Bucking the System: Women in the Health
Sciences at the University of
Iowa, 1874 - 1950
Nutrition Department
The Field of Nutrition
In the early
decades of the twentieth century, American women scientists -- especially in
physics, chemistry and medicine -- held only marginal status. Conventional
histories of nutrition, consisting chiefly of "great men" and their discoveries,
neglect or obscure the contributions of women in the field. Such accounts
ignore, for example, the nutrition research undertaken in departments of
"household arts," "household science," or "home economics" established and
staffed by women at coeducational colleges and universities in the Progressive
Era (1893 to 1917).
| From the outset, the field of nutrition was largely
divided by gender. Women's base in nutrition lay chiefly in home economics and
hospital nutrition, while men maintained a traditional base in laboratory
sciences such as physiology and chemistry. In the long run, the tendency toward
sex segregation in nutrition worked to the disadvantage of women, reflecting and
reinforcing existing power relations between the sexes. For example, it was men
who commanded the resources -- notably space, equipment and money -- of the
medical colleges and teaching hospitals that produced nutrition research. By the
1950s, sexual segregation in nutrition had taken on a functional dimension: men
had taken charge of much of the important work of research; women were primarily
confined to institutional menu planning and food service management -- lower
status functions related to women's traditional role of provider.
The history of the University of Iowa Nutrition Department generally followed
the pattern sketched above. Iowa's Nutrition Department, however, was unusual in
having developed in close proximity to medicine rather than to either teacher
education or home economics. Established in the College of Medicine in 1921 and
transferred to the University Hospitals in 1926, the Nutrition Department shared
with other clinical departments a mission encompassing education, research, and
patient service. |
52. Dr. Kate Daum working in
lab
Director of Department of Nutrition
1940
Courtesy of the Food and
Nutrition Department, UIHC |
Nutrition at the University of Iowa
53. Postcard
of Dr. Kate Daum's Laboratory
1928
Courtesy of the Food and Nutrition
Department, UIHC | The history of the University of
Iowa Nutrition Department is largely the story of two remarkable and widely
respected figures, Dr. Ruth Wheeler and Dr. Kate Daum, who headed the department
from 1921 to 1926 and 1927 to 1955, respectively.
By the mid-1920s most large hospitals had established dietary departments.
These were supervised by skilled dietitians. In 1921 Dr. Ruth Wheeler was hired
to take charge of the new Nutrition Department at the University of Iowa. She
entered an environment tightly controlled by men whose visions of a nutrition
department differed from her own. It was a setting where competition for money,
space, and professional turf was intense and often bitter. Immediately,
Wheeler's requests for space, equipment and support personnel sparked
bureaucratic squabbles. The College of Medicine eventually provided a typewriter
and a full-time secretary and contributed $1000 toward her $5000 annual salary --
a salary substantially higher than that of most full-time clinical
faculty. |
The academic program Wheeler administered was one year in duration,
culminating in the master's degree. In addition to time spent in class and in
study, her nutrition students/interns worked forty-eight hour weeks, with
Saturday or Sunday off. Despite this rigorous work schedule, which contributed a
notable volume of free labor to the running of University Hospitals, Wheeler had
to press hospital administrators to provide the same room and board for her
interns as was awarded to medical interns.
When Wheeler accepted an offer to teach at Vassar College, her resignation
triggered plans to dismember to Nutrition Department. Dean Lee W. Dean now
controlled the College of Medicine, and, with Wheeler's resignation, his
ambivalence towards the Nutrition Department became more obvious. Upon Ruth
Wheeler's recommendation, Dr. Kate Daum was hired as Assistant Professor of
Nutrition in the Department of Internal Medicine and Florence Ross of Simmons
College, Boston, became head of the Nutrition Department, which was relocated to
the University Hospitals. The fate of the graduate program was left hanging.
This situation was unexpectedly resolved in 1927 with the resignation of
several medical faculty and the ouster of Dean Dean. Dr. Ross was removed from
office, and the positions of Professor of Nutrition and head of the Nutrition
were combined in the name of Kate Daum.
54. Nurse
with Children
Children's Hospital
circa 1950
Courtesy of the Food and
Nutrition Department, UIHC
Read about the doctors of the Nutrition Department.
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