{"id":64839,"date":"2025-05-16T13:11:13","date_gmt":"2025-05-16T13:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.accartbooks.com\/uk\/book\/the-second-oldest-profession\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:13:03","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T23:13:03","slug":"the-second-oldest-profession","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/www.accartbooks.com\/uk\/book\/the-second-oldest-profession\/","title":{"rendered":"The Second Oldest Profession"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>An illustrated exploration of an age-old occupation, at once life-giving and freighted with contradictory ideas about women and their bodies.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The wet nurse&mdash;a woman hired to breastfeed a child not her own&mdash;is indeed attested far back in history; in fact, archaeologists have discovered the tomb of Tutankhamen&rsquo;s wet nurse. In modern Europe and the United States, wet nursing persisted into the early 20th century, when bottles and formula rendered it obsolete. At one end of the social scale, wealthy families hired wet nurses to spare mothers the necessity of nursing; at the other, foundling babies were fed by wet nurses employed by orphanages. In this book, conceived as both a social history and a feminist act of reparation, artist Barbara Zucker uncovers the forgotten&mdash;perhaps deliberately buried&mdash;occupation of wet nursing. She ranges across eras and cultures, revealing the practices surrounding wet nursing and the social attitudes toward the women who worked as wet nurses, almost always out of financial necessity. She investigates such surprising topics as traditional tests of the quality of breast milk (ranging from straightforward tasting to esoteric, almost alchemical rituals) and interspecies nursing (with the goat&rsquo;s teat the most common stand-in for the human breast). Zucker&rsquo;s lively text is abundantly illustrated with paintings, prints, and photographs she has teased from the archives, as well as her own arresting drawings and sculptures inspired by the topic. <strong><em>The Second Oldest Profession <\/em><\/strong>will be essential and provocative reading for anyone interested in women&rsquo;s history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An illustrated exploration of an age-old occupation, at once life-giving and freighted with contradictory ideas about women and their bodies.<br \/>5 Revered and Reviled<br \/>\n11 Hathor and the Ancient Past<br \/>\n17 Lactating Fountains and Paintings<br \/>\n35 The Wet Nurse in Europe, America and Beyond<br \/>\n53 Testing, Testing, Squirt and Sip<br \/>\n63 Strange Beliefs<br \/>\n69 Why Did the Wet Nurse Nurse?<br \/>\n75 Milk Would Flow<br \/>\n81 More About Hiring Practices<br \/>\n85 What Happened to the Babies?<br \/>\n89 Separating the Milk From the Breast<br \/>\n95 A Past Connection<br \/>\n99 Infant Mortality, Infanticide, and Abandonment<br \/>\n109 Infant Feeding and Weaning<br \/>\n113 Interspecies Nursing<br \/>\n125 Searching<br \/>\n137 The Breast<br \/>\n149 Food for Thought<br \/>\n159 Acknowledgments<br \/>\n161 Afterword<br \/>\n162 Plates<br \/>\n166 Works Cited &amp; Consulted<br \/>\n168 Notes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":64840,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":""},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[21061],"product_tag":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-64839","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-reference","7":"author-by-author-barbara-zucker","8":"publisher-abbeville-press","10":"first","11":"instock","12":"shipping-taxable","13":"purchasable","14":"product-type-simple"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Second Oldest Profession - ACC Art Books UK<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Title: The Second Oldest Profession, Pages: 176 Pages, Publish Date: 11th May 2026, Author: Barbara Zucker, ISBN: 9780789215215. An illustrated exploration of an age-old occupation, at once life-giving and freighted with contradictory ideas about women and their bodies.5 Revered and Reviled 11 Hathor and the Ancient Past 17 Lactating Fountains and Paintings 35 The Wet Nurse in Europe, America and Beyond 53 Testing, Testing, Squirt and Sip 63 Strange Beliefs 69 Why Did the Wet Nurse Nurse? 75 Milk Would Flow 81 More About Hiring Practices 85 What Happened to the Babies? 89 Separating the Milk From the Breast 95 A Past Connection 99 Infant Mortality, Infanticide, and Abandonment 109 Infant Feeding and Weaning 113 Interspecies Nursing 125 Searching 137 The Breast 149 Food for Thought 159 Acknowledgments 161 Afterword 162 Plates 166 Works Cited &amp; Consulted 168 Notes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.accartbooks.com\/uk\/book\/the-second-oldest-profession\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Second Oldest Profession - ACC Art Books UK\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Title: The Second Oldest Profession, Pages: 176 Pages, Publish Date: 11th May 2026, Author: Barbara Zucker, ISBN: 9780789215215. An illustrated exploration of an age-old occupation, at once life-giving and freighted with contradictory ideas about women and their bodies.5 Revered and Reviled 11 Hathor and the Ancient Past 17 Lactating Fountains and Paintings 35 The Wet Nurse in Europe, America and Beyond 53 Testing, Testing, Squirt and Sip 63 Strange Beliefs 69 Why Did the Wet Nurse Nurse? 75 Milk Would Flow 81 More About Hiring Practices 85 What Happened to the Babies? 89 Separating the Milk From the Breast 95 A Past Connection 99 Infant Mortality, Infanticide, and Abandonment 109 Infant Feeding and Weaning 113 Interspecies Nursing 125 Searching 137 The Breast 149 Food for Thought 159 Acknowledgments 161 Afterword 162 Plates 166 Works Cited &amp; Consulted 168 Notes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.accartbooks.com\/uk\/book\/the-second-oldest-profession\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"ACC Art Books UK\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ACCArtBooks\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-03-30T23:13:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.accartbooks.com\/app\/uploads\/books\/9780789215215-04-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1404\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@accartbooks\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.accartbooks.com\/uk\/book\/the-second-oldest-profession\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.accartbooks.com\/uk\/book\/the-second-oldest-profession\/\",\"name\":\"The Second Oldest Profession - ACC Art Books UK\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.accartbooks.com\/uk\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.accartbooks.com\/uk\/book\/the-second-oldest-profession\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.accartbooks.com\/uk\/book\/the-second-oldest-profession\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.accartbooks.com\/app\/uploads\/books\/9780789215215-04-1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-05-16T13:11:13+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-03-30T23:13:03+00:00\",\"description\":\"Title: The Second Oldest Profession, Pages: 176 Pages, Publish Date: 11th May 2026, Author: Barbara Zucker, ISBN: 9780789215215. 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