A Woman's Work

From the author of Unwell Women comes a powerful and groundbreaking new narrative history of motherhood and mothering.

Mothers make history. But what it has meant for mothers to do the physical and emotional work of mothering has, for centuries, been neglected in the stories of the past. Patriarchal control of motherhood has relegated the acts of growing, birthing, nurturing, and loving to the sidelines, and deemed it unimportant, women’s work. Now, through the voices of women themselves, Elinor Cleghorn reclaims and retells the history of motherhood, showcasing the mothers, othermothers, midwives, activists, community leaders, and more who have shaped the course of history.

Beginning in the ancient world, we encounter a figurine made for a childbirth ritual over three thousand years ago. We meet extraordinary writers and poets, like Anne Bradstreet and Elizabeth Jocelin, who were expressing their innermost feelings about motherhood. During the seventeenth century, in the streets of London, we encounter unmarried mothers struggling against stigma and shame, and the women who strove to help them. Later, pioneers like Mary Wollstonecraft laid the intellectual foundation for the liberation of motherhood from male control, and the abhorrent treatment of enslaved mothers was brought to public attention by courageous activists like Sojourner Truth. These and many other brave characters lobbied for mothers of all classes and circumstances to be valued, respected, and supported—not as reproductive vessels, but as people.

Author Biography

Elinor Cleghorn is a feminist cultural historian, writer, and researcher living in Sussex. After receiving her PhD in humanities and cultural studies in 2012, she worked for three years as a postdoctoral researcher at the Ruskin School of Art at the University of Oxford on an interdisciplinary arts and medical humanities project. Her writing on women’s health and its histories has been published in The Wall Street Journal, BBC History, BBC Science Focus, New Scientist, and Vogue, and she has discussed her research on BBC’s Woman’s Hour, NPR, and numerous podcasts. Elinor is the author of Unwell Women, which has been translated across the world.