WEBVTT - The Practice Babies 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.320 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.880 of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:17.480 I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. Before we 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:21.520 start today's episode proper, we have kind of a I 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:25.880 think special thing coming up. It's unlikely at this point 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:28.560 that we are going to do any touring this year. 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:32.240 That we had some things on the calendar that had 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:36.040 been scheduled that we're you know, one off appearances in 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:39.120 places those have been canceled. I think the only one 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:42.440 that we actually announced on the show was we were 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:45.879 planning in July five show at the Adams National Historical 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:51.080 Park in Quincy, Massachusetts, UM that has been canceled. One 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:54.520 of our favorite things about these appearances is getting to 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:57.480 talk to people who listen to the show and answer 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:00.880 questions about the show. So we were thinking, since we're 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:03.800 not getting to do any kind of touring this year UM, 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:05.679 that we would have a Q and A episode with 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:10.240 with questions submitted by listeners. So we are going to 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:13.479 be taking questions specifically for a Q and A episode 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:16.920 up until June twelve, UM, and then we will record 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:20.959 an episode based on those questions shortly after that. And 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:22.280 put it out as an episode of the show. So 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:25.759 if you have questions for us about episodes that you've heard, 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:28.440 or about how we do the show, or just random 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:30.800 things that you're curious about, send them along. We're at 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:34.920 History Podcast at I heart radio dot com. Um. We 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:37.440 of course we'll still be having questions for listener mail 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:39.880 parts of the episodes and stuff like that. This week 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:41.920 a special thing that will put out as an episode 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:45.840 of the show. Uh So I kind of excited about that. 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:50.480 And now on to to today's actual episode. I learned 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:54.040 about these practice babies when researching the episode that we 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:56.960 just had about home economics, and my response was, like, 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:01.440 what practice babies? When I was in school, home at 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:04.960 classes had parenting lessons that I'm putting in quotation marks 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:07.440 that were about looking after a decorated egg or a 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:10.520 sack of flour. At my school, this was not really 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:13.400 about parenting, though. It was more about trying to discourage 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:17.280 teen pregnancy by trying to simulate the stresses of having 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:19.320 an infant using an egg with a face drawn on it. 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:23.000 Um practice babies, though we're not eggs. They were living, 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:27.960 breathing babies cared for by college seniors who were temporarily 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:31.360 living in home ec practice houses, and in most cases 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:35.000 the babies came from orphanages or child welfare agencies, and 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:37.720 then after their time as a practice baby was over, 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:42.359 in most cases, they were usually adopted. This whole idea 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:47.480 tends to elicit pretty strong emotional reactions, especially from folks 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:50.680 who are part of the adoption triad or people who 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:54.280 have some experience with foster care or institutions for children, 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:57.880 and the reasons why most of these babies were in 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:02.959 institutions in the first place are definitely bubbling. But as 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:06.040 with the incubator side shows that we talked about on 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:08.440 the show late last year, this is a case where 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:12.400 something that seems just clearly unethical and bizarre by today's 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:17.120 standards at the time was actually probably doing more help 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:19.960 than harm, and something we should note before we get 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:23.520 started in talking about this. The history of adoption in 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:27.840 North America includes a long established pattern of placing Native 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:32.280 American First Nations and other indigenous children with white families 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:36.040 as a tool for assimilation and cultural eradication, and it 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:39.320 is possible that this happened in practice baby programs at 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:42.880 some point, but that is also not really documented. If 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:44.800 that was part of this story, at least not in 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:48.040 the material that we had access to. Another important thing 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:50.720 to note is that throughout the decades that we're talking 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:54.320 about today, children of color were removed from their families, 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:57.600 in place and institutions more often than white children were. 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:00.880 And there were definitely hull MAK and I mixed programs 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.440 that had practice houses at schools for black students, as 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:08.600 well as home programs that were racially integrated, But overwhelmingly 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:12.760 the documentation that's available to us is centered on programs 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:16.040 where the babies and their caregivers were or appeared to 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:19.159 be white. So since we're going to be talking about 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:22.440 some social issues related to adoption, we would be remiss 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:24.880 to not mention all this and kind of pretend that 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:27.920 it didn't exist. But based on the information that we 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:31.760 have issues that are specific to indigenous communities and to 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:36.280 transracial adoption seemed to be outside the scope of today's episode. 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:39.560 The trend of practice babies as part of a home 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:43.600 economics practicum ran alongside the development of home economics as 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:46.120 a field. It was something we just covered in our 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:49.159 earlier episode on the Bureau of Home Economics, but it 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:52.880 also ran alongside changes to orphanages and to adoption and 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:56.400 foster care. In the United States, most of the nation's 0:04:56.480 --> 0:05:00.080 orphanages were built in the nineteenth century as immigration in 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:04.000 an urbanization, and other social and economic factors led to 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:08.280 a huge increase and how many children were experiencing homelessness. 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:12.680 Orphanages were attempts to move these children out of poor 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:16.240 houses and prisons and other facilities that were really designed 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:19.839 for adults. Many of these children did have at least 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:23.400 one living parent, but for a variety of reasons, the 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:27.479 family couldn't or didn't care for them at home. Poverty 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:30.960 was also seen as a valid reason to remove children 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:35.760 from their parents custody conditions. In nineteenth century orphanages often 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:38.440 were not much better than the prisons and workhouses that 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:42.440 they were replacing. At best, they tended to offer very 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:45.920 little in the way of care, education, entertainment, and stimulation. 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:49.240 By the early twentieth century, the United States was trying 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:52.080 to move away from orphanages and to focus more on 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:56.279 placing children with foster families. The nation also started to 0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:58.919 move away from using poverty alone as a reason to 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:03.040 institutionalized children, but it wasn't until the nineteen forties that 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:06.159 the number of children living in orphanages really started to 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:09.640 drop in terms of changes to the foster care and 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:13.839 adoption systems. Really, for all of human history there have 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:17.200 been babies and children who were raised by somebody other 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:20.800 than their birth parents, So fostering and adoption have always 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:23.880 been part of the human experience, but in terms of 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:28.080 formal laws and processes, these didn't really start to develop 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:31.000 in the United States until the middle of the nineteenth century. 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:34.760 The first modern adoption law in the United States was 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:39.240 passed in Massachusetts in eighteen fifty one. Other states followed, 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:42.320 with the details of these laws really varying from state 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:45.760 to state. Research into outcomes for children who had been 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:49.080 fostered or adopted didn't really start until after the first 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:53.599 practice baby programs were established. The first major outcome study, 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:57.320 titled How Foster Children Turned Out, was published in nineteen 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:00.640 twenty four, and it wasn't really until the nineteen sixties 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:04.200 that people started doing major research into connections between adoption 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:07.720 and foster care and mental and emotional health. And by 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:10.240 the time that work was being done, the last practice 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:14.920 baby programs were already ending. There was some research into 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:19.120 how being a practice baby affected children's emotional and mental 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:21.640 health and development, and we'll talk about the specifics of 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:25.000 that research later on in the show, But especially in 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:28.080 the later years of these programs, those kinds of studies 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:30.760 became a lot harder to carry out, in part because 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:35.360 of an increasing focus on keeping adoption records completely sealed, 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:38.640 So a lot of practice baby programs didn't fall up 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:41.680 on children's later lives, not because they just didn't care 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:45.240 about the children's future well being, but because that information 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:47.400 about the families they had been placed with and where 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:50.360 they were now that was sealed. A lot of this 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:53.760 has to do with stigma, especially within the white middle class. 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:57.640 Becoming pregnant out of wedlock was increasingly stigmatized from the 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:01.160 nineteen thirties through the nineteen fifties and six teas. By 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:03.760 the middle of the twentieth century. If someone was pregnant 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:06.360 and unmarried, they were likely to spend their last months 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:09.760 of pregnancy somewhere out of sight, like in a maternity 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:12.280 home or living with a relative from out of town, 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:16.880 and then to be pressured, coerced, or outright forced into 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:22.760 an adoption. Infertility was also stigmatized, so sealed adoption records, 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:27.120 which were often inaccessible even to the children involved, allowed 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:30.000 everyone involved in the whole process to keep all of 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:33.000 this secret. Of course, this is not at all how 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:36.600 it's recommended to handle adoptions today, and this practice made 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:39.760 it incredibly hard for people who were adopted as babies 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.720 to get any information at all about their birth family 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:45.640 or their health history. So the babies who were part 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:49.000 of these home economics programs generally had some kind of 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:53.120 trauma in their backgrounds before becoming a practice baby. Maybe 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:55.800 their parents had died and they were placed in an orphanage, 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:58.880 or their parents were alive but just financially could not 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:02.400 care for them. Many were born to unmarried parents who 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:05.880 had little to no say in the adoption decision. In 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:09.760 article in the Journal of Home Economics, Catherine h Read, 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:12.080 head of the Department of Family Life in the School 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:15.840 of Home Economics at Oregon State College, stressed that babies 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:18.680 should be placed in practice houses only if these kinds 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:22.640 of circumstances suggested that it would be in their best interests. 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:28.880 College programs generally kept these babies identities confidential. Students generally 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:32.120 knew them by first names only, although they often gave 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:35.360 them temporary last names that varied from school to school. 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:38.640 So for example, babies at Cornell University were giving the 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:43.000 last name Domicon, which was short for Domestic Economy. Eastern 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:47.199 Illinois State Teachers College had two teaching houses, and babies 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:50.319 were given last names for which house they were living 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:54.840 in north or South. Since everything was confidential, students didn't 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:57.920 generally meet the babies families or follow up with them 0:09:58.040 --> 0:09:59.959 later on in their life. And we're going to talk 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:02.880 more about these practice houses and the babies in them 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:14.440 after we first have a sponsor break. Broadly speaking, home 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:17.840 economics programs in the United States had two types of 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:21.800 houses that were part of their instruction and practice. At 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:25.000 the high school level, there were cottages where students could 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:28.000 learn and practice, but where they did not generally live 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:32.680 full time. These were everything from converted classroom spaces inside 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:34.960 the school building which had been made to look like 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:39.200 little homes, or a standalone cottage that the school either 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:43.000 owned or rented. Colleges, on the other hand, had houses 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:46.520 or apartments where upper level students actually lived for a time. 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:49.640 In the words of Dr Louise Stanley, chief of the 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:52.400 Bureau of Home Economics, quote, it is a house in 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:56.080 which groups of students organized as a family group live 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:59.680 for varying periods and apply their home economic training to 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:03.160 the solution of the different housekeeping and homemaking problems as 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:07.320 they arise. Stanley recommended that each state college have at 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:11.000 least two practice houses, one outfitted like a home in 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:13.959 a city or town and the other replicating a house 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:18.160 in a rural district. The first documented practice houses were 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:21.359 built in nineteen o four. One was at Stout Institute 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:24.600 in Wisconsin, and the other was at the Tuskegee Institute 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:29.120 in Alabama. By nine twenty, there were seventies seven practice 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:32.480 houses at colleges and universities around the United States, as 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:35.880 well as some number of apartments that served the same purpose. 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:40.280 Some schools bought or rented an existing property, and others 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:43.520 had a practice house custom built. For example, at the 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:46.880 Hampton Institute, the funding for the house came from a 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:50.280 gift for the school, and the structure itself was built 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:53.840 by the school's trade school students. The exact details of 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:57.040 a student's time in a practice house could vary, but 0:11:57.080 --> 0:11:59.840 in general it tended to involve six to eight senior 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:02.680 who usually lived in the house for six to ten weeks. 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:08.199 Faculty or sometimes graduate students were on hand to instruct, supervise, 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:11.240 and evaluate the students who were expected to cook, clean, 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:15.440 serve meals, make budgets, and just generally manage the household. 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:17.480 And in the words of Alba Bates, head of the 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:20.960 School of Home Economics at North Dakota Agricultural College, quote, 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:23.600 the big thing which we expect of the students and 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:27.160 upon which we check them is their family relationships, such 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:32.359 as the spirit of cooperation, helpfulness, generosity, kindness, and tolerance 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:35.920 of the mistakes of others. At some schools, these family 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:39.440 relationships practiced in the house involved caring for a baby. 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:44.520 This infant care was usually described as mothercraft, and mothercraft 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:48.079 as a specialization was something that was introduced into American 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:52.199 home economics programs following the establishment of the first mothercraft 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:55.880 schools in England that happened in nineteen fourteen. As had 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:59.160 been the case with homemaking in general, the home economics 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:01.600 movement can that her child rearing to be a worthy 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:06.360 vocation that deserved study and refinement. Home economics approached homemaking 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:10.400 through science and mothercraft did the same with parenting. The 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:14.200 mothercraft approach was very precise and regulated, with parents trying 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:18.120 to establish set schedules for babies with regular times for meals, 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:21.320 bass play, and sleep, and a diet that was carefully 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:24.920 measured and managed. By the late nineteen teens, it was 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:29.560 generally agreed that practical study of mothercraft was critical to 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:33.840 a home economics degree. Raising children was a huge part 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:37.320 of a typical homemaker's work, so home economics programs that 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:41.679 had no hands on experience with childcare were just incomplete. 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:45.080 This wasn't just about completeness for its own sake, though. 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:49.040 A ninety article in the Journal of Home Economics noted 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:53.600 that under the Smith Hughes Act, vocational contact was required 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:56.800 for people who were going to teach home economics, So 0:13:56.840 --> 0:13:59.840 if you were going to teach mothercraft, you had to 0:13:59.880 --> 0:14:04.000 have some vocational contact in childcare in your own education 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:06.760 in order to be able to do so. Schools approached 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:10.800 this hands on component in several ways. Some had daycare 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:14.160 centers and preschools on or near campus, which were staffed 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:18.840 partly or entirely by home economics students. Others brought infants 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:22.200 and older children from the community to campus for supervised 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:25.720 play and workshops, or they arranged for groups of students 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:28.960 to observe and interact with babies and children in their 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:32.720 own homes out in the community, and some, as we've said, 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:36.160 brought babies to live full time in their practice houses. 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:41.200 The same nineteen twenty article outlined the first documented practice 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:43.920 baby program in the United States, which took place at 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:47.680 the University of Minnesota in nineteen eighteen and nineteen nineteen. 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:52.160 The university's to home management houses each had one child 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:55.600 in residence in the spring and summer quarters, and although 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:58.680 it became common to place children in practice houses as 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:01.920 young as possible, and this pilot program the babies were 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:05.640 Russell aged thirteen months and Earl aged twenty one months, 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:08.840 both of whom had been living in baby homes since 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:11.720 they were born. In this program, each student in the 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:15.280 practice houses acted as a so called baby manager. For 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:18.360 one week. She was on duty with the baby's care 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:20.960 between six and eight each morning and four thirty to 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:24.720 six each night. The baby manager was generally in charge 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:27.480 and was responsible for the baby's laundry and for keeping 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:31.480 up with documentation, including recording all of the day's tasks 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:35.320 and monitoring the baby's progress. The other three or four 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:38.720 students rotated through the rest of the day's childcare tasks, 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:42.000 depending on how their own class schedules and commitments worked out. 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:45.000 There was one brief window each weekday when all of 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:47.240 the students were in the same class, at which point 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:50.320 a faculty member or a home X student who wasn't 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:53.080 living in the house would come and fill in. Both 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:56.200 Russell and Earl arrived at the university with some health 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:59.400 issues that were associated with their time in the baby home. 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:03.200 Both of them were described as listless and underweight, with 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:08.240 anemia and ricketts. Russell also had exema, but at the 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:10.560 end of their two quarters in the practice houses, they 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:13.840 had gained weight, they were showing fewer signs of nervousness 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:17.880 and distress. Students reported that the babies became more active 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:21.680 and more engaged. Their rickets had been resolved, and Russell's 0:16:21.680 --> 0:16:25.560 exema was also under control. The A doctor who examined 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:27.480 both babies at the end of their time at the 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:30.880 university noted quote, the improvement in the condition of these 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:35.720 children speaks highly for your cooperative motherhood. Other programs followed 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:40.040 from there pretty quickly. Survey found that of the seventy 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:44.120 seven practice houses operating in the US, sixteen had a 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:47.440 child in residence. By the time these programs were phased 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:51.280 out about fifty colleges had brought babies into their practice houses. 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:54.840 Although this episode and our earlier one on the Department 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:57.640 of Home Economics has focused on the United States, there 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:01.960 were practice houses with practice babies elsewhere as well. For example, 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:05.399 the University of Manitoba had thirty three practice babies in 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:08.760 its home economics houses between the years nineteen thirty and 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:12.919 nineteen fifty. The details of exactly how these programs worked 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:16.120 varied from school to school. For example, by the mid 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:20.359 nineteen fifties, Iowa State College had six practice houses for 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:24.440 home economics students. Babies stayed in one of the houses 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:27.719 for a quarter, and each group of eight students lived 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:31.160 in the practice house for half of a quarter. Each 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:34.520 student had primary care of the baby for about four 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:37.879 to five consecutive days, so by the end of each quarter, 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:42.200 each baby had been cared for by sixteen women in sequence. 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:45.200 From the beginning, there was some debate within the home 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:47.960 economics field about whether this was an effective way to 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:52.040 teach mothercraft and whether having so many caregivers could harm 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:55.400 the babies in some way, But in the nineteen fifties, 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:59.600 public opinions started to shift as well. In nineteen fifty four, 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:02.960 Estern Illinois State Teachers College became the focus of a 0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:07.280 huge national controversy surrounding a practice baby known as David North, 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:09.960 who was only the second baby brought to the school. 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:14.120 Dr Ruth Schmallhausen had been hired at the college's Home 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:18.360 Economics department in nineteen fifty and the school's first practice 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:21.359 houses came into use in nineteen fifty two. They had 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:24.000 actually been authorized before World War Two, but because of 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:27.960 the war, they were delayed. When the schools started looking 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:32.280 for practice babies, Smallhousen went to Dr Roman Haremsky of 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:37.480 the Illinois State Child Welfare Division for help. However, Harensky 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:41.600 had some concerns about this program's potential impact on the children, 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:45.120 and he refused to be involved in this, so Schmallhausen 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:49.000 worked directly with families in the community. Eastern Illinois State 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:53.800 Teachers Colleges first practice baby was Margaret Anne North, whose 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:56.240 mother had been referred to the school by the Salvation 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:59.840 Army Home in Chicago. Margaret Anne's time as a p 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:03.320 actus baby seemed to have passed without raising any eyebrows, 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:07.160 but in nineteen the college brought in David North, who 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:10.040 had been born pre term and whose mother was unmarried. 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:12.879 She had arranged for the school to take care of 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:16.199 him temporarily so that she could return to work, also 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:21.360 arranging for visitation rights and regular updates about his progress. However, 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:25.400 after an article about the program ran in a local newspaper, 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:29.840 Haramsky was livid, both because of his concerns about it 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:33.320 and because the school had done all this without his involvement. 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:36.840 He was also concerned that there was no father figure 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:41.080 involved in baby David's life. He ordered Child Welfare Services 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:46.840 to investigate. During all this, David's pediatrician, Dr William Kahite commented, quote, 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:50.520 the infant boy is in excellent physical condition. He has 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:53.679 received physical care which is far superior to that given 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:57.960 in the best Foundling homes and in most American homes. Furthermore, 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:00.480 he has loved, which is the basic fact in the 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:05.280 healthy developmental environment. This child has benefited tremendously from the 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:07.800 good start he is receiving and will show it for 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:12.200 years to come. On January twelfth, ninety four, this became 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:15.679 a national news story, with most of the coverage about 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:20.440 it being pretty negative. Reporting focused on the evolving fields 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:23.919 of psychiatry and mental health. And on concerns that women 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:27.760 were abandoning their so called natural role as wives and 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:31.640 mothers in order to join the workforce. Time magazine ran 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:34.639 an article about this with a photo of two students 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:38.639 feeding David, together with the caption quote David North and 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:44.200 mother's heaven knows how many neuroses. Ultimately, Child Welfare Services 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:47.320 found that since this had been arranged privately between David's 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:50.520 mother and the school and there was no adoption involved, 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:55.359 it wasn't within their jurisdiction to intervene. Eventually, the furor 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:58.720 died down and David finished his time as a practice baby, 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:01.639 and then a new practice ba be Amy Norse, arrived 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:05.679 in the fall of n with no public outcry. The 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:09.880 furor over David North was tied to an evolving understanding 0:21:10.000 --> 0:21:13.520 of how an infant's early life affected their later mental 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:16.399 and emotional health and development, which is one part of 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:19.600 why this practice ended. You will get more into that 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:31.080 research after a sponsor break. As we noted earlier, opinions 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:35.240 were divided about how best to teach practical mothercraft in 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:38.520 American home economics schools. I mean that that debate went 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:41.080 all the way back to when this subject was first introduced. 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:45.919 People questioned whether bringing babies into practice houses was the 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:49.680 most practical or effective way to teach, and they questioned 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:53.439 whether it was harmful or exploitive. Along with things like 0:21:53.520 --> 0:21:57.280 budgets and logistics and other practical issues. These concerns were 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:00.520 some of the reasons why not every home economics program 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:04.680 sought out babies for its practice homes. Articles and primary 0:22:04.680 --> 0:22:08.280 source documents from these programs are full of anecdotes about 0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:11.200 the experience from the students and teachers points of view, 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:14.560 and not all of them are positive. Some students talked 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:18.280 about feeling overwhelmed or even terrified when they were expected 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:22.040 to care for a baby. In articles about her novel 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:26.520 The Irresistible Henry House, author Lisa Grinwald mentioned getting an 0:22:26.520 --> 0:22:31.040 email from one home economics graduate who quit her program saying, quote, 0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:35.080 you can't treat children this way. But other anecdotes are 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:39.159 more positive and documents from the time students described the 0:22:39.160 --> 0:22:43.040 programs as beneficial to their education, everything from giving them 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:47.320 practical mothering experience to strengthening their connection to their own mothers, 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:50.480 to the baby's presence in the practice house transforming other 0:22:50.680 --> 0:22:54.800 domestic work from a drudgery to a joy. A nine 0:22:54.880 --> 0:22:58.600 article in Successful Farming quotes an instructor from the University 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:02.160 of Minnesota as observed ring that the program allowed students 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:04.520 to do kind of a trial run of the often 0:23:04.680 --> 0:23:08.240 frazzled first few weeks of parenthood in a more controlled 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:13.040 setting with some experienced supervision. Anecdotally, the program could be 0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:17.400 beneficial for the babies as well. Archival documents from programs 0:23:17.440 --> 0:23:20.879 all over North America described babies brought into the programs 0:23:20.920 --> 0:23:25.240 from institutions where they had been deprived, babies who were malnourished, 0:23:25.280 --> 0:23:28.320 with conditions like anemia and ricketts as we mentioned earlier, 0:23:28.960 --> 0:23:32.159 who just weren't very active or expressive, and who seemed 0:23:32.200 --> 0:23:35.600 disconnected from the people around them, and then after their 0:23:35.640 --> 0:23:38.159 time in the practice house, the babies were placed with 0:23:38.200 --> 0:23:43.080 adoptive families, now apparently happy and healthy. There are numerous 0:23:43.119 --> 0:23:46.880 reports of former practice babies being particularly sought after by 0:23:46.920 --> 0:23:50.080 families who wanted to adopt because they were considered to 0:23:50.160 --> 0:23:52.199 have been treated with the most up to date and 0:23:52.280 --> 0:23:57.440 sophisticated care. In the nineteen fifties, though, the general concerns 0:23:57.520 --> 0:24:00.760 that babies might be harmed by all this started to 0:24:00.760 --> 0:24:06.120 be reflected in some psychological research. Most notably, psychologist Henry 0:24:06.160 --> 0:24:09.560 Harlow did a series of experiments with baby reesless monkeys 0:24:09.600 --> 0:24:13.439 in the late nineteen fifties. He separated the monkeys from 0:24:13.480 --> 0:24:16.720 their mothers and then placed them in enclosures with sort 0:24:16.760 --> 0:24:19.560