Childhood mortality and quality of care among abandoned children in nineteenth-century Italy

A great deal of scholarly attention has been devoted in recent years to the large-scale abandonment of newborn babies in the European past, with speci al emphasis given to the staggering rates of infant mortality among the fou ndlings. For the most part, scholars have agreed with the foundling home of ficials of the past in assigning much of the blame for this excess mortalit y to the women who took in the foundlings as wetnurses and subsequently as foster mothers. This article takes issue with this view, based on an examin ation of the children abandoned at the foundling home of Bologna, Italy in the nineteenth century. Four cohorts of foundlings are examined - those aba ndoned in 1809-30, 1829-30, 1849-50, and 1869-70 (N=3615)- as we trace the changing pattern of infant and early childhood mortality. Longitudinal meth ods are used in examining the life course of these foundlings and the deter minants of their mortality.