Yesterday we recorded a podcast on the Bureau of Home Economics, and while I was researching it I found an offhand reference at the end of a news article to a child having been a “practice baby.”

Of course I immediately needed to know what a practice baby was.

The short version is between approx. 1919 and 1969 it was common for home economics programs to have senior year students live in a “practice apartment” or “practice house” for a time, and this sort of home ec lab practical sometimes also involved caring for a practice baby.

OF COURSE there is a lot to discuss about the ethics of this. BUT my point at this moment is that I read a whole lot of astonished articles written in the last 10 years that were like, “And no one knows how ANY of these children turned out because no one bothered to follow up.”

Then how am I reading a whole series of articles on studies conducted at Iowa State College in the 1950s, comparing the intellectual/social/psychological development of children who lived in a home management house for an academic quarter with children who did not?

It’s not even like this was buried somewhere obscure. I found it (and other work) on JSTOR with a search for “‘home economics’ babies” narrowed to 1910-1979 publication dates.