Iowa Child Welfare Research Station

In 1963 the station was renamed the Institute of Child Behavior and Development due to negative association amongst the public with the phrase "Child Welfare". In 1974 the Institute was closed as a research establishment.

History

The station was founded in 1917. A leader of the Iowa Congress of Mothers (a chapter of the National Congress of Mothers, which later became the Parent-Teacher Association) named Cora Bussey Hillis arranged for the station to be sited at the University of Iowa and procured funding from the state legislature and the Women's Christian Temperance Union. Hillis worked with Carl Emil Seashore, then the head of the psychology department at the University of Iowa, to establish the station. Seashore helped author the following law, which was eventually signed into law in 1917:

With the exception of a stint of military service during World War I Dr. Bird Thomas Baldwin served as the first director of the station until his death on May 11, 1928.

In 1922 the station listed these employees:

• Director Baldwin
• Paid, full time—4 nurses, 1 social worker, 3 clerical or other helpers.
• Paid, part time—1 physician, 1 nurse, 1 social worker, 3 clerical or other helpers.
• Volunteer, part time—4 physicians.