Composition: History & Theory: 1865 - 1899
Home Economics
Description
In The American School From the Puritans to No Child Left Behind (2008), Joel Spring discusses the development of the Lake Placid Conferences on Home Economics in 1899. Ellen Richards, the first female instructor at MIT helped develop home economics as a profession to help housewives become consumers instead of producers in order to give women a chance to focus on higher education and social reform. She believed that domestic science and healthy living could help “reduce unemployment, crime, and alcoholism” and help students study and find jobs (221). Leaders like Caroline Hunt argued for “intelligent consumption” which saw the consumer as having social responsibilities tied to the welfare and working conditions of the worker (222). Home Economics grew as a viable university discipline until the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 which spread home economics to public schools and universities with a focus on vocation as opposed to science (224).
Date of Upload
3/13/09