1940s
Events include: Second World War; first
transistor, cruise missile, and nuclear bomb; Marshall
Plan; beginning of the Cold War; scrap drives for steel,
tin, paper, and rubber; Armistice Day Blizzard
strikes Minnesota
Woman posing on the military airplane she is
building
U.S. presidents:
Harry S. Truman (1945–1953)
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–1945)
1949 |
Ralph W. Tyler publishes Basic Principles of
Curriculum and Instruction.
1947 | The Educational Testing Service is born.
1946 |
Benjamin Spock publishes Baby and Child Care.
1945 |
Dr. Charles Prosser conducts a study which inspires
educators to launch the Life Adjustment movement in an
effort to make school more relevant to children.
1944 |
GI Bill of Rights
provides for education and housing and creates a new
middle class. 1940 |
Coffman Memorial Union, dedicated to
President Lotus Coffman, is opened.
What Is Our War Job?
A look at the alumni association’s role during World War
II.
Inside Coffman Union |
Timeline
1948
Dean Peik puts his weight
behind the creation of the Bureau of Field Studies
and Surveys, whose responsibility is to gather
statistical information from Minnesota’s schools and
school districts with the hope of analyzing the data
to suggest solutions to common problems. The bureau
ambitiously completes 13 surveys in its first
21 months, and its mission remains unchanged until it
is replaced by the Center for Educational Policy
Studies in 1978.
1947
The college opens a
laboratory elementary school, which for 20 years
serves as a training school for teachers. The school
pioneers many innovations, including the use of
closed-circuit television teaching and kinescope
instruction.
 Faculty member
Florence L. Goodenough
retires. A founding instructor in the Institute of Child
Development, she arrived at the University in 1924 and 
was appointed an assistant professor of the college the
following year. She gained renown as an expert in the
psychology of gifted children. Her Draw-a-Man test,
developed in 1926, was used for decades to measure
intelligence in preschoolers and older children. Her many books
included Measurement of Intelligence by Drawings,
Handbook of Child Psychology, and Anger in Young
Children. Among her many distinguished students was
Ruth Howard (right), the first African-American woman to
receive a Ph.D. in psychology.
1946
Edith West joins the faculty in
social studies education, eventually succeeding Edgar Wesley as
chair of social studies at University High School. West goes on
to a prominent academic career, serving as a faculty member in
the college until 1980 and authoring several social studies
textbooks. She develops the U of M Social Studies Project, a
curriculum for high schools that integrated multicultural
classes and the “new social studies” programs of the 1960’s. She
served as president of the Minnesota Council for Social Studies
and was a board member of its national organization.
1942
Stanley Sahlstrom earns an undergraduate degree. The former farm boy
goes on to develop a program to help veterans become
farmers, serve as director of field services and
assistant to the president at St. Cloud Teachers
College, and spend nearly 20 years as the founding
provost of the University of Minnesota’s Crookston
campus.
1941
America’s entry into World
War II depletes the college of students and faculty.
Faculty member Guy Bond—an innovator in the study
of the development of reading skills—serves four
years in the U.S. Navy and devises influential
placement tests for members of the armed forces.
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