By Cathy Ledbetter Toward a Brighter Future
My friend told me about a book recently, “The Secret History of Home Economics” by Danielle Dreilinger. I immediately looked up reviews of the book and found they were mostly very good, and that the book called for a return of Home Economics. Of course I had to read this as I believe strongly that Home Economics is more needed now than it has been since the establishment of the discipline in the late 1800s.
I received my Bachelor of Science in Home Economics Education in 1985, and I was ridiculed for getting a “fun” and “easy” degree. At that time, a Home Economics degree was seen as almost the same thing as the renowned “M.R.S.” degree. At the University of Tennessee, my degree program was arduous and based in the hard sciences.
My degree plan for the first two or three years was very similar to Pre-Med and Nursing plans with the chemistry, biology, and human anatomy and physiology. Besides those were enough psychology to almost earn a second degree, and business courses like management and accounting. It is because of this depth and variety of coursework that I have always said Home Economists like myself are “professional know-it-alls.”
As for what most people think of when they hear Home Economics, I did have some stitching and stirring mixed in—Textile Science, Food Science, Human Nutrition, and Clothing Construction. Additional Home Economics courses were in Housing, Interior Design, Personal Finance, Child Development, and Marriage and Family Relationships. There was one course, that sticks out in my mind called “Aesthetics,” which basically was about art and beauty in the home and family. That sounds pretty floofy, but look at how people in the most meager circumstances will choose to bring something beautiful into their homes and how uplifting a pretty piece of glass or a wildflower can be.
The book traces the trajectory of Home Economics from its founding by women who had fought to become the some of the first female scientists in the U.S. (one had a Ph.D. in Chemistry, another in Industrial Engineering, for example). These women, and a couple of men, wanted to apply science to improve home life the way it was being applied to improve farming. They aimed to make us all healthier and happier and to give women options as to how to live their lives. It would be an accurate statement to say Home Economics was the earliest feminist movement in this country. It powered on through the suffragist movement to getting women into professional roles in the government and in the corporate world, but the aftermath of World War II changed things. That was when Home Economics started to be seen as trying to make sure all women aspired to was to be good homemakers. Home Economics found itself with a huge image and messaging problem and clearly was failing to overcome it in the seventies and eighties when I was in college.
I have not yet made it to the end of the book, but I am anxious to see how the author presents the case for the return of Home Economics. Think of how much we could improve things if every student graduated high school with a semester or two of learning how to manage home and family life— managing money and personal business, feeding themselves a healthy and inexpensive diet, taking care of their mental and physical health, taking care of their homes, and taking care of their family relationships. That would be a great start, but I have a feeling you will be reading about this again after I finish the book. <SpringCreekArts-Guild@gmail.com>