But by the 1960s, enlightened pediatricians such as Dr. Benjamin Spock urged mothers to "trust yourself" in a more hands-on approach with their children.
Practice baby programs were eventually phased out as new research underscored the need for a primary bond with a single caregiver.
Cornell's practice apartments later became a day-care center for faculty children and the program was dropped from the curriculum in 1969 when women found their footing in the career world and home economics seemed old-fashioned.
But in 1952, the program was so highly regarded that Redmond, married and pregnant with her first of eight children at the time, was featured in a cover story in Life magazine, "The Making of a Home: Cornell Girls Study for Their Big Job."
"For six weeks, we were responsible 24 hours a day for the child," she said. "There was a lot of emphasis on development testing and playing with the child -- not just babysitting. The jobs were divvied up to learn practical skills.
"If you had not learned cooking when you were growing up, you had to cook. If you hadn't done much babysitting, you had to the mother or assistant mother or do the cleaning."
The program was highly supervised by the home economics faculty, Redmond said.
Denny seemed well-adjusted and things seemed to run smoothly in the practice apartment, save for an occasional cake that didn't rise properly.
"He cried and we fed him and made sure he was comfortable," she said. "Maybe he just needed to cry, so we would allow him to cry a little. We didn't pick him up so quickly and cuddle him. It was very Dr. Spock."
No one ever knew how these children fared.
"The whole program never used real names because they were orphans," said Eileen Keating, archivist of the Cornell exhibit. "They didn't want us ever to find out. They were adopted and there are no records. We have baby books that the students did, but other than that, we have nothing."
Cornell Graduates Upset By 'Henry House' Book
The Cornell exhibit was the product of a 2001 centennial project on the home economics program, which was tuition-free to young women from New York State.
The program was an early testing-ground for consumer research, a "gateway for early education for a different group of women who were so well educated," Keating said. "They were doing the science: How does yeast work when you make rolls, not just how to make rolls ... and the ergonomics of kitchen design and counter top heights."
But when the practice apartments were uncovered, it "blew the minds of a lot of people," Keating said.
And in 2010, when Grunwald's book came out, renewed interest emerged.
"A few graduates of the college were very upset," Keating said of the book. "They had fond memories of working with the babies and knowing that there were long waiting lists for women to adopt these babies."
Grunwald said she didn't mean to disparage Cornell or any of the other colleges.
"These were bizarre programs done with the best of intentions," she said. "I heard from a program in another part of the country and the baby would actually be put down to nap by one mother and be woken up by a different one."
Grunwald, who is 51 and the mother of two, 18 and 14, whom she raised in the supermom culture of New York City, wondered, "What happens if a child is given too much attention? The notion of eight to 20 women circling around an infant made my skin crawl."
Henry House struggles with issues of intimacy and attachment and fails to trust anyone after being raised by multiple mothers, "handed around like a tray of hors d'oeuvres," Grunwald wrote.
The author received an e-mail from one graduate who said she was so upset by the program that she quit, saying, "You can't treat children this way."
"Practice apartment" babies such as this one at Cornell were held to strict, scientifically engineered diets by their student "mothers."
As for the rearing of Denny Domecon, his practice mother Redmond admits, "I don't have 20-20 wisdom on that."
"We never knew what happened to him," she said. "It was an anonymous situation and sometimes I wonder about him. But that's the way it was."
Years later, when Redmond was working in administration at Cornell, a man contacted the home economics program.
"His aunt, on her deathbed, had informed him that he was one of those Domecon babies," she said. "He wrote to get some information about a way to find his parents. All those years, he never knew."
And she was unable to help him.