Feed Baby Yourself
Artist
Harry Furniss
Ireland, 1854 - 1925
Printer
His Majesty's Stationery Office
Date1919
Dimensions29 1/2 x 20 in. (74.9 x 50.8 cm)
ClassificationsPoster
Credit LinePoster House Permanent Collection
Object numberPH.844
DescriptionThis poster, issued by Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, and intended to be hung in clinics and doctors’ offices, was part of a campaign to encourage British mothers to breastfeed shortly after World War I. It shows a young mother timing her baby's feed by checking the clock on the mantelpiece (which also holds a framed photograph of her husband in uniform). While during the second half of the nineteenth century, British women had been bombarded with sophisticated advertising by the new large dairy companies that attempted to persuade them to buy cow’s milk for their babies, around 1900, the trend turned back to breastfeeding. Dairy-milk production was poorly regulated and the milk frequently contaminated; in fact, cow’s milk was the main cause of infant mortality due to tuberculosis and diarrohea until the early 20th century. At the time this poster was produced, the world was also in the grip of the flu pandemic that ultimately killed some 50–100 million people, according to recent estimates, including a disproportionate number of infants. The new breastfeeding creed was reinforced by pamphlets and posters like this one as well as by local councils, which sent health visitors into homes with new babies. On View
Not on view
