Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Until recently, historians tended to dismiss home economics as little more than a conspiracy to keep women in the kitchen. This landmark volume initiates collaboration among home economists, family and consumer science professionals, and women's historians. What knits the essays together is a willingness to revisit the subject of home economics with neither indictment nor apology. The volume includes significant new work that places home economics in the twentieth century within the context of the development of women's professions.
Rethinking Home Economics documents the evolution of a profession from the home economics movement launched by Ellen Richards in the early twentieth century to the modern field renamed Family and Consumer Sciences in 1994. The essays in this volume show the range of activities pursued under the rubric of home economics, from dietetics and parenting, teaching and cooperative extension work, to test kitchen and product development. Exploration of the ways in which gender, race, and class influenced women's options in colleges and universities, hospitals, business, and industry, as well as government has provided a greater understanding of the obstacles women encountered and the strategies they used to gain legitimacy as the field developed.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 331-334) and index.
Table of Contents
Home economics, what's in a name? /Sarah Stage --Ellen Richards and the social significance of the home economics movement /Sarah Stage --Spreading the germ theory: sanitary science and home economics, 1880-1930 /Nancy Tomes --Modernizing mothers: home economics and the parent education movement, 1920-1945 /Julia Grant --Liberal arts or vocational training? Home economics education for girls /Rima D. Apple --The men move in: home economics in higher education, 1950-1970 /Margaret W. Rossiter --Reminiscences /Marjorie East --Home economists in the hospital, 1900-1930 /Lynn K. Nyhart --Legitimizing nutrition education: the impact of the great depression /Kathleen R. Babbitt --"Where Mrs. Homemaker is never forgotten": Lucy Maltby and home economics at Corning Glass Works, 1929-1965 /Regina Lee Blaszczyk --Reminiscences /Hazel Reed --Defining the profession and the good life: home economics on film /Joan Jacobs Brumberg --Grace under pressure: the black home extension service in South Carolina, 1919-1966 /Carmen Harris --Reminiscences /Genevieve J. Wheeler Thomas -- Agents of modernity: home economists and rural electrification, 1925-1950 /Ronald R. Kline --Safeguarded by your refrigerator: Mary Eagle Pennington's struggle with the National Association of Ice Industries /Lisa Mae Robinson --Part of the package: home economists in the consumer product industries, 1920-1940 /Carolyn M. Goldstein --Reminiscences /Satenig St. Marie --Home economics moves into the Twenty-First Century /Virginia B. Vincenti --Chronology of events and movements which have defined and shaped home economics / Virginia B. Vincenti.