Most people have one, tucked away somewhere. Whether you’re a parent, a grandparent, or a grown-up daughter or son, somewhere there’s a baby book in your life.

And for Janet Golden, they are a treasure trove of information.

Golden, a professor of history at Rutgers–Camden, is researching a book on the history of babies in America, concentrating on the time period from the 1890s through the late 20th century. Baby books have become one of her main sources of information.

The biggest collection is at UCLA, which has 800 to 900 baby books, many of them from middle and working class families. UCLA’s collection is continually growing, Golden said, because the university buys them on E-bay. 

Reading the books, which date back to the late 1800s, Golden can spot trends and traditions, and take note of once-popular fads that have disappeared. 

“I was surprised to see how, throughout the 20th century, parents have been extremely focused on the costs of childrearing and on saving for education,” Golden said. “I always cringe when I read baby books from the 1920s and see that parents have opened bank accounts for their babies, because I know they'll be wiped out in the Great Depression.”  

One of the disappearing fads? Early toilet training. “They used to try to do it as early as 6 weeks, if you can imagine that,” Golden said. 

Golden is the author or editor of several books, including Message in a Bottle: The Making of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (Harvard University Press) and A Social History of Wet Nursing: From Breast to Bottle (Cambridge University Press). Among her edited or co-edited books are Children and Youth in Sickness and in Health with Richard Meckel and Heather Munro Presscott, and Mothers and Motherhood: Readings in American History with Rima D. Apple.  

“My expertise is in history of medicine and American social history, and women's history, and I've always written about children in my research.” Golden said. “This topic [the history of babies] was suggested by a colleague, and it seemed like a perfect fit.”  

Research on her books has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Commonwealth Fund. “One of my goals as a historian is to engage in research that has an impact on public policy,” Golden said.  

Besides reading baby books, Golden is also looking at the way babies are portrayed in popular culture throughout the past century. One of the constants: the movie theme of “Gee, isn’t it funny when men have to take care of babies?” Golden said. “You see it in early Edison films -- there’s one called  Oh You Suffragette – to modern-era ones like Three Men and a Baby.  

Babies also have been a constant and popular marketing tool. They’ve been used to market all sorts of items, including war bonds in WWII   -- and even cigarettes.

“In the ‘40s and ‘50s, the tobacco companies were quite shameless about using babies to pitch the ‘joys’ of smoking,’ Golden said.  

And then there are all those products marketed for parents. “It’s amazing even back at turn of 20th century, how many manufacturers were pushing products on parents for their infants,” Golden said. “They weren’t the technological gadgets we have now, but you still had companies implying ‘You’re not a good parent unless your baby has this new baby buggy.’”  

Golden was born in Los Angeles and currently lives outside of Philadelphia.  She taught at Temple University for four years prior to coming to Rutgers in 1992. This semester at Camden she is teaching an undergraduate course on perspectives in history that will concentrate on the Great Depression, and a graduate history course that will focus on post-1945 America.  

What does she see as the biggest challenge facing parents raising kids today? “It would be the lack of child care and the lack of guaranteed health care for all Americans,” Golden said, adding, “Paid family leave would be nice.”  

Golden has raised two children, now both adults. And yes, Golden kept her own baby books, although she admits there were very few entries in them. She has donated them to the UCLA collection.

“One thing I’ve found from reading all these books is that the first baby always seems to have the most detailed accounts. Later children often get added in at end of first child’s book,” Golden said. “So any parent today shouldn’t feel guilty about neglecting to keep detailed books on second or third children. It’s been done that way through the ages.”