers. The thesis concentrates on the authors‘ perspective and contemporary opinions of motherhood. The novels used within this study all differ in characters and outcome

Public Health Rep

19313684PMCnul

Studies in the image of the Madonna lactans in late medieval and Renaissance Italy.

This dissertation is an analysis of Italian late medieval and Renaissance peoples’ response to the Madonna lactans image. Although the images that comprise this type are similar in that Mary holds Christ at her breast, they vary widely in iconography and context. We shall use reception and response theory to determine how the image functioned for spectators. Determining how different groups responded to the motif is facilitated by applying an interpretive community model. Hence a group’s interpretive principles connect these communities and inform their reception of the image. We argue that although context and communities are diverse, most people believed the image to be a conduit to the divine. Our study is divided into four chapters covering a late medieval through Renaissance history of breastfeeding, devotion, the motif as an altarpiece, and reception by Renaissance people. Chapter one gives a historical overview of the advice concerning breastfeeding to which medievals were subjected. In light of sacerdotal advice, we argue that the Church used the image to promote maternal feeding. We also consider wet nurses as a community and audience. Chapter two draws on social and historical inquiries to explore public and private devotion. We highlight the Madonna lactans as an intercessor. While chapter one and two provide a historical and social foundation, the next two chapters consider different interpretive communities’ experiential viewing. Chapter three argues that the late medieval altarpiece image was more than an aesthetic illusion for churchgoers, finding that the image was believed to have sacramental value. Theories about medieval vision are applied to viewing religious rites with images. Chapter four delves into several communities’ interpretive principles. First, in light of its increased naturalism, we argue against a prurient reading of the image by applying scientific studies, an iconographic analysis, and period laws. Second, we find that nuns perceived the image to be a means to intimacy with Christ. One nun’s desire for contemplation before the image was so ardent, she drew it for her private edification, at great personal risk. Finally, we argue that when the viewer held the interpretive power, lay people embraced the image’s intercessory message

The Treatment of Infants in Classical and Hellenistic Greece

This thesis examines the treatment of infants in the classical and Hellenistic ages of Greece. In the Introduction the scope and aims are described, and my use of ancient literary sources explained. Chapter One deals with the Care of Infants and examines the evidence for the treatment of newborn infants by women carers and medical men, looking in detail at the criteria by which the question of a newborn Infant's viability might have been decided, and what this might mean for the decisions whether to treat a sickly baby and whether to rear or expose the child. Swaddling and Feeding are also studied in this Chapter: the evidence for the practices in the period under study is collected and discussed. In Chapter Two the subject of the decision not to rear Is examined. The practice of killing unwanted Infants in Sparta was subject to special rules, and the related subject of the provision of land to infants who were reared is unique to Sparta, and they form the first part of this Chapter. The second deals with the practice of exposure everywhere else: most of the evidence is from Athens, Including evidence from New Comedy, which has been largely dismissed in modern scholarship and is here surveyed for what it can tell us about contemporary attitudes to exposure and motives for the practice. The laws and political and moral attitudes to exposure are next looked at, with reference especially to Athens, but also in the wider classical and Hellenistic world. The final section of this part surveys and comments on the "exposure debate" In modern scholarship. Part Three discusses the context to which most of the ancient accounts of exposure belong, that of myth and legend. It has been maintained that these tales directly reflect a practice and prevalence once found in real life, but other theories for their existence have recently been put forward which see them as the mythical expression of a ritual connected with puberty Initiation and a primitive form of education in the wilderness. The exposure of Cyrus is an important key to the understanding of this connection between myth and ritual in Greek myths and legends, and the same motives for ascribing exposure to Cyrus's early life apply to the exposure stories told of certain Greek historical characters. Chapter Three deals with the ceremonies performed for infants which admitted them to the family and phratry respectively, and with the significance of the performance of the ceremonies for the legitimacy and citizenship of the child. Orphans are the subject of Chapter Four, and their treatment under Athenian law is reviewed. The state of orphanhood applied to older children as well as infants: it is included here for its value in showing the degree of protection awarded to the most vulnerable class of citizen-children, and the motives which prompted the Athenians to accord them this protection. The concluding chapter of this thesis draws together the implications of some of the evidence collected, In particular regarding the significance of the high neonatal death rate. It is suggested that the subject of exposure and infanticide be looked at In this context (as an alternative, for example, to the more usual context of birth-control and population limitation). An attempt is made to understand the prevalent attitude of parents in ancient Greece to their youngest offspring and the state of Infancy. Some of the child-care practices are assessed, as far as this is possible, for their repressive and indulgent tendencies. Conclusions of a general nature about the treatment of orphans are put forward

Roman Charity: Queer Lactations in Early Modern Visual Culture

"Roman Charity" investigates the iconography of the breastfeeding daughter from the perspective of queer sexuality and erotic maternity. The volume explores the popularity of a topic that appealed to early modern observers for its eroticizing shock value, its ironic take on the concept of Catholic "charity", and its implied critique of patriarchal power structures. It analyses why early modern viewers found an incestuous, adult breastfeeding scene "good to think with" and aims at expanding and queering our notions of early modern sexuality. The author discusses the different visual contexts in which "Roman Charity" flourished and reconstructs contemporary horizons of expectation by reference to literary sources, medical practice, and legal culture

Roman Charity

»Roman Charity« investigates the iconography of the breastfeeding daughter from the perspective of queer sexuality and erotic maternity. The volume explores the popularity of a topic that appealed to early modern observers for its eroticizing shock value, its ironic take on the concept of Catholic »charity«, and its implied critique of patriarchal power structures. It analyses why early modern viewers found an incestuous, adult breastfeeding scene »good to think with« and aims at expanding and queering our notions of early modern sexuality. Jutta Gisela Sperling discusses the different visual contexts in which »Roman Charity« flourished and reconstructs contemporary horizons of expectation by reference to literary sources, medical practice, and legal culture