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Chapter 2

Growth of State and Regional Councils-1939

By February of 1939, five regional councils had been established throughout the United States and most of them had already held or would hold meetings. In addition three issues of the Living journal had already been published. Immediately, editor, Paul Sayre began to market the journal to college and university libraries as well as to organizations and individual members.

Adolf Meyer, M.D., LL.D.

Adolph Meyer, 2nd NCFR President

Dr. Meyer (1866-1950) was a distinguished Swiss psychiatrist and neurologist who at that time was a professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, and Director of the Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

"Man has been very slow to allow himself to submit to the process of scientific and truly science-making study. The family in our own midst as a going concern has only in the last two decades received active consideration when it started to be beset by problems of economic, social and existential maintenance, in which today civilization herself is involved and challenged. . .

According to the extent to which our leading institutions of higher learning persist in a failure to create, frankly, a well-defined science of man, and allow large numbers of future leaders of man to graduate without having brought together in a well-rounded form the natural sciences as well as the humanities and vic versa, many will assume authority in matters of responsibilities for human life for the handling of which they are no better qualified than the uneducated."

Quotation from Adolph Meyer, 2nd NCFR President, from his 1939 presidential address

The Second Annual Conference

December 26, 27, 1939 - Sylvania Hotel, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The theme of the second NCFR conference was The Role and Functions of the Family in a Democracy.

Structure/Governance in 1939

The Executive Committee appointed a special committee on "The Family and National Defense," to report their findings at the 1940 (3rd) annual NCFR conference.

Membership and Awards in 1939

The Award of Merit at the 2nd Annual Conference was given to Katherine F. Lenroot, Chief of the Children’s Bureau for her distinguished service in the field of family relations.

Affiliated and State/Regional Councils in 1939

By February, 1939 four regional councils had been established.

Journals in 1939

Volume 1 of the journal Living, contained 4 issues and was published by Banta Publishers, Menasha, Wisconsin.