Rethinking Home Economics: Women and the History of a Profession - Review

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The, Jan, 1999

Sarah Stage and Virginia B. Vincenti ed. Ithaca, Cornell University Press. 199 7. ISBN 0-0814-8175-9. Index.

This book grew out of a conference held at Cornell University in October of 1991 on the subject of home economics. The 15 essays unravel the connections among gender, profession, and the market place in America during the 20th century.

The home economics movement owes its origins to Mrs. Catharine Beecher, whose influential Treatise on Domestic Economy (1842) extolled the importance of the housewife and instructed how to manage problems of kitchen and home, especially proper servant management. Beecher, the cult leader of domesticity, gave way to a new generation of women home economists. In 1909, Ellen Richards' American Home Economics Association (AHEA) looked for ways to find a place for women outside the home. Richards, "trained in chemistry at Vassar and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, saw domestic science as a way to move women trained in science into employment in academics and industry" (p. 5). It was Richards' vision that came to dominate the home economics movement in America. Many commentators, including the feminists of the 1960s, wrongly accused the home economists of being social conservatives. As the authors demonstrate, this verdict is entirely incorrect. The AHEA intentionally facilitated the movement of women into both the factory and into professional community service.

Perhaps no better example of women in industry can be provided than the fascinating life of Lucy Maltby, who held a highly respected position in the Corning Glass Works from 1929 to 1965. Her Home Economics Department at Corning was a critical component of the corporation's business strategy, as Regina Lee Blaszczyk makes clear in her chapter. Indeed, as Lisa Mae Robinson demonstrates, during the 1920s and 1930s, "many home economists and female scientists found employment in the food and home products industry advising consumers, developing and promoting new products, and creating new markets" (p. 253).

During the first part of the 20th century, the home economists were especially active in educating impoverished black Americans about sanitation and household management. The Federal government's Department of Agriculture hired home economists to spread the word. The Smith-Lever Act of 1914 appropriated money to the Department of Agriculture for precisely this purpose. Carmen Harris explains how the state of South Carolina, through Clemson College, sent out armies of white women to teach rural blacks how they should manage household sanitation to minimize malarial infection and other health threats.

The last essay in the book is by Virginia B. Vincenti who also coedited the volume. Vincenti speculates about the future of the home economics movement in the 21st century. It is clear that recent efforts to recruit women into the "male-oriented professions have left traditionally female-dominated fields such as home economics with fewer professionals" (p. 312). This trend will continue in the next century. Reflecting back on the relative marginalization of women in the 20th century, Vincenti regrets the tiny number of opportunities for educated women outside the home, but notes that against all odds the "home economists . . . created meaningful work for themselves that has also benefited society. Sometimes their plans succeeded and sometimes their efforts were thwarted, but home economists created new opportunities when the hegemonic forces in society sought to constrain them" (p. 318). The book ends with Vincenti's useful "Chronology of Events and Movements Which Have Defined and Shaped Home Economics." al instrument