Interdisciplinarity in Transition: The Formation and Transformation of the Committee on Human Development, 1930s–1950s

In 1929, Robert Hutchins became the president of the University of Chicago and one of his first reforms was to build the Committee on Child Development (CCD). The CCD came into existence when the nationwide Child Development Movement started waning. Hutchins and his old associates in the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial were interested in Child Development as a form of interdisciplinary social science, and their ideas greatly shaped the initial design of the Committee. Without wholehearted support from the department chairs, however, the CCD was eventually established as a compromise between the departments and the president. Into the late 1930s, the appointments made by the new divisional dean, Robert Redfield, opened new channels for cross-departmental collaboration. Under the chairmanship of Ralph Tyler, the Committee's name was changed to Human Development (CHD) in 1940. Meanwhile, community studies became the central focus of the Committee, which reflected the societal concerns of restoring social order while war and social dissolution were impinging upon the country. This paper analyzes two modes of interdisciplinarity emerging in two distinct stages of the development of the Committee, which were contingent upon the changing university structure, the shifting interests of the foundations, and the visions of different generations of scholars.