The College of Family Life, and its predecessors, Home Economics and Domestic Science, were among the original disciplines offered when the Utah Agricultural College opened in 1890. The Department of Domestic Arts was one of the first established departments at the institution, eventually becoming the School of Domestic Sciences and Arts in 1903. By 1913, the college was home to the Departments of Food and Dietetics, of Home Construction and Sanitation, and of Domestic Arts.

The school would eventually offer one of the first courses in the United States on the nutrition, education, physiology, and psychology of early childhood development, also called “mothercraft”. The success of the “mothercraft” courses eventually led to the creation of the Department of Child Development and Parental Education in 1931, a precursor to the Department of Family and Human Development. The Department of Child Development and Parental Education oversaw the Child Development Lab which is now known now as the Adele and Dale Young Child Development lab.

Following the closure of the College of Family Life in the early 2000s, the Department of Family and Human Development was moved into the under the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services.