Real Baby to Be "Mothered" by Nebraska Girl Students in Home Economics Course. Boston Daily Globe. Nov 27, 1921; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Boston Globe (1872-1981). pg. 59
“The home economics department of the University of Nebraska has reached the limit- it has a real live baby upon which to practice. The baby is 5 months old. There are 30 young girls in the class. These 30 girls will take turns about caring for the baby. Each girl will devote one week to its care.
The mother of the child will not see her baby during the 30 weeks. Its entire care will be left in the hands of the home economics class.The class has had no experience with babies. That’s why this little one was brought on the scene. It’s to give the students the actual personal experience of taking care of a baby- to teach them the ‘do and don’t’ of motherhood.
The baby is known as Kathryn Marie. She is five months old. Her surname is suppressed by the school officials. She will remain incognito during the months through which she will be practiced upon by the inexperienced school girls. It is known, however, that she comes of a good family.
It is also known that her people are very poor, practically destitute. The care of baby Kathryn Marie will receive in the training school will probably be far better than that which she could be given at home during the same time period.
But she will not have the love of a mother to look and care for her. If Baby Kathryn Marie gets from under the cover some cold night and takes cold, a co-ed will receive a demerit mark. If her milk bottle is not properly sterilized and the milk becomes sour and Baby Kathryn Marie has colic, there will be more demerits.
Baby Kathryn Marie will make her home at the ‘Home Management’ house during her ‘farming out’ period. Miss Rena Marie Fuller is the instructor in charge of the ‘house.’ The ‘Home Management House’ is a real home, fully furnished and equipped. It has been operated by the home economics department for several years- but it has always lacked a live baby. In the past it had all the departments of a real home except a nursery. But now it has a nursery and a baby to put in it.
...Every week Baby Kathryn Marie will have a new ‘mother.’ Just about time the ‘mother’ learns how to wash a milk bottle, or give baby her bath, or something of that kind, she will retire from ‘mothering’ and another ‘greenie’ will take her place. And Baby Kathryn Marie will again go through the hands of an inexperienced young girl.
The ‘practice baby’ is to have a minimum of fondling, is the announcement from the ‘Home Management House.’ Only her mother pro term is to be permitted to touch her during any given week. No groups of co-eds or friends of co-eds are to be permitted to invade the nursery. There will be no kissing of little baby feet: there will be nothing of that kind. Baby Kathryn Marie is to be raised in the most approved scientific manner.
The first ‘baby manager’ upon the arrival of the little girl last week was Miss Ritzah Douglas of Lincoln. The second ‘mother’ will be Miss Vern Clelland of Montann. The third will be Miss Lucille Reed of Lincoln. Miss Helen Todd of Lincoln will be ‘mother’ the fourth week. Misses Kate Kreyck and Valera Downs will be the ‘mother’ the fifth and sixth weeks. Then an entirely new set of girls will come to the home and Baby Kathryn Marie will start all over again.
The little girl was secured for the school by the Juvenile Court, which was appealed to by the management. Judge Morning legally committed the baby to the care of the students, and everything is being done strictly in accordance with the law. When her ‘apprenticeship’ is over, Baby Kathryn Marie will have had 30 different ‘mothers’ and 30 girl students will have a smattering of knowledge of what it means to care for a baby.Incidentally, the little girl will be given a medical examination twice each week by a physician."
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LAKE FOREST
LAKE FOREST U. GIRLS TO ADOPT BABY BOY: Home Economics Class to See How Theories on Infant Boston Daily Globe. Oct 25, 1926; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Boston Globe (1872-1981). pg. A13
"Chicago, Oct 25- To bridge the gap between theory on the care of the infant and practical experience, coeds in the home economics special class at Lake Forest University have under consideration a plan to adopt temporarily a 10-month-old bouncing baby boy from an orphanage.
Miss Christine Payne, teacher of the class, which has much to do with the theory of rearing of an infant and its care, said there had been some considerable discussion concerning the practical application of some of the volume of theory, and that it virtually was assured that the coeds would vote favorably today on the adoption proposal.
The girls in the special class are sophomore and juniors, from 18 to 20 years old. Their plan is to bring the child to college and keep it in the girl’s dormitory. The baby would be passed along from room to room, with each student taking care of it for a day, from wheeling the perambulator around the campus to give the child an airing, to walking the floor at night if that becomes necessary.
‘Remarkable as it may seem,’ Miss Payne said, ‘the coeds, almost to a girl, want a boy. I think that the very fact that our girls could conceive such a plan is a perfect slap at charges of Wilfred O. Cross concerning the morals of college girls.’”
(Note: this plan, while indicative of the popularity of the idea, did not come to fruition).
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UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
EXPERT ADOPTS A BABY.: Dr. Louise Stanley, Head of Home Economics Bureau, Takes Girl. Special to The New York Times. New York Times; Sep 28, 1929; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2008) with Index (1851-1993) pg. 27
“Louise Stanley, chief the Bureau of Home Economics of the Department of Agriculture, has adopted a baby girl, following the example set by her friend and housemate, Mrs. Mabel Walker Willebrandt, a few years ago. Nancy, aged 16 months, joined early in September the family circle in the big old fashioned house in Eighteenth Street which includes Mrs. Willebrandt, Miss Stanley, and Miss Annabel Matthews, a Treasury Department solicitor, and which in Washington’s inner circle is known as ‘The Brain Trust.’ With the recent purchase of Mrs. Willebrandt of a house in Georgetown, however, partial dissolution confronted the ‘Brain Trust’ and Dr. Stanley sent for Nancy, whose adoption had been considered for more than a year, so that there might still be a child in the house when little Dorothy, Mrs. Willebrandt’s adopted daughter, goes with her to her new home. Nancy comes from the University of Iowa, where she has been a ‘practice baby’ from earliest infancy.”
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UNIVERSITY OF MAINE
THIRTY-FIVE HOMES FOR PRACTICE BABY: University of Maine Girls Picking Mamma For Daily Boston Globe (1928-1960); Dec 17, 1929; pg. 1.
"Rebecca Murphy, practice baby at the University of Maine- who is about to be graduated- is being sought by 35 applicants. To select new parents for her is a problem that Rena Campbell, assistant professor of home economics at the university and ‘head mother’ of Rebecca, must solve.Rebecca, as the demonstration or practice baby, is as much of a part of the great organization of the university as the blue-blooded bossies over in the cattle barn or the pedigreed chicks in the poultry houses. A large class of co-eds practice on Rebecca and learn all about how to take care of babies. She is the ninth child that has been had at the university, and all are now in good homes. The babies come from mothers who for some good reason or other are unable to care for them and willing that they should be adopted eventually into good homes.
Gained 4 ½ Pounds
Rebecca, then six months old, came to the home economics department last October, undernourished and rather morose and displeased with the world in general. She was rather unresponsive to the admiring glances and exclamations of such a bunch of enthusiastic girls. But gradually she began to have a better opinion of the place.
She was not long in deciding that the board was good. Like the other babies she is fed according to rule- just so much milk, water and dextromaltrose, each days with orange juice, cod-liver oil, spinach and cereal. Twice a day she has a nap out of doors in her carriage, forenoon and afternoon. At pm she goes to bed in a room all by herself and sleeps soundly until she is called at 10 pm for a lunch and she sleeps soundly until 6 am. Of course Rebecca’s records are carefully kept and show that she gained four and half pounds in nine weeks....
She has also developed into a darling. She has a sweet smile for everyone, big dark eyes, slightly curly hair and plump rosy cheeks.
The publicity department of the university supplied the Maine newspapers with a sketch and picture of Rebecca stating that she was available for some satisfactory family for adoption and would like a good place to hang up her Christmas stocking.The response was startling. People called to see her, there were telephone inquiries, then letters from all over- 14 in one day. Up to date there are 35 applicants for Rebecca, and more are expected. Some are from out of the State.Rebecca will have a nice home and a place to hang up her Christmas stocking- but where has not been as yet decided. Rebecca doesn’t seem to care and appears happy as she is.”