Celebrating the 50th anniversary of merrill-palmer quarterly

Merrill-Palmer Quarterly has not always looked the way it does today, nor has it always enjoyed its current reputation as a scholarly scientific journal. In fact, MPQ, which is older than many of its contemporaries, has been through many transformations. Indeed, the journal's purpose, style, and content have changed quite radically in the past 50 years. Accordingly, my purpose here is to review some of the journal's history, including the confluence of events, people, and institutional forces that brought about its creation and contributed to its longevity, and to commemorate some of Quarterly's accomplishments from a historical and contemporary perspective.