Normal Children: Developmental Research and Educational Film for the New Deal

This paper investigates how scientists and film-makers at the Yale Clinic of Child Development redefined normal child development and established norms of human behavior and social interaction. Part of the evolving science of child development in the interwar years, these researchers sought techniques to observe and manage the development of babies and young children. They built an experimental film studio with the scenic design of an everyday living environment that reflected ideas about a normal middle-class home. In this Naturalistic Studio, they filmed normal white babies for research and education. Not only did the researchers use the babies to study human development, their research product, the films of baby’s bathing, feeding, and play also became part of a national education program of the New Deal. The notion that knowledge of the normal child could be used for the visual education of the nation informed research methods, setting, and design. This paper considers the effects of the twin-function of both normal child and film for knowledge production and communication. While many historical studies of educational films or of children have focused on knowledge circulation, this case study demonstrates how the child being a tool for educational intervention had a consequential role in scientific knowledge formation. Considering the combined scientific and educational significance assigned to baby and child, this paper sheds light on the human sciences’ intersecting effects of research and visual education. The normal child in the cinematographic laboratory mutually shaped scientific method and developmental theory as well as daily life.