Beginning in the early
1900s, collegiate home economics programs across the nation included
"practice house" programs designed to help female students learn "mothercraft,"
the scientific art of childrearing. At Cornell each semester, eight
women students lived with a resident advisor in the "practice apartment,"
where they took turns performing a full range of homemaking activities
in a scientific and cost-efficient manner.
In 1919, the first practice baby, named Dicky Domecon for "domestic
economy," came to Cornell. Cornell secured infants through area orphanages
and child welfare associations. Babies were nurtured by the students
according to strict schedules and guidelines, and after a year, they
were available for adoption. Prospective adoptive parents in this
era desired Domecon babies because they had been raised according
to the most up-to-date scientific principles.
Flora Rose, an early proponent of the program, believed that babies
were essential to replicate the full domestic experience. Albert Mann,
Dean of the College of Agriculture, called the apartments "essential
laboratory practice for women students." As time passed, however,
new research in child development pointed to the need for a primary
bond with a single caregiver, and social changes in the lives of women
made the practice house focus on domesticity seem old-fashioned. In
addition, by the late 1960s, the ideology most prominent in the college
favored hard science over practical applications. By 1969, the year
the college changed its name, practice apartments were dropped from
the Cornell curriculum.
Select an image at left
or choose from the list below: