The First Step of Childhood This tender snapshot of a baby’s first steps toward an adoring mother exemplifies new attitudes toward children and raising them ushered in by the Enlightenment. Authors like Jean-Jacques Rousseau encouraged elite mothers like the one pictured here to take a more personal interest in raising their children, instead of leaving them in the hands of indifferent wet nurses and nannies. Many women responded eagerly to this call, and the period saw a more sentimentalized view of childhood and family life.

(By François Gerard [1770–1837]/Fogg Art Museum, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA/Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY)