1930 baby book
CREDIT: LOUISE M. DARLING BIOMEDICAL LIBRARY/UCLA |
Baby books, those little pamphlets that record baby's first steps and first words, now interest more than doting relatives. Scholars are finding the books a new source of close-up information on the early lives of infants from different times.
Last month, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library held a reception to introduce its collection of more than 500 baby books dating back to 1884. It's a historical treasure trove that charts shifting attitudes about public health and parenthood, says archivist Russell Johnson. "A space for the father to make entries doesn't show up until around World War II," he notes.
The books may have emerged as part of a late-19th century public health campaign to "Save the Babies," according to Jacqueline H. Wolf, a medical historian at Ohio University in Athens. "Baby books represented a change in cultural thinking," she says. "Infants were not weak and susceptible, as people had long argued. Rather, infant death was preventable."
Russell says UCLA welcomes donations from all eras, especially because the library often battles collectors of famous children's book illustrators when copies come up on eBay.
