Edith Sunderlin: Iowa Time Machine December 24, 1901

Iowa Time Machine ⏰: On December 24, 1901, Edith Marybell Sunderlin was born in Delmar, Iowa. The longtime Iowa State College (now ISU) professor of Child Development endeared herself to a generation of Iowa’s kids as the host of WOI’s “The Children’s Hour.”

After moving to Ames as a child, Sunderlin graduated from Iowa State in 1924 before obtaining a Master’s degree from the University of Iowa in 1931. After a brief unpaid stint at Purdue University working in the developing field of Child Development, Sunderlin returned to Ames to work as a faculty member in the laboratory nursery school at Iowa State.

After an initial appearance on Martha Duncan’s WOI radio program, where she read a children’s book, Iowa children started to know Sunderlin as the ‘storybook lady’ on the popularly branded “Iowa Public Radio.” By 1939, she appeared three times a week on her own program, “Storybook Hour.” In 1942 the daily feature program “The Children’s Hour” debuted.

Aside from the celebrity gained from the popular radio program, Sunderlin proved a pioneering force in Iowa State’s Child Development program. She placed great value on practical experience for children in education and developed a curriculum still in use at Iowa State decades after her departure. #IowaOTD #IowaHistoryDaily #IowaHistoryCalendar