In a 2003 interview psychologist Eleanor Gibson reflected on her long and celebrated career at Cornell, and her first years on campus, stating “When I first went to Cornell, Cornell University did not hire women.” But Dr. Gibson was wrong. Throughout the prior century, women worked as researchers and professors in the College of Home Economics, conducting interdisciplinary work designed to improve the lives of individuals and communities around them. In a presentation given at Mann Library in March 2024, Kathleen McCormick, doctoral student in Psychology at Cornell and 2023 recipient of the College of Human Ecology Graduate Archival Research Fellowship, explores the history of human development and home economics, and the ways the field shaped and was shaped by the political environment of the postwar period. As McCormick illustrates, human development faculty and researchers have made contributions that have transformed the field of psychology and the methods and theoretical orientation of developmental science.
