The title image of a chapter called “Yeast” from Betty Crocker’s 1950 Picture Cookbook.
Part I describes the origins of Home Economics in U.S. Higher Education: Home Economics, Haven or Exile for Women Scientists?
Part II describes notable scientific achievements in Home Economics Research in the interwar years: Home Economics: Advancing Science
Part III below describes the anti-feminist turn Home Economics took in the 1950s and 1960s.
Home Economics Has a PR Problem
During the 1950s and 1960s, an increasingly negative attitude towards Home Economics was displayed by students and male administrators. Home Economics, which had been involved in vital outreach and research efforts, particularly during times of national crises, was being treated as an embarrassment. For decades, Home Economics departments had struggled with gaining administrative support (Nerad 1999 ; Marthers 2011) and were perceived to be lowering the prestige of the university (Rossiter 1995). This feeling may also have affected students. By the 1950s, despite defending the professional rigor of the program, there were reports of “negative attitudes” towards Home Economics courses. For example, the majority of surveyed students at the University of Illinois perceived the major as training to be a homemaker and lacking intellectual stimulation (Christopherson 1957). Conversely, another deterrent may have been the rigorous pre-requisite math and science courses, which could have discouraged students interested in the field (Louttit 1951).
Top: Betty Crocker ads for the happy homemaker, with this Bisquick add stating “Happy Husbands Cheer for Wives As Old-Time Hot Biscuits Come Back!”. Bottom, Betty Crocker test kitchens as depicted in the 1950 Betty Crocker Picture cookbook. A mix of scientific innovation and the patriarchy.
In response, Home Economics, rather than attempting to become more progressive, ultimately fell back on more conservative values. Education, which had been divided among the three factions of domestic skills, science, and sociology, began to tilt more towards teaching domestic skills and promoting “family life”. The field touted improving “family life” as one way to win the “Cold War”. Ironically, the Cold War had increased national fascination with science. But this “science” was apparently in the realm of national defense, for which these land grant universities were receiving substantial funding. Instead, Home Economics departments began cutting down science requirements and federal funding decreased with the Bureau of Home Economics closing in the 1960s (Dreilinger 2021). By 1960, only a few Home Economics departments received “special assistance grants” to support doctoral students from federal government entities like the National Science Foundation or the United States Department of Agriculture, though industry offered grants.
Home Economics administrators also began chasing prestige — through sexism. Female deans encouraged women to pursue doctorate degrees, but hired men preferentially, particularly in the area of child development (Rossiter 1995). The reasoning was that these faculty would increase “prestige” and hence, attract more funding. Despite its “PR” problem, Masters degrees granted in Home Economics increased 21% and doctorates 40% from 1950 to 1960 (Thomas and Mallory 1963). Undergraduate enrollment fluctuated across the 1950s to early 1960s, though only by a few percentage points (Thomas 1959), but apparently enough to concern administrators. What may have been more troubling was that a smaller proportion of female undergraduates were enrolled in Home Economics (Thomas and Mallory 1963).
Excerpts from The Journal of Home Economics reveal insight into this period. Articles in the journals seem to differentiate between “professional” women and married women. Having a career and being married simultaneously seemed to be discouraged. While articles promoted strategies for financial independence for professional women (Gerard 1960), women who worked outside the home or were divorced, were portrayed as negatively impacting the family. The ominously entitled article “When Homes Are Broken” stated that when high school girls come from “broken homes”, “Grades drop, conflicts develop, and even health may be impaired”. One recommended strategy for aiding these children of divorced parents in the Home Economics classroom was “encouraging self-assurance as homemakers in the future” as they have “seen the results of inadequate preparation for marriage, perhaps of poor homemaking skills, or conflicts over money” (Harmon 1959 p. 332-33).
A 1965 article entitled “Marriage and Family Living in the Homemaking Curriculum” noted that “through the study of child rearing practices, girls might come to accept their roles as wives and mothers of the future […] homemaking curriculum in junior high school can help girls accept their feminine role” (Bezant 1965, p. 13). This article, which examined changing family dynamics, particularly in reports of increased angst in adolescents, recommended increased focus on teenagers’ adjustment. Ultimately, the article argued that women must be encouraged to accept their ‘feminine’ role via education, dismally suggesting that “the girl who marries at 16 is six to ten times more likely to experience divorce than one who marries at 20”. The implication was that girls should at least graduate from high school, where they could learn how to become a “perfect” wife, but marry before they were even eligible to vote. By 1977, reports in The Journal of Home Economics from the third annual Center for the Family Conference forum, were more charitable towards working mothers, suggesting that working women served as positive role models for their children and were better set-up for financial security. However, this change of tune may have been a case of too little, too late for the field of Home Economics (Women Employed 1977).
School dances and proms were part of high school culture by the 1950s. LEFT woman: My grandmother going to her school’s prom in 1958. She married at 19, became severely depressed after having 3 children and being a full-time homemaker, so she returned to working part-time in the mid 1960s. RIGHT: Popular American dress styles in 1958.
Furthermore, the field’s noble ideals of improving society through science, were increasingly co-opted by materialism and product placement by the late 1940s. The Journal of Home Economics regularly mentioned different brand names or listed recipes using sponsored products like Nucoa (“America’s Most Popular Margarine”)(Nucoa 1949), Kelvinator (“The Best Freezer for Your Laboratory”)(Kelvinator 1951), Gerber’s Baby Foods (“Teaching Aids on Infant Nutrition…Babies are our business…our only business!”). Companies like General Mills photographed foods for Home Economics teaching manuals (with coupons in the back) or donated equipment to the educational environment. Corporate sponsorship was one way to fund research in an environment increasingly hostile to Home Economics (Dreilinger 2021). Many graduates also found opportunities to work in industry after graduating. But by promoting the “happy housewife” image of the 1950s, they were pushing the field in a more conservative direction. Home Economists who worked in industry for pay, often promoted labor-saving devices and easy to prepare cooking mixes, but not with the intent that women could go to work or pursue self-fulfillment. Radio and cooking programs flourished after World War II and increasingly doubled down on this image, while ironically providing jobs for women in television (Dreilinger 2021). Emphasis on fashion design and sewing, and female professionals visiting campuses to give makeup tutorials, encouraged women to adhere to unrealistic beauty norms. These media and corporate campaigns were so effective, that they have saturated the American cultural consciousness (These fashion trends are even making a comeback for “tradwives”).
Fashion design and textile science were also parts of Home Economics and shaped American cultural perceptions of women.
The field also doubled down on praising heterosexual marriage and abstinence education, in addition to promoting faulty sexual education based on classist, sexist, racist, and homophobic assumptions (then euphemistically known as ‘family-centered’ teaching—later known as abstinence-education or purity culture). Notably, in May 1962 obstetrician Dr. Alan F. Guttmacher (who also served as President of Planned Parenthood and the Vice President of the American Eugenics Society) visited Vassar where he advocated for legalized abortion, sterilization, and medically accurate contraceptive education. During his lecture, he elaborated with some detail on the efficacy and safety of different contraceptive methods. He was greeted with “warm applause” and a “barrage of questions” (Dr. Guttmacher Views Contraception Control 1962). Unfortunately, much of his arguments were framed around ethnicity and population control, demonstrating the persistent grip that the eugenics movement had over even more “liberal” sexual politics. Textbooks and materials from the 1950s, unlike in earlier decades, emphasized housekeeping as a personality and way of life, and argued that those who were not ready to sacrifice their life to being a homemaker were emotionally “frigid”. The onus for creating a happy marriage and home was placed on the women.
2 pages from Betty Crocker’s 1950 Picture Cookbook. including an elaborate array of dinner and lunch menus a housewife could plan (soufflé, veal paprika, Welsh rarebit). Right shows shortcuts for a homemaker including laying on the kitchen floor if tired.
HBCUs resisted these conservative leanings
After World War II, Home Economics departments at HBCUs underwent a revitalization. HBCUs worked to expand curriculum offerings, including areas such as child development, nutrition, clothing, housing, interior design, human resource management, hospitality management, fashion merchandising, and interpersonal relationships in Home Economics departments (Neyland 1990). Kittrell, by this point, was one of the most prominent researchers in the field and head of the Home Economics Department at Howard University. She expanded course offerings, facilities, and student enrollment. Kittrell, who conducted international research, would encourage students to work abroad after graduation. Her efforts helped to enroll international students at Howard (Dreilinger 2021). Schools such as South Carolina State and Alabama A&M began offering Master’s degrees in Home Economics. Such programs produced notable graduates who became dietitians and administrators. Such programs were better able to survive in the second half of the 20th century (Neyland 1990).
LEFT: Flemmie Kittrell (1904-1980), expert in child health and nutrition. RIGHT Sadye YOUNG (1922 - 2019) expert in education and child development. A former student remarked, "She was a trusted advisor who showed us how things should be done, and she demonstrated and taught by example."
Notably, female faculty at HBCUs pushed back against “family-centered” teaching, arguing that it was not beneficial to those who needed to work from economic necessity. Much of the concern regarded the increased calls for watering-down core science requirements (Scott 1950; Nason 1950). North Carolina Professor Sadye Pearl Young wrote that family-centered teaching is “shop worn, and the concept inadequately interpreted, and most frequently quite ineffectively executed through the teaching practices” (Young 1961) p. 96. Young argues, in respect to enrollment declines at HBCUs, that “Home Economists must be sold on the worth of their profession […] they must make the curriculum intellectually stimulating, where there has been the failure to do so. And the emphasis must not be on a superficial glamour made up by the addition of frills and fringe materials and activities” (Young 1960 p. 671.)
Research opportunities in Home Economics also increased. Prior to the 1960s, HBCUs received very little federal and state funding for Home Economics research. Unsurprisingly, it was not until the 1940s and 1950s, that Tuskegee, Prairie View A&M, Southern University, and North Carolina A&T began to conduct research in the area of food, human nutrition, and clothing. Projects focused on low-income, rural, and African American experiences. Some HBCUs struggled with enrollment declines in Home Economics, attributed partly to difficulties in graduates obtaining jobs and a lack of diverse curriculum (Dreilinger 2021; Young 1960). After 1967, many HBCUs began to receive more funding which greatly expanded research opportunities. HBCUs also began to receive funds for extension work with the reestablishment of the 1890 Extension Program in 1970 (Neyland 1990). By the 1960s, modern technologies were displacing black agricultural workers. Unfortunately, Black extension agents were demoted, denigrated, or dismissed due to backlash from the integration of extension programs. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 provided a way for agents to “fight back” against civil rights violations. While this led to some success, many of the programs that had been established by black home agents were eliminated (Harris 1997).
Conclusion
Modern-day trad-wife looks.
By the late 1960s, and 1970s Home Economics College and Departments across land-grant institutions would be rebranded, and their female faculty and deans ousted. The haven that Home Economics was for women scientists, as problematic as it was, would see a dramatic drop in female enrollment and no subsequent increases in other STEM fields for decades. However, this era of Home Economics shows disturbing parallels to modern tradwife movements including its conservative ideology, influencing, commercialism, emphasis on homemaking, and even a certain fashion aesthetic which mimics the puffy dresses and makeup of the 1950s.
Dreilinger, Danielle. 2021. The Secret History of Home Economics. W.W. Norton and Company.
Rossiter, Margaret W. 1995. Women Scientists in America: Before Affirmative Action 1940-1972. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.