Mothers Making Latin America: Gender, Households, and Politics Since 1825

The cult of motherhood has a lengthy and complex history in Latin American society. Mothers Making Latin America utilizes a combination of innovative gender scholarship and primary source material to dispel the commonly held belief that women were separated from—or unimportant to—central developments in Latin American history since independence. With scholarly precision, author Erin E. O’Connor also discards the popular notion that the only women worthy of study were those who rejected gender norms in their entirety. Instead, O’Connor explores how ideas about motherhood, and women’s own interpretations of that role, were often central to processes of socio–political change in Latin America. Featuring a thought–provoking blend of original scholarship with an accessible narrative thread, Mothers Making Latin America helps to reshape our understanding of Latin American gender history.

Erin E. O’Connor is Associate Professor of History at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts.  Her publications include Gender, Indian, Nation: the Contradictions of Making Ecuador, 1830–1925 (2007), Documenting Latin America: Gender, Race, and Empire, Volume 1 (with L. Garofalo, 2011)and Documenting Latin America: Gender, Race, and Nation, Volume 2 (with L. Garofalo, 2011).