Skip navigation

The University of Iowa Libraries

Special Collections and University Archives

Finding Aid

Amy L. Daniels Papers
RG99.0308
Collection Dates: 1903-1942
0.25 linear ft.

Access and Restrictions: This collection is open for research.

Digital Surrogates: Except where indicated, this document describes but does not reproduce the actual text, images and objects which make up this collection. Materials are available only in the Special Collections Department.

Copyright: Please read The University of Iowa Libraries' statement on Property Rights, Copyright Law, and Permissions to Use Unpublished Materials.

Use of Collections: The University of Iowa Libraries supports access to the materials, published and unpublished, in its collections. Nonetheless, access to some items may be restricted by their fragile condition or by contractual agreement with donors, and it may not be possible at all times to provide appropriate machinery for reading, viewing or accessing non-paper-based materials. Please read our Use of Manuscripts Statement.

Acquisition and Processing Information: These papers were donated to University Archives by Dr. Floy Eugenia Whitehead in June 1992.  Guide created in November 2008.

Photographs: Box 1

Dr. F. Eugenia Whitehead, Amy L. Daniels, Ruth Anne Schlotfelt, August 1962

Dr. F. Eugenia Whitehead, Amy L. Daniels, Ruth Anne Schlotfelt.  Presenting Dr. Daniels with "Concerning Amy Louise Daniels," August 1962


Scope and Contents

The Amy L. Daniels papers document her achievements during her professional career in nutrition.  Of interest is an Iowa City Press-Citizen newspaper clipping referring to a 1922 visit to the University of Iowa Children's Hospital by C. Ulysses Moore, a noted pediatrician of that time, who praised Dr. Daniels's work.


Biographical Note

Amy Louise Daniels was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, on July 26, 1875.  In 1903 she graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which at that time primarily admitted male students.  After graduation, she moved to Denver, Colorado, where she taught the science involved in cooking to a high school home economics class.  In her biography "Concerning Amy Louise Daniels," Ruth Anne Schlotfelt explained that this was in keeping with Dr. Daniels's scientific background: "[S]he refused to teach 'just cookin' and sewin', but organized her classes into an experimental laboratory and taught basic scientific facts of cooking instead of how to follow a recipe."

Dr. Daniels received her B.S. degree from Columbia University in 1906.  In December 1908 she was one of a small group of women who established the Home Economics Association in Lake Placid, New York.  In 1912 she became the first woman to receive a Ph.D. from Yale in biological chemistry.  Dr. Daniels was assistant professor at the University of Missouri from 1911 to 1914 and at University of Wisconsin from 1914 until 1918.

Dr. Daniels was recruited to the State University of Iowa by Dr. Bird Thomas Baldwin, first director of Iowa Child Welfare Research Station, which was established in September 1917.  Daniels was professor of nutrition at the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station from 1918 until her retirement in 1941.  She also worked with the Children's Hospital when it opened in March 1919.  Her research focused on infant nutrition as a cure for illness, for which she became internationally known.  In 1930 she was a member of the White House Conference on Child Development.  She was the recipient of the first Borden Award in 1937 from the American Home Economics Association for her research paper, "Relation of Ingestion of Milk to Calcium Metabolism in Children."  She published more than 50 research papers between 1914 and 1948.  A bibliography of her work is included in "Concerning Amy Louise Daniels," noted in Related Materials, below.  Dr. Amy L. Daniels died January 31, 1965, at age 89.

[D. Anderson; 11/2008]


Related Materials

Folder, "Daniels, Amy L.," Faculty and Staff Vertical Files collection (RG 01.15.03)

Folder, "Baldwin, Bird T.," Faculty and Staff Vertical Files collection (RG 01.15.03)

Records of the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station (RG 23.03)

Schlotfelt, Ruth Anne. "Concerning Amy Louise Daniels." Seminar paper, University of Iowa, 1962. 53 pp. Archives, in Historical Papers Collection (RG 01.01.03)

Fifty Years of Research, 1917-1967. The Institute of Child Behavior and Development. Iowa City: University of Iowa, 1967. 129 pp.



Box Contents List

Box 1

Teaching certificate for Denver, Colorado, September 1903

Letter of appointment to Springfield, Massachusetts, public schools, September 1909

Correspondence from H. C. Sherman of Columbia University Chemistry Department, 1940

Borden Award photographs, 1937; 1938

Photographs, 1938; 1959

Newspaper clippings, 1905-1942