Practice Babies at Plattsburgh: A Special Collections exhibit in the Feinberg Library Lobby

From 1940-1959, the Home Economics major became the first four-year program with its own degree at Plattsburgh State Teachers College.

As part of their degree training, seniors in the program were required to live in the “Home Management House” for six weeks, where they were expected not only to manage the home, but also to care for a baby. Depending on how many seniors were in the Home Management house at the time, each woman would be “mother” to the baby for a period of time.

Every year, a new baby, sometimes as young as five days old, was provided to the Home Management House either by the New York State Welfare System or the Clinton County Foundling Hospital. These babies had usually been abandoned, given up for adoption, or removed from their parents’ care. Most of them were placed into loving adoptive families after their time at the Home Management House.

For more information visit the exhibit on display in the library's second floor lobby.
The exhibit was created by Victoria Boccassini, Michael Burgess, and Debra Kimok.

For more information on Practice Babies:

See the Virtual Practice Babies exhibit at Cornell University:
http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/homeEc/cases/apartments.html

Listen to an interview with a former “Practice Mom” from a Pennsylvania college:
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/12/132869061/Letters-Practice-Babies