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The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live
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. 16 pages of illustrations
400 pages, Paperback
First published May 4, 2021
488 people are currently reading
9532 people want to read
About the author
Danielle Dreilinger
1 book64 followersWant Danielle to visit your book group? Send her an invite here! https://thedailyreason.wordpress.com/...
Journalist Danielle Dreilinger is the author of The Secret History of Home Economics, published in May 2021 by W. W. Norton. She was a 2018 Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellow at the University of Michigan, was named best features writer by the Louisiana Press Association and has received grants or fellowships from the Robert B. Silvers Foundation, the Education Writers Association and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. She spent five years covering New Orleans’ nationally contentious education revolution for the Times-Picayune. Before that she produced WGBH’s local news website and wrote for the Boston Globe, most notably as the Somerville correspondent focused on gentrification, diversity, politics and city life. She began her career covering the arts for several outlets, including WBUR, where she was part of the team that won the station’s first Online Journalism Award. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Hechinger Report, USA Today, Ploughshares, Nashville Scene and No Depression, among (many) other publications. She holds a bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, from Columbia University.
Journalist Danielle Dreilinger is the author of The Secret History of Home Economics, published in May 2021 by W. W. Norton. She was a 2018 Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellow at the University of Michigan, was named best features writer by the Louisiana Press Association and has received grants or fellowships from the Robert B. Silvers Foundation, the Education Writers Association and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. She spent five years covering New Orleans’ nationally contentious education revolution for the Times-Picayune. Before that she produced WGBH’s local news website and wrote for the Boston Globe, most notably as the Somerville correspondent focused on gentrification, diversity, politics and city life. She began her career covering the arts for several outlets, including WBUR, where she was part of the team that won the station’s first Online Journalism Award. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Hechinger Report, USA Today, Ploughshares, Nashville Scene and No Depression, among (many) other publications. She holds a bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, from Columbia University.
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February 3, 2022
The Secret of Home Economics by Danielle Dreilinger is a 2022 W.W. Norton & Company publication.
A surprisingly fascinating look at the history of Home Economics from a feminist viewpoint.
Like many people, when I heard someone say ‘Home Economics’ it instantly brought to mind images of 1950s classrooms where the message was clear- A woman’s place was in the home and that is most unfortunate.
This well-researched book takes a hard look at the history of home economics and her findings are extraordinary!
Before the field became stigmatized, and a course relegated to mainly white girls and women, the field was considered progressive, using science to help improve society through the home. The goal was to curb hunger and improve health through nutrition.
The field began in the late nineteenth century and gained momentum, becoming popular during the first world war and the depression era and was especially helpful to black households.
The 1950s Home Ec., stereotype really hurt the image of the field, and it was also at this point when black women were left out of the equation, almost entirely, as it became exclusively white and female.
Since then, Home Economics courses have dropped out of the offered curriculum- and again, that is unfortunate, as many educators seem to be in favor of it.
A fresh approach or name change could help to eradicate the bad image that Home Economics has had a hard time shaking off- such as key words- like ‘Home’ and ‘Family’ - for example.
As the author points out-'home' is more inclusive than family- as you and your dog can be ‘family’- or if you live alone- how relevant is ‘family’ in your choices in clothing or what you are planning to have for dinner?
But, still, everyone does think about what they are going to eat for dinner-what products will be needed to clean your home, and how food and necessities will be paid for- right?
Our hectic lifestyles often leave little time to teach these skills in the home, as has often been suggested. Not only that, but it could also help to balance the household chores, instead of having these tasks fall mainly onto the shoulders of women- which it still does- most of the time.
Just something to think about.
Overall, this book is most enlightening, and most of the information here was news to me. The material is organized and maybe the author was as surprised by what her research revealed as the reader! She obviously put a great deal of effort into the research and the presentation is thoughtful and thorough.
I was impressed and proud of how women have worked through the years to improve our lives. Although, the commercialization, mainly brought on by television, sexism, and racism, eventually created a ridiculous standard and representation of HE, that would eventually be its undoing, burying all benefits and forward thinking that came before.
I hope Home Economics will make a comeback-in an updated way that will accredit many of the women and organizations featured in this book, at long last, and restore the reputation of this field of study, so that it can continue to prepare students and improve the quality of life for us all.
For those who think this book will only appeal to those who have careers in the HE field- that couldn't be further from the truth!
I recommend this book to everyone. Men and Women of all ages- those who are interested in women's or feminist studies, or history, will find this book interesting, educational, helpful, and just might convince you we still need to teach Home Economics!
5 stars
A surprisingly fascinating look at the history of Home Economics from a feminist viewpoint.
Like many people, when I heard someone say ‘Home Economics’ it instantly brought to mind images of 1950s classrooms where the message was clear- A woman’s place was in the home and that is most unfortunate.
This well-researched book takes a hard look at the history of home economics and her findings are extraordinary!
Before the field became stigmatized, and a course relegated to mainly white girls and women, the field was considered progressive, using science to help improve society through the home. The goal was to curb hunger and improve health through nutrition.
The field began in the late nineteenth century and gained momentum, becoming popular during the first world war and the depression era and was especially helpful to black households.
The 1950s Home Ec., stereotype really hurt the image of the field, and it was also at this point when black women were left out of the equation, almost entirely, as it became exclusively white and female.
Since then, Home Economics courses have dropped out of the offered curriculum- and again, that is unfortunate, as many educators seem to be in favor of it.
A fresh approach or name change could help to eradicate the bad image that Home Economics has had a hard time shaking off- such as key words- like ‘Home’ and ‘Family’ - for example.
As the author points out-'home' is more inclusive than family- as you and your dog can be ‘family’- or if you live alone- how relevant is ‘family’ in your choices in clothing or what you are planning to have for dinner?
But, still, everyone does think about what they are going to eat for dinner-what products will be needed to clean your home, and how food and necessities will be paid for- right?
Our hectic lifestyles often leave little time to teach these skills in the home, as has often been suggested. Not only that, but it could also help to balance the household chores, instead of having these tasks fall mainly onto the shoulders of women- which it still does- most of the time.
Just something to think about.
Overall, this book is most enlightening, and most of the information here was news to me. The material is organized and maybe the author was as surprised by what her research revealed as the reader! She obviously put a great deal of effort into the research and the presentation is thoughtful and thorough.
I was impressed and proud of how women have worked through the years to improve our lives. Although, the commercialization, mainly brought on by television, sexism, and racism, eventually created a ridiculous standard and representation of HE, that would eventually be its undoing, burying all benefits and forward thinking that came before.
I hope Home Economics will make a comeback-in an updated way that will accredit many of the women and organizations featured in this book, at long last, and restore the reputation of this field of study, so that it can continue to prepare students and improve the quality of life for us all.
For those who think this book will only appeal to those who have careers in the HE field- that couldn't be further from the truth!
I recommend this book to everyone. Men and Women of all ages- those who are interested in women's or feminist studies, or history, will find this book interesting, educational, helpful, and just might convince you we still need to teach Home Economics!
5 stars
May 16, 2023
This caught my eye and it occurred to me that I hadn't thought much about Home Economics since I had it in school from grades 6 through 8. I'd certainly never thought about the history of HE. I'd only known that there had been a degree level Home Economics because U.S Senator Marsha Blackburn earned a Bachelor of Science from Mississippi State University in it back in the 70s and that is the one thing I find interesting about her. That made me wonder how few schools offered study in HE (then and now) and as this book pointed out near the end, how would students prepare for a career they don't know exists? So, all this is to say, I was probably a bit predisposed to an interest in this when I picked it up.
I can only really recall a few highlights from my HE classes: Two cooking successes with spaghetti with meat sauce and apple turnovers, both from scratch and an epic failure of making letter pillows on a sewing machine to spell out my name. Pro tip: satin is slippery and not the way to go for a beginner. Half of my family is into needle arts so I picked up knitting, crocheting and cross-stitching on my own later but exposure to sewing is still appreciated. My metal and wood shop attempts were also epic failures (a nod to my parents for lovingly displaying my awful napkin and pencil/pen holders) but I got out of both uninjured so, I still feel accomplished. I'm glad I experienced all of this stuff even if some of it was stunningly and embarrassingly, not my forte. Both my HE and Shop classes were coed, which I understand wasn't always the case over time.
It was a good book covering its origins and how far-reaching it spanned over decades to its almost present disappearance (after a really unfortunate name change). This covered it being framed as feminism and also anti-feminism. How it was used as a force of good in society and also as a means of oppression. It discussed pioneers and contributors in the field that spanned racial backgrounds. Seriously, I never knew that Margaret Murray Washington (the last Mrs. Booker T. Washington) founded and ran Home Economics at Tuskegee University for three decades and her work went far beyond the university's bounds). This was wholly interesting and I'm very glad I picked it up. Also, I hope HE comes back to school curricula.
Recommended.
I can only really recall a few highlights from my HE classes: Two cooking successes with spaghetti with meat sauce and apple turnovers, both from scratch and an epic failure of making letter pillows on a sewing machine to spell out my name. Pro tip: satin is slippery and not the way to go for a beginner. Half of my family is into needle arts so I picked up knitting, crocheting and cross-stitching on my own later but exposure to sewing is still appreciated. My metal and wood shop attempts were also epic failures (a nod to my parents for lovingly displaying my awful napkin and pencil/pen holders) but I got out of both uninjured so, I still feel accomplished. I'm glad I experienced all of this stuff even if some of it was stunningly and embarrassingly, not my forte. Both my HE and Shop classes were coed, which I understand wasn't always the case over time.
It was a good book covering its origins and how far-reaching it spanned over decades to its almost present disappearance (after a really unfortunate name change). This covered it being framed as feminism and also anti-feminism. How it was used as a force of good in society and also as a means of oppression. It discussed pioneers and contributors in the field that spanned racial backgrounds. Seriously, I never knew that Margaret Murray Washington (the last Mrs. Booker T. Washington) founded and ran Home Economics at Tuskegee University for three decades and her work went far beyond the university's bounds). This was wholly interesting and I'm very glad I picked it up. Also, I hope HE comes back to school curricula.
Recommended.
March 19, 2021
The Secret History of Home Economics promised to be interesting, but I had no idea how radical this history was, ot how pervasive its impact on society and politics. Danielle Drelinger's history is full of surprises.
I was in junior high, girls were required to take a semester of Home Economics classes. In cooking, I learned how to use displacement to accurately measure shortening. In sewing, we used the Bishop method to make an apron and an A-line skirt.
I admit, I thought that Home Ec was pretty lame and meant for future housewives. And yet...I taught myself to cook from scratch and to sew, how to organic garden and bake bread, and how to follow a pattern and to make quilts.
It turns out that there was a reason I felt that way. In the 1960s when I had those classes, the concept of home economics had been diminished from it's roots when scientists and feminists founded home economics studies. I was unaware of the impact on society the home economics had during wartime or in promoting social and advancing racial equity. And I certainly did not know that home economics also enforced a middle class, American, white life style on immigrants, people of color, and the rural poor.
As society changed, the use of home economics reflected the times.
Drelinger introduces us to a series of intelligent women who were barred from male-dominated careers. Their used their skills in science to study nutrition to help the war effort, support government control to enforce pure foods and temperance, and they created the first nutritional guidelines.
They worked with business to promote new electronic appliances and created recipes for food companies. They wrote pamphlets to support food conservation and the remaking of clothes during the war.
On the dark side, some supported Eugenics and immigrants traditional heritage was ignored as they were pressured to assimilate.
Overall, and enlightening and fascinating read.
I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
I was in junior high, girls were required to take a semester of Home Economics classes. In cooking, I learned how to use displacement to accurately measure shortening. In sewing, we used the Bishop method to make an apron and an A-line skirt.
I admit, I thought that Home Ec was pretty lame and meant for future housewives. And yet...I taught myself to cook from scratch and to sew, how to organic garden and bake bread, and how to follow a pattern and to make quilts.
It turns out that there was a reason I felt that way. In the 1960s when I had those classes, the concept of home economics had been diminished from it's roots when scientists and feminists founded home economics studies. I was unaware of the impact on society the home economics had during wartime or in promoting social and advancing racial equity. And I certainly did not know that home economics also enforced a middle class, American, white life style on immigrants, people of color, and the rural poor.
As society changed, the use of home economics reflected the times.
Drelinger introduces us to a series of intelligent women who were barred from male-dominated careers. Their used their skills in science to study nutrition to help the war effort, support government control to enforce pure foods and temperance, and they created the first nutritional guidelines.
They worked with business to promote new electronic appliances and created recipes for food companies. They wrote pamphlets to support food conservation and the remaking of clothes during the war.
On the dark side, some supported Eugenics and immigrants traditional heritage was ignored as they were pressured to assimilate.
Overall, and enlightening and fascinating read.
I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
Read
May 18, 2021A fascinating, if inconsistent in tone, look at the history of home economics in America. As someone who took two "home economics" classes in high school that were not branded that way -- I took a foods class and a human relationships class -- it was fascinating to see how that particular branding has led to a decrease in those taking home ec classes and how that rebranding came to be in the late 80s.
Initially a place for social justice, home economics became what we think of as home economics in the 50s and 60s. But in the years since, it's tried and failed to rebrand and reinvent, even though what it is at its core is pretty radical. It began as a means of giving people, especially female-identifying people, a means of thinking about economics and social needs at an individual level and how that plays out in a bigger societal level. But in the post-WWII years, it became a means of thinking about families and relationships therein, which is where we get the popular connotation of what it is today (even though it is not).
One of the little threads in here I'll be thinking about a long time is how the poverty level was developed by a woman in Queens who was trying to determine how much it cost for a family to feed themselves at a basic level and at a less-than-basic level. This turned into the poverty guidelines, fundamentally ignoring the same woman's insistence that this was not universal and did not at all look at class, race, gender, or any other essential factors that go into making a living. She expressed deep regret, in fact, for even sharing the less-than-basic numbers, as those became an abysmal baseline.
At times the book tries to be a little too academic and doesn't balance it well with the conversational tone, but it was fascinating to read this history and see the names of those involved in getting this field of study off the ground. The book is conscious of race, class, and gender throughout, which was especially refreshing.
Initially a place for social justice, home economics became what we think of as home economics in the 50s and 60s. But in the years since, it's tried and failed to rebrand and reinvent, even though what it is at its core is pretty radical. It began as a means of giving people, especially female-identifying people, a means of thinking about economics and social needs at an individual level and how that plays out in a bigger societal level. But in the post-WWII years, it became a means of thinking about families and relationships therein, which is where we get the popular connotation of what it is today (even though it is not).
One of the little threads in here I'll be thinking about a long time is how the poverty level was developed by a woman in Queens who was trying to determine how much it cost for a family to feed themselves at a basic level and at a less-than-basic level. This turned into the poverty guidelines, fundamentally ignoring the same woman's insistence that this was not universal and did not at all look at class, race, gender, or any other essential factors that go into making a living. She expressed deep regret, in fact, for even sharing the less-than-basic numbers, as those became an abysmal baseline.
At times the book tries to be a little too academic and doesn't balance it well with the conversational tone, but it was fascinating to read this history and see the names of those involved in getting this field of study off the ground. The book is conscious of race, class, and gender throughout, which was especially refreshing.
December 30, 2021
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 true goal of the whole arena of Home Economics. 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. Honestly, I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by the information in this book and would recommend it to anyone even remotely interested in this subject matter.
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. Honestly, I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by the information in this book and would recommend it to anyone even remotely interested in this subject matter.
November 13, 2021
I am a Home Economist so I was very interested in reading this book. I am not sure what the author wanted to do when writing this because it totally leaves out the Home Economists who work in County Extension Services across the country. I learned a lot from what she wrote about the early days and the early influencers, although the County Extension Agents who were key to helping people understand research were obviously downplayed. I agree with most of her observations although they are from an outsider's point of view (in other words, her interviews seem to support her own point of view). I think if someone who has no idea about Home Economics reads this, it may enlighten them. But I doubt that is who is going to pick up this book. I think it will be fellow Home Economists who are going to see through what is written because they know the history since they have lived it. If you are an outsider reading this book, I hope you use this knowledge to let your legislators and community leaders know how important this subject is and how important it is to add Home Economics back into the educational system.
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January 7, 2023
I saw other people reading this and so I decided to read it.
As someone who has poo-pooed home ec most of her life (why did boys get shop class when girls got home ec? I wanted shop class!), this was definitely a book for me to read.
Anyhow, while home economics does have a healthy history of racism and eugenics (which is discussed), it does have a rich and varied path of opening doorways for (mostly white) women into science and for changing the ways people live and operate inside and outside their homes. Lots of bad, lots of good, lots of so-so things, but it was rooted in the feminist ideal of making things better for women (and by extension, everyone!) through better living practices. And how, like so many things, the whole damn thing was started by a Black woman trying to make things better for her people (and then co-opted by white women).
I did like how Drielinger addressed how home economics has changed and shifted, and how makerspaces is another word for home economics (samesies with the homesteading movement and the return of needlepoint to the mainstream), and how folks of all genders *should* be taught home economics, because it's fucking adulting (she put it a lot more eloquently than me), and because at its core home ec is rooted on the principles of reuse, recycle, reduce and replace, and because if masc people are taught home-tending skills, it makes their relationships more equal and reduces the amount of weaponized incompetence and gender inequality.
As someone who has poo-pooed home ec most of her life (why did boys get shop class when girls got home ec? I wanted shop class!), this was definitely a book for me to read.
Anyhow, while home economics does have a healthy history of racism and eugenics (which is discussed), it does have a rich and varied path of opening doorways for (mostly white) women into science and for changing the ways people live and operate inside and outside their homes. Lots of bad, lots of good, lots of so-so things, but it was rooted in the feminist ideal of making things better for women (and by extension, everyone!) through better living practices. And how, like so many things, the whole damn thing was started by a Black woman trying to make things better for her people (and then co-opted by white women).
I did like how Drielinger addressed how home economics has changed and shifted, and how makerspaces is another word for home economics (samesies with the homesteading movement and the return of needlepoint to the mainstream), and how folks of all genders *should* be taught home economics, because it's fucking adulting (she put it a lot more eloquently than me), and because at its core home ec is rooted on the principles of reuse, recycle, reduce and replace, and because if masc people are taught home-tending skills, it makes their relationships more equal and reduces the amount of weaponized incompetence and gender inequality.
December 5, 2021
2/5 ⭐️’s// This was a fantastic concept that was poorly executed. There was a ton of interesting information in this book but it was badly edited. The time line was mangled making it challenging to follow. There are some great nuggets of history and feminism in this book. I wish it was presented better. (79/100) #readlist2021
February 2, 2022
"Everything you know about Home Economics is wrong."
This first sentence proves to be amazingly true. From 1890-WWII, Home Economics really was Domestic Science. Home Economics degrees were offered by prestigious universities, like MIT and Columbia, and had hard science prerequisites. They were designed to bring chemistry, physics, and electrical engineering to women--white, black, and Latina, who could use these skills to wire their home for electricity, fix their car, and test if their flour had been cut with lead (a big problem in Victorian times) or if there was arsenic in their wallpaper (there probably was); or they could parlay those skills into careers in laboratories and test kitchens, or in academia.
Test kitchens invented the Tollhouse Cookie (chocolate chip cookie) and Home Economics' nutritional research helped push knowledge of vitamins and nutrients, and the need for a school lunch program, as the WWII draft discovered huge numbers of Americans were nutritionally deficient. A home economics dietician was one of the Angels of Bataan.
After WWII, many women said they wanted to "go back to normal" and Home Economics responded to this poll information by pivoting to focus on marriage and home. This was also considered patriotic, since jobs were supposed to be given to returning soldiers. A corollary of this was that men moved into the majority of Home Economics teaching jobs. And then they changed the curriculum to reflect men's ideas of what women should learn. Teaching women how to affect things and their community changed to teaching women how to change themselves--to be appealing to men, to be a popular hostess, etc.
By the time Home Economics organizations realized just how far the patriarchy had undermined their subject, it was... well, it certainly seems to me like it was too late. When I was in high school, Home Economics was one semester of cooking--read a recipe and cook it in a group, and one semester of sewing--which didn't require learning the sewing machine. Boys were required to take both, so I guess that's something.
Anyway, this is a fascinating study--and I haven't even touched on the famous Black and Latina women of Home Economics, what they accomplished despite widespread racism, and how desegregation was used to erase the achievements of Black Home Ec clubs.
This first sentence proves to be amazingly true. From 1890-WWII, Home Economics really was Domestic Science. Home Economics degrees were offered by prestigious universities, like MIT and Columbia, and had hard science prerequisites. They were designed to bring chemistry, physics, and electrical engineering to women--white, black, and Latina, who could use these skills to wire their home for electricity, fix their car, and test if their flour had been cut with lead (a big problem in Victorian times) or if there was arsenic in their wallpaper (there probably was); or they could parlay those skills into careers in laboratories and test kitchens, or in academia.
Test kitchens invented the Tollhouse Cookie (chocolate chip cookie) and Home Economics' nutritional research helped push knowledge of vitamins and nutrients, and the need for a school lunch program, as the WWII draft discovered huge numbers of Americans were nutritionally deficient. A home economics dietician was one of the Angels of Bataan.
After WWII, many women said they wanted to "go back to normal" and Home Economics responded to this poll information by pivoting to focus on marriage and home. This was also considered patriotic, since jobs were supposed to be given to returning soldiers. A corollary of this was that men moved into the majority of Home Economics teaching jobs. And then they changed the curriculum to reflect men's ideas of what women should learn. Teaching women how to affect things and their community changed to teaching women how to change themselves--to be appealing to men, to be a popular hostess, etc.
By the time Home Economics organizations realized just how far the patriarchy had undermined their subject, it was... well, it certainly seems to me like it was too late. When I was in high school, Home Economics was one semester of cooking--read a recipe and cook it in a group, and one semester of sewing--which didn't require learning the sewing machine. Boys were required to take both, so I guess that's something.
Anyway, this is a fascinating study--and I haven't even touched on the famous Black and Latina women of Home Economics, what they accomplished despite widespread racism, and how desegregation was used to erase the achievements of Black Home Ec clubs.
May 30, 2022
It was interesting to learn the history of how home economics became a thing, but the author jumps around, the timeline gets a bit muddled, and I'm still not fully sure what home economics is as a profession and why a degree in home economics would be preferable to others more concentrated towards the area of home ec one might want to pursue. Take for instance food science. How is a home ec degree better than a chemistry degree? Why would one choose home ec over culinary school if they wanted to work in a test kitchen? What about home ec vs. engineering if the desired career path involved designing appliances? It is due to the author's poor organization of the book and her inability to explain what a modern degree in the subject can offer over another such as the scenarios I outlined above that I have given it 2 stars.
In the realm of college degrees, home economics seems to be the jack of all trades, master of none. Perhaps it made sense as a college degree when attending university didn't cost tens of thousands of dollars, & it was more or less the only option given to women who wanted a higher education degree, but that's no longer the case.
It seems that the topics that fall solely under the umbrella of home economics would be best taught at the middle or high school level or as community & continuing education courses for those wanting or needing outside help to better learn how to manage their homes. I love this subject matter and agree that one cannot expect to move out on their own (single, married, or otherwise) and suddenly know how to properly manage a home regardless of whether or not one also works outside of the home, but I just don't see its ROI as a college degree in and of itself.
I would love to hear from those in the field who can maybe better explain what home economics is and the benefits of pursuing a college degree in the subject.
In the realm of college degrees, home economics seems to be the jack of all trades, master of none. Perhaps it made sense as a college degree when attending university didn't cost tens of thousands of dollars, & it was more or less the only option given to women who wanted a higher education degree, but that's no longer the case.
It seems that the topics that fall solely under the umbrella of home economics would be best taught at the middle or high school level or as community & continuing education courses for those wanting or needing outside help to better learn how to manage their homes. I love this subject matter and agree that one cannot expect to move out on their own (single, married, or otherwise) and suddenly know how to properly manage a home regardless of whether or not one also works outside of the home, but I just don't see its ROI as a college degree in and of itself.
I would love to hear from those in the field who can maybe better explain what home economics is and the benefits of pursuing a college degree in the subject.
January 2, 2022
Disclaimer: only made it through 20% of the book. I listened to the audiobook but found it incredibly boring. The topic itself seemed fascinating but the author did a poor job of creating a compelling narrative arc. Would not recommend.
April 16, 2022
Interesting
Although I went to a prep school and never had home economics in my school, I thought I would give this book a try. It taught me that home ec is way more than cooking.
Although I went to a prep school and never had home economics in my school, I thought I would give this book a try. It taught me that home ec is way more than cooking.
September 16, 2021
I knew I would enjoy this book before I even read one word, but WOW this book blew me away.
I highly recommend it!
I highly recommend it!
April 24, 2022
I got a little misty at the end because Dreilinger concludes with "how to bring back home ec" with five points- several of which resonated with me and obviously the book and topic as a whole. First "change the name back to "home economics"" because it reminds me of the conversation about libraries and librarians. It's the truth. And I wholeheartedly agree with the second one "make home economics mandatory". And the other specifically "advance the progressive, scientific, ecological view within home economics."
What I loved about the deep dive history is that home ec is like an octopus with tentacles in everything that we did and didn't know it reached. The innovators and intelligentsia worked to try to make things better- sometimes it worked and other times it didn't. But we owe school lunches to home ec. We owe standardized clothing sizes that put unemployed people to work to get measuremets from thousands of people. But also the poverty line which was supposed to accomplish one thing but is now used for others. Consumer protections. Yet there is still arguments about what it is and what it is not. Sewing? Cooking? Home maintenance?
The beginning was quite intriguing with Melvil Dewey and his wife, Annie factor in (specifically running a decades-long conference in Lake Placid on home ec). Then it moved into dieticians working during the war.
Dreilinger celebrates the work ethic and fortitude of the people and groups who built and maintained it. I was surprised at how much of a role Cornell played and still plays. Likewise, plenty of the history discussed the ways that it worked for white women and actively worked against Black, Indigenous, and Latinx women and then in later years how their marks were left on the sphere.
And the book is super contemporary as it was written during the pandemic and mentioned everyone's sourdough starter and sewing masks-- home ec! Surprising facts that I loved:
*More people earn bachelor's degrees in home economics than in math.
*Radio homemakers were a thing and often multiple homemakers would have hour-long shows that covered over eight hours of the radio waves discussing the home.
*The use of practice babies to learn about caretaking that was a curious kind of learning when children were adopted out of being practice babies or women brought their children to be used as practice babies.
*The quote from 1950s from a boy "Home is a place my father is proud to support, my mother is glad to keep, and my friends are happy to visit."
*Margaret Murray Washington is someone I want to know more about.
*An international homemaker education initiative in which the American Red Cross had "bride schools" for Japanese women who married American servicemen to train them about how to keep house that their husbands would be happy with
*The erosion came swift when A Nation at Risk was published by a presidential commission and then turned the focus of education into competing globally with math and science and less about the work of home economics.
*DeHart was a contemporary powerhouse-- she had a vision for what kids needed to learn like "if we don't teach our children how to cook, we turn them over to the machine that makes food... You're a chemistry experiment walking around, and what you feed yourself matters."
What I loved about the deep dive history is that home ec is like an octopus with tentacles in everything that we did and didn't know it reached. The innovators and intelligentsia worked to try to make things better- sometimes it worked and other times it didn't. But we owe school lunches to home ec. We owe standardized clothing sizes that put unemployed people to work to get measuremets from thousands of people. But also the poverty line which was supposed to accomplish one thing but is now used for others. Consumer protections. Yet there is still arguments about what it is and what it is not. Sewing? Cooking? Home maintenance?
The beginning was quite intriguing with Melvil Dewey and his wife, Annie factor in (specifically running a decades-long conference in Lake Placid on home ec). Then it moved into dieticians working during the war.
Dreilinger celebrates the work ethic and fortitude of the people and groups who built and maintained it. I was surprised at how much of a role Cornell played and still plays. Likewise, plenty of the history discussed the ways that it worked for white women and actively worked against Black, Indigenous, and Latinx women and then in later years how their marks were left on the sphere.
And the book is super contemporary as it was written during the pandemic and mentioned everyone's sourdough starter and sewing masks-- home ec! Surprising facts that I loved:
*More people earn bachelor's degrees in home economics than in math.
*Radio homemakers were a thing and often multiple homemakers would have hour-long shows that covered over eight hours of the radio waves discussing the home.
*The use of practice babies to learn about caretaking that was a curious kind of learning when children were adopted out of being practice babies or women brought their children to be used as practice babies.
*The quote from 1950s from a boy "Home is a place my father is proud to support, my mother is glad to keep, and my friends are happy to visit."
*Margaret Murray Washington is someone I want to know more about.
*An international homemaker education initiative in which the American Red Cross had "bride schools" for Japanese women who married American servicemen to train them about how to keep house that their husbands would be happy with
*The erosion came swift when A Nation at Risk was published by a presidential commission and then turned the focus of education into competing globally with math and science and less about the work of home economics.
*DeHart was a contemporary powerhouse-- she had a vision for what kids needed to learn like "if we don't teach our children how to cook, we turn them over to the machine that makes food... You're a chemistry experiment walking around, and what you feed yourself matters."
April 27, 2022
To quote the website of Cornell University's College of Human Ecology (formerly Home Economics), "Home Economics as an academic discipline was a primary force in advancing women scholastically and in the professions." There is no question that it's an important story that needs to be told, but for the reader who wanted an overview of the historical trajectory, rather than a 300-pager plus notes and index, just peruse
Cornell's excellent interactive exhibition with 16 sections, extraordinary primary sources, visuals and even video. It's focused on Cornell, of course, which means you'd miss the few mentions in Dreilinger's book on the role of Black universities like Fisk, Tuskegee, and Howard. Both tell the story of Flemmie Pansy Kittrell, the first African American to earn a PhD in nutrition Cornell, at a time when only 52 African Americans had earned doctorates in any field.
The role of the Seven Sisters colleges in educating women and producing visionaries and iconoclasts in the 1800s is in clear view, as are sex, race and class considerations. So is the author's indefensible presentist fallacy of judging historical figures by contemporary standards, like the exclusion of Blacks and Jews from the Lake Placid resort, not at all unusual through the 1960s, and the Black and White colleges operating in different spheres, rather than collaboratively. We are meant to cluck our tongues in disgust and repudiation that Booker T. and Margaret Murray Washington, a major figure in the development of domestic science, dined in Annie and Melvil Deweys' (of Dewey Decimal fame) home, rather than the club dining room. The blind spots we have today that will be judged by the future are legion. Ella Kellogg, wife of John Harvey Kellogg (of cereal fame) was another early leader.
Ellen Swallow Richards, a Vassar alumna, went on to research at MIT to find ways of improving the home through science, and had extraordinary success, in part through Chautauqua marketing. Home economics was "linking to other social-change movements in the Progressive Era, pushing forward social work, pure-food and drug laws, and even temperance--home economists theorized that if men ate properly, they would feel no need for alcohol" (40). Thanks largely to her efforts collaborating with others, 900 elementary and high schools and 200 colleges and teacher-training schools taught home ec. Home economists sought recognition, credentials, implementation of their vision, their own labs, their own department.
Cornell's agricultural college was convinced to provide instruction for farmers' wives and hired Flora Rose and Martha Van Rensselaer to start what would become the most important College of Home Economics, now Human Ecology. Eleanor Roosevelt was a enormous advocate. Both world wars underscored the value of the field and the role of the efficient and nurturing home in providing stability to society.
While the book mentions "practice babies," in Cornell's website section on "Practice apartments," for example, we read that students lived in "practice houses...to learn the scientific art of childrearing....Cornell secured infants through area orphanages and child welfare associations. Babies were nurtured by the students according to strict schedules and guidelines, and after a year, they were available for adoption. Prospective adoptive parents in this era desired Domecon [Domestic Economy] babies because they had been raised according to the most up-to-date scientific principles." We even see a photo of the first two little ones. What would today's IRBs say about that chapter in university history? I wonder if the descendants will demand reparations.
"Was it empowering or repressive to include housework in a college course?" (14). Bryn Mawr's president stated, "There are not enough elements of intellectual growth in cooking or housekeeping to nourish a very serious or profound course of training for really intelligent women" (14), but thankfully, others saw the potential for applying scientific methods to the domestic sphere, drawing upon nutrition, chemistry, accounting, quality control, child rearing, social relationships, etc. Moreover, MIT, Cornell, land-grant and Black universities embraced the "moral, psychological, and deeply political implications" of helping all women, particularly Black women, Mexican-Americans, immigrants, and poor Whites to adopt the morality and ways of the middle class, become more efficient, serve healthier meals, and "lift up their communities."
Enter Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert, of the New Mexico extension service. She and many others showed rural folks what consumer goods and newfangled technologies they needed to make their lives better. Even in 1935, 80% of farms were not electrified (103).
The trendy Frederick Taylor's principles of scientific management were applied to the home, and Lillian Gilbreth (of Cheaper by the Dozen fame) was an enthusiastic, visionary, and able evangelist for the effort. Her star rose quickly because she had a brood of children during the heyday of domestic science, with testing and engineering the best ways of cooking one thing or another, the most efficient ways of performing domestic tasks, and the proper techniques to raise children when, "Paradoxically, the field devoted to the home attracted a disproportionate share of women who bucked societal expectations by remaining single" (32). This paradox continued throughout the history of the field. These women then took their procedures abroad to various continents, establishing programs in home economics across the globe from Japan to Liberia, the latter thanks to Flemmie Kettrell.
Crowdsourcing and the media even then were important influences, in the form of "Betty Crocker's Cooking Show of the Air" (1924), which drew upon women's experiences with different recipes. Betty's role was played by a local in each station; no one knew Betty didn't actually exist. Mail took on the same role that websites have today, for two-way communication.
By the 1950s, the American Home Economics Association had adopted a new definition of home economics: "the field of knowledge and service primarily concerned with strengthening family life" (138), "improve happiness and citizenship by honing self-awareness and helping families function better," but the curricular reality was different, superficial and girly. In the late 1950s, people could take for-credit courses in home ec over TV.
Significantly, the field morphed into business home economics and then ...fizzled out thanks to an image problem and a shift in attention to focusing on relationships, rather than science. They came to disparage "stitching and stirring" (219). Home economists (now food scientists) developed saved women time. "They also developed some useful products and processes, "created the clothes-tag icons" with care instructions (186), companies' hotlines like Butterball turkey, and so much more.
Feminism sought to liberate women, too often by proposing that women be more like men, disparaging traditional sex roles, and diminishing the value of the domestic sphere. The task force in 1959 that sought to "anticipate and recognize change" for the next fifty years of home economics (200) was as effective as anything librarians (of which I am one) generated to stave off Google as the new information retrieval expert. If we women don't value what we do, we aren't going to convince anyone else of its worth either. Women and men who make the decisions about what is worthwhile are often precisely those who chose to hire "unskilled" labor to care for the home, while they occupy the public sphere.
Complementarity of women's and men's roles is wisdom. It is not healthy to abrogate the rules that govern human behavior acquired over millennia of trial and error and reflection. To believe they no longer provide maps for behavior and meaning results in anomie, the sense of being unmoored, lacking purpose, is the greatest threat. Hence the rise in suicide, anxiety, depression, refusal to accept responsibility and adulthood.
"'Time is the most valuable resource for most families today. Families use money to buy time. They gladly pay for partly processed food, for automatic washing machines, and for ready-to-wear clothes. We do not want to go backwards and teach our students to spend a lot of their time to save a little bit of money--maybe'" (220).
Now, this is GrubHub and DoorDash, totally processed food, and disposable clothing "fast fashion."
Dreilinger ends with recommendations to bring Home Ec back. People do want it back. It's relevant.
What to do?
1. Change the name back to "home economics." Home is a better term than family, a term that many have negative associations with.
2. Make home economics mandatory. No, they're not learning it at home; teachers can teach it better; and both sexes need to learn these skills.
3. Diversify the profession. Adjust "the content of the field to emphasize science and technology" and to attract more men.
4. Embrace life skills as well as career education.
5. Advance the progressive, scientific, ecological view within home economics. "So we can change the world," as Ellen Swallow Richards believed.
Home economics is "an interdisciplinary ecological field that explores the connections between our homes and the world with an eye to addressing the root causes of problems such as hunger, homelessness, isolation, and environmental devastation" (293); "the labor problems of Southeast Asian sweatshops and the urban gig economy; the beauty and significance of the quilts made by formerly enslaved African Americans; the electrical engineering behind e-textiles; ways to limit the pollution caused by fabric dyes and create nontoxic alternatives." Home economists should be the ones leading the charge "redesigning homes and clothes...find resources to lower their power bills," pairing "the American reflex of bootstrapping with structural solutions," and so much more.
There are wonderful and intriguing anecdotes from women's herstory here. But a book on home economics that never mentions Martha Stewart who single-handedly elevated our appreciation for the art of the domestic? That is an obscene omission. Moreover, I never really got the sense that the author values the women who dedicate their lives to nurturing their families and creating a beautiful, clean and pleasant home with limited resources.
I'm a believer and a proponent of home ec. To quote one of the foremothers, "I do believe that, with enlightened leadership, the profession could play a significant role in shaping what is probably going to be a changing world." YES! Where's the leadership?
Cornell's excellent interactive exhibition with 16 sections, extraordinary primary sources, visuals and even video. It's focused on Cornell, of course, which means you'd miss the few mentions in Dreilinger's book on the role of Black universities like Fisk, Tuskegee, and Howard. Both tell the story of Flemmie Pansy Kittrell, the first African American to earn a PhD in nutrition Cornell, at a time when only 52 African Americans had earned doctorates in any field.
The role of the Seven Sisters colleges in educating women and producing visionaries and iconoclasts in the 1800s is in clear view, as are sex, race and class considerations. So is the author's indefensible presentist fallacy of judging historical figures by contemporary standards, like the exclusion of Blacks and Jews from the Lake Placid resort, not at all unusual through the 1960s, and the Black and White colleges operating in different spheres, rather than collaboratively. We are meant to cluck our tongues in disgust and repudiation that Booker T. and Margaret Murray Washington, a major figure in the development of domestic science, dined in Annie and Melvil Deweys' (of Dewey Decimal fame) home, rather than the club dining room. The blind spots we have today that will be judged by the future are legion. Ella Kellogg, wife of John Harvey Kellogg (of cereal fame) was another early leader.
Ellen Swallow Richards, a Vassar alumna, went on to research at MIT to find ways of improving the home through science, and had extraordinary success, in part through Chautauqua marketing. Home economics was "linking to other social-change movements in the Progressive Era, pushing forward social work, pure-food and drug laws, and even temperance--home economists theorized that if men ate properly, they would feel no need for alcohol" (40). Thanks largely to her efforts collaborating with others, 900 elementary and high schools and 200 colleges and teacher-training schools taught home ec. Home economists sought recognition, credentials, implementation of their vision, their own labs, their own department.
Cornell's agricultural college was convinced to provide instruction for farmers' wives and hired Flora Rose and Martha Van Rensselaer to start what would become the most important College of Home Economics, now Human Ecology. Eleanor Roosevelt was a enormous advocate. Both world wars underscored the value of the field and the role of the efficient and nurturing home in providing stability to society.
While the book mentions "practice babies," in Cornell's website section on "Practice apartments," for example, we read that students lived in "practice houses...to learn the scientific art of childrearing....Cornell secured infants through area orphanages and child welfare associations. Babies were nurtured by the students according to strict schedules and guidelines, and after a year, they were available for adoption. Prospective adoptive parents in this era desired Domecon [Domestic Economy] babies because they had been raised according to the most up-to-date scientific principles." We even see a photo of the first two little ones. What would today's IRBs say about that chapter in university history? I wonder if the descendants will demand reparations.
"Was it empowering or repressive to include housework in a college course?" (14). Bryn Mawr's president stated, "There are not enough elements of intellectual growth in cooking or housekeeping to nourish a very serious or profound course of training for really intelligent women" (14), but thankfully, others saw the potential for applying scientific methods to the domestic sphere, drawing upon nutrition, chemistry, accounting, quality control, child rearing, social relationships, etc. Moreover, MIT, Cornell, land-grant and Black universities embraced the "moral, psychological, and deeply political implications" of helping all women, particularly Black women, Mexican-Americans, immigrants, and poor Whites to adopt the morality and ways of the middle class, become more efficient, serve healthier meals, and "lift up their communities."
"If poor Black families lived in a respectably middle-class way, then whites would have to recognize their full citizenship. And even if that didn't happen, educated African Americans would have gained the knowledge, self-determination, and financial independence to choose their own path as bet they could in a deeply unjust world" (18)."
Later: "In the 1929 book Americanization through Homemaking, a Southern California home economics teacher portrayed the Mexican American diet as leading to crime" (99).
Enter Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert, of the New Mexico extension service. She and many others showed rural folks what consumer goods and newfangled technologies they needed to make their lives better. Even in 1935, 80% of farms were not electrified (103).
The trendy Frederick Taylor's principles of scientific management were applied to the home, and Lillian Gilbreth (of Cheaper by the Dozen fame) was an enthusiastic, visionary, and able evangelist for the effort. Her star rose quickly because she had a brood of children during the heyday of domestic science, with testing and engineering the best ways of cooking one thing or another, the most efficient ways of performing domestic tasks, and the proper techniques to raise children when, "Paradoxically, the field devoted to the home attracted a disproportionate share of women who bucked societal expectations by remaining single" (32). This paradox continued throughout the history of the field. These women then took their procedures abroad to various continents, establishing programs in home economics across the globe from Japan to Liberia, the latter thanks to Flemmie Kettrell.
Crowdsourcing and the media even then were important influences, in the form of "Betty Crocker's Cooking Show of the Air" (1924), which drew upon women's experiences with different recipes. Betty's role was played by a local in each station; no one knew Betty didn't actually exist. Mail took on the same role that websites have today, for two-way communication.
By the 1950s, the American Home Economics Association had adopted a new definition of home economics: "the field of knowledge and service primarily concerned with strengthening family life" (138), "improve happiness and citizenship by honing self-awareness and helping families function better," but the curricular reality was different, superficial and girly. In the late 1950s, people could take for-credit courses in home ec over TV.
Significantly, the field morphed into business home economics and then ...fizzled out thanks to an image problem and a shift in attention to focusing on relationships, rather than science. They came to disparage "stitching and stirring" (219). Home economists (now food scientists) developed saved women time. "They also developed some useful products and processes, "created the clothes-tag icons" with care instructions (186), companies' hotlines like Butterball turkey, and so much more.
Feminism sought to liberate women, too often by proposing that women be more like men, disparaging traditional sex roles, and diminishing the value of the domestic sphere. The task force in 1959 that sought to "anticipate and recognize change" for the next fifty years of home economics (200) was as effective as anything librarians (of which I am one) generated to stave off Google as the new information retrieval expert. If we women don't value what we do, we aren't going to convince anyone else of its worth either. Women and men who make the decisions about what is worthwhile are often precisely those who chose to hire "unskilled" labor to care for the home, while they occupy the public sphere.
Complementarity of women's and men's roles is wisdom. It is not healthy to abrogate the rules that govern human behavior acquired over millennia of trial and error and reflection. To believe they no longer provide maps for behavior and meaning results in anomie, the sense of being unmoored, lacking purpose, is the greatest threat. Hence the rise in suicide, anxiety, depression, refusal to accept responsibility and adulthood.
"'Time is the most valuable resource for most families today. Families use money to buy time. They gladly pay for partly processed food, for automatic washing machines, and for ready-to-wear clothes. We do not want to go backwards and teach our students to spend a lot of their time to save a little bit of money--maybe'" (220).
Now, this is GrubHub and DoorDash, totally processed food, and disposable clothing "fast fashion."
Dreilinger ends with recommendations to bring Home Ec back. People do want it back. It's relevant.
What to do?
1. Change the name back to "home economics." Home is a better term than family, a term that many have negative associations with.
2. Make home economics mandatory. No, they're not learning it at home; teachers can teach it better; and both sexes need to learn these skills.
3. Diversify the profession. Adjust "the content of the field to emphasize science and technology" and to attract more men.
4. Embrace life skills as well as career education.
5. Advance the progressive, scientific, ecological view within home economics. "So we can change the world," as Ellen Swallow Richards believed.
Home economics is "an interdisciplinary ecological field that explores the connections between our homes and the world with an eye to addressing the root causes of problems such as hunger, homelessness, isolation, and environmental devastation" (293); "the labor problems of Southeast Asian sweatshops and the urban gig economy; the beauty and significance of the quilts made by formerly enslaved African Americans; the electrical engineering behind e-textiles; ways to limit the pollution caused by fabric dyes and create nontoxic alternatives." Home economists should be the ones leading the charge "redesigning homes and clothes...find resources to lower their power bills," pairing "the American reflex of bootstrapping with structural solutions," and so much more.
There are wonderful and intriguing anecdotes from women's herstory here. But a book on home economics that never mentions Martha Stewart who single-handedly elevated our appreciation for the art of the domestic? That is an obscene omission. Moreover, I never really got the sense that the author values the women who dedicate their lives to nurturing their families and creating a beautiful, clean and pleasant home with limited resources.
I'm a believer and a proponent of home ec. To quote one of the foremothers, "I do believe that, with enlightened leadership, the profession could play a significant role in shaping what is probably going to be a changing world." YES! Where's the leadership?
October 25, 2021
This was FASCINATING. It makes me want to retrain as a home economics teacher!
May 14, 2025
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus
Even before Seneca Falls in 1848, there was Catharine Beecher's A Treatise on Domestic Economy. In 1841, this was the start of a long road to industrialize and professionalize the art of homemaking. Women were just starting to be allowed to go to colleges, although this was almost always a struggle. Graduating from high school in 1862, Ellen Swallow wanted more education, and got into the newly created Vassar college, where she studied under astronomer Maria Mitchell. Later, she went to MIT and became the first female instructor there. Born at the time Swallow graduated from high school, Margaret Murray, a Black women from the south, went to Fisk College and got a job at Tuskegee, where she met, and later married, Booker T. Washington.
This was just a start to the home economics movement. It gained a lot of momentum at the Lake Placid Conference in 1899, where Anna Dewey (wife of the disgraced Melvil of library fame) and Ellen Richards gathered leaders in the field and started making plans for the modern study of home economics, where science would improve home life, and therefore society.
This exquisitely well-researched book covers the field of home economics from its beginnings, through its floruit in the early 1900s, its degradation at the hands of men after WWII when women were forced out of the work force, and into the present day. It discusses the Nation at Risk Report of April, 1983 (tragically, right before I graduated from high school!), that said that the US was behind and needed to stop teaching silly things like phys ed and home ec, which lead right into the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act that is responsible for the US educational systems insistence on testing.
Within these different eras of the science of home ec, Dreilinger introduces us to a wide range of pioneering women who changed the way work was done in the home. From the team of Flora Rose and Martha Van Rensselaer studying food science at Cornell to the omnipresent Black scientist and activist Flemmie Pansy Kittrell to the famous Lillian Moller Gilbreth, we see these women highlighted against the times in which they lived. These women come from diverse backgrounds; one of the women of whom I had never heard was Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert, who started as an extension agent in New Mexico in the Latine community and went on to be an influential writer and activist. The book addresses, through these women, the troubled history of the treatment of women of color by women who were trying to further the cause of women in general. Given how difficult it is to find information on some of these groups, this inclusion is even more impressive.
Home economics hasn't, at least in the last fifty years, been given its due. Reading this book almost a year into the Covid-19 pandemic, I felt that given a chance, home economics could save the world. Helping families make the most of their resources, both human and financial, is what home economics is about. If university departments still existed in this field, even if they survived under the aegis of "family and consumer sciences", wouldn't there be scientists who could figure out how to provide child care, early education, and conscious consumerism alongside nutritious meals that would also save the environment?
Sadly, men got involved. The post-war climate persuaded women to go back to the home, and while more women majored in the field, fewer graduated in it, and jobs went unfilled. Because it was largely a women's field, budgets were cut. Home ec became something that was seen as just "sewing and stirring", and not as a field that taught crucial techniques for managing family life.
This is an excellent book on women's history, and one that should be in every high school and middle school library. It's a bit dense, and I was saddened that there weren't pictures of these long uncelebrated figures, but this is a book that could launch a thousand National History Day projects. I want a middle grade biography on Flemmie Kittrell, for starters! As society starts to appreciate historical figures of color and other marginalized people, I hope that we see more books celebrating women who changed the way people live their daily lives.
I loved that this book ended with a solid plan for bringing home ec back into schools. It is an excellent idea, and it would help our society to teach all students crucial skills and make them realize that taking care of a home is a worthy accomplishment for everyone, and encompasses, even though it includes, much more than being able to thread a needle, wash the floors, and put a nutritious meal on the table.
Even before Seneca Falls in 1848, there was Catharine Beecher's A Treatise on Domestic Economy. In 1841, this was the start of a long road to industrialize and professionalize the art of homemaking. Women were just starting to be allowed to go to colleges, although this was almost always a struggle. Graduating from high school in 1862, Ellen Swallow wanted more education, and got into the newly created Vassar college, where she studied under astronomer Maria Mitchell. Later, she went to MIT and became the first female instructor there. Born at the time Swallow graduated from high school, Margaret Murray, a Black women from the south, went to Fisk College and got a job at Tuskegee, where she met, and later married, Booker T. Washington.
This was just a start to the home economics movement. It gained a lot of momentum at the Lake Placid Conference in 1899, where Anna Dewey (wife of the disgraced Melvil of library fame) and Ellen Richards gathered leaders in the field and started making plans for the modern study of home economics, where science would improve home life, and therefore society.
This exquisitely well-researched book covers the field of home economics from its beginnings, through its floruit in the early 1900s, its degradation at the hands of men after WWII when women were forced out of the work force, and into the present day. It discusses the Nation at Risk Report of April, 1983 (tragically, right before I graduated from high school!), that said that the US was behind and needed to stop teaching silly things like phys ed and home ec, which lead right into the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act that is responsible for the US educational systems insistence on testing.
Within these different eras of the science of home ec, Dreilinger introduces us to a wide range of pioneering women who changed the way work was done in the home. From the team of Flora Rose and Martha Van Rensselaer studying food science at Cornell to the omnipresent Black scientist and activist Flemmie Pansy Kittrell to the famous Lillian Moller Gilbreth, we see these women highlighted against the times in which they lived. These women come from diverse backgrounds; one of the women of whom I had never heard was Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert, who started as an extension agent in New Mexico in the Latine community and went on to be an influential writer and activist. The book addresses, through these women, the troubled history of the treatment of women of color by women who were trying to further the cause of women in general. Given how difficult it is to find information on some of these groups, this inclusion is even more impressive.
Home economics hasn't, at least in the last fifty years, been given its due. Reading this book almost a year into the Covid-19 pandemic, I felt that given a chance, home economics could save the world. Helping families make the most of their resources, both human and financial, is what home economics is about. If university departments still existed in this field, even if they survived under the aegis of "family and consumer sciences", wouldn't there be scientists who could figure out how to provide child care, early education, and conscious consumerism alongside nutritious meals that would also save the environment?
Sadly, men got involved. The post-war climate persuaded women to go back to the home, and while more women majored in the field, fewer graduated in it, and jobs went unfilled. Because it was largely a women's field, budgets were cut. Home ec became something that was seen as just "sewing and stirring", and not as a field that taught crucial techniques for managing family life.
This is an excellent book on women's history, and one that should be in every high school and middle school library. It's a bit dense, and I was saddened that there weren't pictures of these long uncelebrated figures, but this is a book that could launch a thousand National History Day projects. I want a middle grade biography on Flemmie Kittrell, for starters! As society starts to appreciate historical figures of color and other marginalized people, I hope that we see more books celebrating women who changed the way people live their daily lives.
I loved that this book ended with a solid plan for bringing home ec back into schools. It is an excellent idea, and it would help our society to teach all students crucial skills and make them realize that taking care of a home is a worthy accomplishment for everyone, and encompasses, even though it includes, much more than being able to thread a needle, wash the floors, and put a nutritious meal on the table.
April 5, 2022
As a former home economist, I really enjoyed this book. I certainly experienced some of the struggles with having to prove the relevancy of our work. Loved it though. When home economics was removed from high school classrooms, I began working for a technical college that respected us. I became a 4-H leader (still am going on 30 years), and took my skills into teaching young people who loved home economics projects, and that included boys as well as girls.
August 1, 2021
I keep surprising myself by picking up non-fiction but dang if I'm not enjoying the crap out of these reads. I took every FACS class my district offered and still use concepts gained from those courses. The surprising, often fiercely feminist, always fascinating, yet barely known, history of home economics. 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.
April 29, 2021
Fascinating. This comprehensive history of the field of Home Economics is packed also with the stories of individual home economists -- many of whom I had never heard of before. Dreilinger's writing style is scholarly without being dry, and amusing without being snarky. She treats her subject (and subjects) with respect. Highly recommended.
Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC copy for my review.
Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC copy for my review.
December 20, 2021
Such an interesting read - very female focused history! Women breaking boundaries in ways I ever knew
November 12, 2025
[Home economists'] foresight has been tremendous. [...] In 1899, home economists argued for school gardens, STEM education for girls, takeout food, and affordable daycare. Forty years ago, JC Penney's home economics magazine addressed conscious consumption, the impact of screens on children, and racist microaggressions. And yet home economics have been denigrated, over and over and over again, as "just stitching and stirring".
This was very enlightening! I appreciate the author's respect for home economists but also her willingness to call out their discriminatory practices through the years. No need to white wash to celebrate their accomplishments. which includes Rice Krispies treats!!
This was very enlightening! I appreciate the author's respect for home economists but also her willingness to call out their discriminatory practices through the years. No need to white wash to celebrate their accomplishments. which includes Rice Krispies treats!!
March 24, 2025
Ugh, I did not think a book about home economics could make me this emotional. I am so, so angry that conservative men (and women) targeted, pigeonholed, defunded, and crippled the science of home economics. They used to teach us how to build SHELVES! (I know that home ec is still technically being taught blah blah it's just not the same). I have decided I need to be a little more overt with this term because the new conservatives have been so successful at making it "cringe": I am such a passionate feminist. The women in this book inspire me, and you should read about them.
"The home was not a retreat from the world: it was the world. 'A lecture on the economics of consumption, and a lesson on the making of bread, are they not phases of the same whole?' a housekeeping-school director said. 'Are they not all varying expressions of the same conviction: that the home is the organic unit of society, that to raise the standard of living and of life in the home is to elevate the whole social system?' Such elevation would not happen tomorrow, but it would happen: 'We shall sow for others to reap.'"
"The home was not a retreat from the world: it was the world. 'A lecture on the economics of consumption, and a lesson on the making of bread, are they not phases of the same whole?' a housekeeping-school director said. 'Are they not all varying expressions of the same conviction: that the home is the organic unit of society, that to raise the standard of living and of life in the home is to elevate the whole social system?' Such elevation would not happen tomorrow, but it would happen: 'We shall sow for others to reap.'"
May 27, 2025
Fascinating and inspiring!! What a story. Dreilinger walks us through the history of a field that has been so feminist and antifeminist through various lenses, and has walked such a complex path with pushback from so many directions. I want to teach home ec!!
February 23, 2022
When I majored in Home Economics in the late 1960s, I did so because I loved all of the subject matter and I saw endless possibilities for careers. I felt I could find meaningful employment in Foods and Nutrition, Textiles and Clothing, Interior Design, Consumer Economics, Hospitality or Education. I chose Education and I taught 7th through 12th grades for nearly 30 years. I took great satisfaction in seeing a student realize that maybe eating carrots instead of French fries could help with acne, or helping another learn to balance a checkbook, or another find ways to cope with younger siblings or babysitting problems.
I received "The Secret History of Home Economics" by Danielle Dreilinger as a gift from my daughter-in-law. As I began to read it, I was surprised to learn what a repressive and racist field I had chosen. Danielle Dreilinger did extensive research into how difficult it was for anyone except rich, white men to be educated. She traces how women and Black Americans had to fight to be admitted to universities. She follows Ellen Swallow Richards, traditionally considered to be the founder of Home Economics, and Margaret Murray Washington, one of the "most influential Black leaders of her day," and how they worked to make Home Economics scientific and academic.
Dreilinger explains how important Home Economics was during the depression and the two world wars only to have it later diminished to a class in our schools that became a dumping ground for students who were not suited for "more rigorous" academic pursuits. Also, in the late 1980s it was attacked by the religious right for what they called establishing secular humanism as a religion. Business also trimmed Home Economists from their companies, thus, also contributing to a drop in Home Economics as a major in colleges and universities.
Even though repressive and racist policies still exist, the tireless work of so many before and after me to change these ideas, continues. I was encouraged by the author's conclusion: "Bring BackHome Ec." She lays out five steps about how and why Home Economics should return to our schools and be mandatory for all students, male and female. The old "Can't your mother teach you that?" no longer is valid since mothers are not at home like they used to be. They are out trying to earn a living to put food on their tables and pay their rent.
After reading "The Secret History of Home Economics", I am proud to say "I am a Home Economist!"
I received "The Secret History of Home Economics" by Danielle Dreilinger as a gift from my daughter-in-law. As I began to read it, I was surprised to learn what a repressive and racist field I had chosen. Danielle Dreilinger did extensive research into how difficult it was for anyone except rich, white men to be educated. She traces how women and Black Americans had to fight to be admitted to universities. She follows Ellen Swallow Richards, traditionally considered to be the founder of Home Economics, and Margaret Murray Washington, one of the "most influential Black leaders of her day," and how they worked to make Home Economics scientific and academic.
Dreilinger explains how important Home Economics was during the depression and the two world wars only to have it later diminished to a class in our schools that became a dumping ground for students who were not suited for "more rigorous" academic pursuits. Also, in the late 1980s it was attacked by the religious right for what they called establishing secular humanism as a religion. Business also trimmed Home Economists from their companies, thus, also contributing to a drop in Home Economics as a major in colleges and universities.
Even though repressive and racist policies still exist, the tireless work of so many before and after me to change these ideas, continues. I was encouraged by the author's conclusion: "Bring BackHome Ec." She lays out five steps about how and why Home Economics should return to our schools and be mandatory for all students, male and female. The old "Can't your mother teach you that?" no longer is valid since mothers are not at home like they used to be. They are out trying to earn a living to put food on their tables and pay their rent.
After reading "The Secret History of Home Economics", I am proud to say "I am a Home Economist!"
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October 26, 2021Depending on when you grew up, the term "home economics" may evoke images of under-baked cookies or crooked book cover seams, but this book explores the scientific and feminist advancements behind most advances in home ec. At the turn of the 20th century, domestic sciences provided inroads for women into engineering, chemistry, and business. Throughout other decades, the importance of home economics waxed and waned.
Dreilinger avoids getting bogged down in names and dates in this sweeping history of a discipline that usually operated under the radar, but also drove major innovations in U.S. homes and businesses. Readers will enjoy seeing how home economics changed with the decades, and, in some cases, was the catalyst for the change in America.
For fans of library history, there is also a significant section on Annie Dewey, wife of eccentric innovator Melvil Dewey, and a driving force behind one of the first home economics groups in the United States.
Dreilinger avoids getting bogged down in names and dates in this sweeping history of a discipline that usually operated under the radar, but also drove major innovations in U.S. homes and businesses. Readers will enjoy seeing how home economics changed with the decades, and, in some cases, was the catalyst for the change in America.
For fans of library history, there is also a significant section on Annie Dewey, wife of eccentric innovator Melvil Dewey, and a driving force behind one of the first home economics groups in the United States.
March 18, 2022
Interesting and enlightening. Constantly thought of mom who was a Cornell Home Ec major, but really wanted to study chem in the 1950s. Her dad discouraged that.
She really was clever at managing the household on my dad's moderate 60s and 70s teaching salary, though. She was an outstanding seamstress.
She really was clever at managing the household on my dad's moderate 60s and 70s teaching salary, though. She was an outstanding seamstress.
April 20, 2022
I read this book for a non-fiction library discussion group. It was not the book I was expecting, but in a good way. I thought it would be covering how the government guided housewives during the wars and depression and how Title IX affected the teaching of home economics in schools. And the book did cover that in the last part. The first part, however, was full of surprises. On the positive side, I learned how home economics gave women a "back door" way to study science during a time when women were shut out from mainstream academia. On the bad side, we learn of the high level or sexism and racism, along with some rather odd practices, like taking babies from orphanages for a few months to study them in "baby labs".
Overall a very interesting book that gives insight into American history from a new perspective.
Overall a very interesting book that gives insight into American history from a new perspective.
October 8, 2021
Fabulous. It made me proud of my School of Family Life degree. I didnt realize how influential home economics has been over the last 100 years. I appreciate food labels, fleece fabric and electricity in my rural town which would not have been possible without home economists.
I love that the founders of the home ec movement had as their main objective nothing short of improving all of human society by relieving daily drudgery.
I love that the founders of the home ec movement had as their main objective nothing short of improving all of human society by relieving daily drudgery.
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