An ‘ingenious system of practical contacts’: Historical origins and development of the Institute of Child Welfare Research at Columbia University's Teachers College (1922–36)

Abstract

During the first two decades of the 20th century, the expansion of private foundations and philanthropic initiatives in the United States converged with a comprehensive, nationwide agenda of progressive education and post-war social reconstruction that situated childhood at its core. From 1924 to 1928, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial was the main foundation behind the aggressive, systematic funding of the child development movement in North America. A pioneering institution, the Institute of Child Welfare Research, established in 1924 at Columbia's Teachers College, was the first Rockefeller-funded programme of its kind at an American university. The Institute was influential in helping set up a nationwide network of child welfare institutes at other universities. Twelve years later, it would also be the first of those institutes to close. Nonetheless, the Institute's context, emergence, and development have been overlooked or misrepresented by previous scholarship, which calls for a new, critical historical analysis. By drawing on a number of archival sources and unpublished materials, this paper offers a critical reconstruction of the Institute's internal, often unstable history, emphasizing its origins, members, and administrative changes. I argue that the demise of the Institute should be understood in the context of both the revision of philanthropic policies in the late 1920s and the Institute's singular emphasis on teaching and training over research. The resulting narrative allows for a deeper, more informed understanding of both the Institute's origins and its eventual folding.

A supposedly objective thing I'll never use again: Word association and the quest for validity and reliability in emotional adjustment research from Carl Jung to Carl Rogers (1898–1927)

“…By analyzing these forms, the relative proportion of those reactions which were complex-determined could be calculated. This surely appealed to Rogers: by 1927 the installations at the Speyer Clinic were not equipped with experimental apparatus, but with mental and performance tests, form boards and developmental scales (Fierro, 2022c).…”

“…To obtain his Master's degree, the 24‐year‐old Rogers spent a full academic year at Columbia's Teachers College between September 1926 and May 1927, taking multiple courses on mental measurements, psychological tests and psychological work with young children (Figure 2). 11 The College served as a very active hub for clinical psychologists throughout the 1910s and 1920s (Fierro, 2022c; Routh, 2000). As a part of their graduate training in clinical and educational psychology, its students had to conduct original research on clinical issues.…”

“A backdrop for psychotherapy”: Carl R. Rogers, psychological testing, and the psycho-educational clinic at Columbia University’s Teachers College (1924–1935).

“…The objective of the LSRM’s program was to foster research and training on normal child development: the guidance of the “normal child” was one of its declared aims (Smuts, 2006; Thompson et al, 2012). Preexisting ties between the Rockefeller Foundation and Columbia University, as well as Teachers College’s national standing in the training and education of psychologists made it an ideal setting for establishing an institute devoted to research and training in child development (Fierro, 2021). From the outset its projects and undertakings had a clear clinical, remedial aspect: to obtain data and make follow-ups for the Institute’s researches at public schools, the researchers “had to set up individual procedure looking toward correction of undesirable situations” (Caldwell, 1924, p. 37).…”

“…This neglect is part of a broader trend given that both the ICWR and its clinic have been historically neglected (cf. Fierro, 2021).…”