Dubert García, IsidroMuñoz Abeledo, Luisa2022-09-282022-09-282022Dubert, I., & Muñoz-Abeledo, L. (2022). Gender, work, and family economies: Wet nurses in rural Galicia (1850–1900). Rural History, 1-18. doi:10.1017/S09567933220001640956-7933http://hdl.handle.net/10347/29281In this article we study the distinct formative stages of the labour market for external wet nurses employed by Galician foundling hospitals in the second half of the nineteenth century. We focus on changes in the nature of wet nurses’ work due to the benevolence laws (1822, 1836, 1849) that were driven by Spain’s liberal state. We also examine wet nurses’ socio-demographic profile and the geographic distribution of their labour markets. Finally, we explore the economic impact that Galician foundling hospitals had on rural districts, looking closely at the importance of external wet nurse wages for family budgetseng© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the same Creative Commons licence is included and the original work is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use.Atribución-NoComercial-CompartirIgual 4.0 Internacionalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/journal article10.1017/S09567933220001641474-0656open access