Home Economics

Canning peaches. Sewing a dress. Making perfect gravy. These are familiar images of home economics, but do they tell the whole story? So often home economics has been cast as a "conspiracy to keep women in the kitchen," an interpretation that has overlooked its impressive and diverse contributions. New scholarship in American women's history suggests that home economics was a progressive field that brought science to the farm home and women into higher education and leadership positions in public education, academia, government and industry.

At the turn of the 20th century, home economics was a critical pathway into higher education for American women, largely associated with co-educational land grant institutions such as Cornell. From its inception, collegiate home economics was multidisciplinary and integrative with an emphasis on science applied to the real world of the home, families and communities.

In the early decades of the 20th century, home economists had links to the revitalization of agriculture and rural communities, but also to Progressive Era programs in cities. By the 1920s, home economists at Cornell were best known for research in human nutrition and child development, but their work in fields such as fiber science, design and consumer economics made them central to the growth of the consumer economy as well. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, collegiate programs prepared thousands of women for public school teaching but many also had careers in the extension service, state and federal governments, industry, hospitals, restaurants and hotels. But by the late 1950s and the early 1960s, broad changes in American women's economics and social roles made collegiate education in home economics seem "old fashioned," an image that did not do justice to its rich history

Seven Areas of Home Economics

Cooking

Since food preparation was central to homemaking, cooking is one of the earliest disciplines in home economics. Early home economics programs taught women how to cook a balanced meal, and included food safety and preservation. Additionally, they studied how to properly set a table and learned how to host meals, not only for their immediate families, but for larger groups as well. This element of traditional economics still exists today for both men and women in culinary schools, culinary programs for family and consumer sciences students, and in nutrition degrees.

Child Development

In addition to cooking and nutrition, home economics students were taught how to rear children. This included learning about the stages of child development and how to correctly respond to children at each stage. Today, students who study family and consumer sciences still learn child development, which has become so significant that it is, in many places, it's own major.

Education and Community Awareness

Since women were the first educators for their children, teaching them basic reading and math skills before they entered school, it was significant for them to understand how best to teach these skills. Though education and community awareness, which included moral and ethical lessons, were originally a part of the home economics education, it has become so significant today that elementary education has branched into its own field of study -- but one that is still dominated by women.

Home Management and Design

Early women who studied home economics learned the elements of design in order to better decorate and care for their homes. This area of study also included cleaning and organization, which was significant because homemakers were expected to keep the house clean and organized. Today, individuals who study family and consumer sciences use these skills to enter design fields where they thrive as designers, decorators, organization gurus and real estate staging experts.

Sewing and Textiles

Another of the earliest skills taught to home economics students, sewing was significant to the lesson plans because many women sewed not only their own clothes, but clothes for their children. Additionally, this skill came in handy when clothing needed mending. Because patterns require certain types of materials, an understanding of textiles was useful. This element of the traditional areas of home economics is still relevant today as family and consumer science majors enter and thrive in fashion design and merchandising fields.

Budgeting and Economics

In addition to cooking, child rearing, home planning and sewing, home economics students learned how to budget. Because women did all, or most, of the family shopping, they were expected to understand how to spend wisely and make the most judicious use of available funds. Today, this traditional element of home economics is still relevant in family and consumer science programs as students learn to properly budget, balance and invest income.

Health and Hygiene

In addition to caring for the home, students who studied home economics learned how to properly care for sick family members. This included sanitation, keeping the sick family member fed and quarantined from the healthy, and at-home treatments for common illnesses. Today, some family and consumer science programs offer this information to students, though it is not commonly its own area of study any longer.