The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live

The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live PDF

Author: Danielle Dreilinger

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2021-05-04

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 1324004509

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The surprising, often fiercely feminist, always fascinating, yet barely known, history of home economics. The term “home economics” may conjure traumatic memories of lopsided hand-sewn pillows or sunken muffins. But common conception obscures the story of the revolutionary science of better living. The field exploded opportunities for women in the twentieth century by reducing domestic work and providing jobs as professors, engineers, chemists, and businesspeople. And it has something to teach us today. In the surprising, often fiercely feminist and always fascinating The Secret History of Home Economics, Danielle Dreilinger traces the field’s history from Black colleges to Eleanor Roosevelt to Okinawa, from a Betty Crocker brigade to DIY techies. These women—and they were mostly women—became chemists and marketers, studied nutrition, health, and exercise, tested parachutes, created astronaut food, and took bold steps in childhood development and education. Home economics followed the currents of American culture even as it shaped them. Dreilinger brings forward the racism within the movement along with the strides taken by women of color who were influential leaders and innovators. She also looks at the personal lives of home economics’ women, as they chose to be single, share lives with other women, or try for egalitarian marriages. This groundbreaking and engaging history restores a denigrated subject to its rightful importance, as it reminds us that everyone should learn how to cook a meal, balance their account, and fight for a better world.

Catalog

Catalog PDF

Author: Food and Nutrition Information Center (U.S.)

Publisher:

Published: 1974

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13:

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Rethinking Home Economics

Rethinking Home Economics PDF

Author: Sarah Stage

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2018-07-05

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 1501729942

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Until recently, historians tended to dismiss home economics as little more than a conspiracy to keep women in the kitchen. This landmark volume initiates collaboration among home economists, family and consumer science professionals, and women's historians. What knits the essays together is a willingness to revisit the subject of home economics with neither indictment nor apology. The volume includes significant new work that places home economics in the twentieth century within the context of the development of women's professions. Rethinking Home Economics documents the evolution of a profession from the home economics movement launched by Ellen Richards in the early twentieth century to the modern field renamed Family and Consumer Sciences in 1994. The essays in this volume show the range of activities pursued under the rubric of home economics, from dietetics and parenting, teaching and cooperative extension work, to test kitchen and product development. Exploration of the ways in which gender, race, and class influenced women's options in colleges and universities, hospitals, business, and industry, as well as government has provided a greater understanding of the obstacles women encountered and the strategies they used to gain legitimacy as the field developed.

Teaching Home Economics (Classic Reprint)

Teaching Home Economics (Classic Reprint) PDF

Author: Anna M. Cooley

Publisher:

Published: 2015-07-03

Total Pages: 578

ISBN-13: 9781330631102

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Excerpt from Teaching Home Economics The object of this book is to offer suggestions for the organization, administration, and teaching of the home economics studies. In the preparation of the book the authors have endeavored to adapt it to the various types of persons whose needs they hope to serve. Before the war these studies were recognized by some as an essential part of the general education of every girl. With the declaration of peace, they assume a new significance and appear as an indispensable part of her education. This is true because every girl needs instruction regarding better and more healthful living, and training in those practices which will enable her to live her daily life more intelligently, to rear her children more thoughtfully, and to serve her community and country more efficiently. These studies are needed by some because they prepare also for certain definite wage-earning vocations. This book draws the distinction between home economics studies as organized for general or liberal education purposes and such lines of specialized vocational training as may have grown out of them. It is the conviction of the authors that only through a closely woven course involving both theory and practice can the subject matter offered have any real value to the students. The book presupposes courses in the various phases of Home Economics, - practical, scientific, artistic, economic, and sociological, - of greater or less intensity. In other words, it is taken for granted that the student who will use it will be familiar with the scope of the field, and that her course in methods will serve as a means of evaluating and unifying the material she gains through her technical courses, and interpreting it in terms of elementary and secondary school teaching. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.