Domestic sciences at Bradley Polytechnic Institute and The University of Chicago

Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Autumn 2002 by Collins, Nina

When the three Joneses "retired" to a farm in Wisconsin, Nellie Kedzie (Jones) rode a circuit to direct Farm and Home Week at five different colleges. She wrote articles for The Country Gentleman from 1912 to 1916, which offered advice for rural home life. Much of that advice looked for the most efficient arrangement for farm kitchens, including needed equipment, time and energy management, and mental health for rural women, "Everybody needs a hobby. ... Many a time have I advised farmwomen to get something, anything, to do; only it must be quite unlike the regular routine. We must think of something else, at least part of the time."21 An overriding theme is that a farm wife must try to spare herself in small ways; she may never be totally liberated but she should be organized in such a way that she manages work, not being controlled by the overwhelming amount of work to do on a farm.

Some of Kedzie's suggestions may have been gentle hints regarding her feeling toward the suffrage movement and the New Woman of the 1920s. "A little girl should be able to climb a tree as fast as a boy of the same size. Tomboys make strong women. Never shame a girl for romping and scuffling with her brothers," she said. She continued, "our New England mothers and grandmothers had prudish notions about what was proper for a girl. She did not have fair chance; she was kept in the house and put at sewing, housework or dolls. ... Give the girls a chance at some of the outdoor work, and make the boys do some of the inside work. If the girl feeds the hens and hunts the eggs let her brother help do the dishes."22 At the age of 60, Kedzie accepted the position of State Leader for the University of Wisconsin's Home Economics Extension, and her husband accepted an appointment to teach history for the University. (Their daughter would have been an adolescent.) From Madison, Kedzie traveled and worked throughout Wisconsin, initiating a variety of efforts to improve rural life, especially for farmwomen. She retired at age seventy-five. She continued to lecture, including giving lectures on "growing old gracefully," until she died at the age of 97 in 1956.

Gunn calls Nellie Kedzie's approach a balanced approach that was followed by many colleges and universities that developed laboratories for "industrials" that supported what was taught in the lecture hall. Nellie Kedzie believed that domestic science included science and art in this balanced approach. This philosophy was the center of the curriculum at Bradley Polytechnic Institute.23

The department at Bradley Polytechnic Institute became strong and well-respected under Nellie Kedzie. Bradley took advantage of the radical change at Kansas State Agricultural College's in 1897. When that administration changed, all faculty were asked to resign and Kedzie, and later her companion Kansas faculty, came to the brand new school in Peoria, Illinois. Kedzie was among the highest paid faculty members at the beginning of the school. A letter written to Harper by the Director of Bradley (Edward Sisson) in May, 1898 includes the following: "The decision of Kedzie is trembling in the balance. I believe that I ought to be empowered to tell her that her salary will be $1600.00 next year. Will you wire me your consent to this if you can give it?" An ominous letter written a week earlier that described Sisson's concern in that the "the people of Champaign" were after Kedzie preceded this letter. "Two of the Regents were here the other day; I am very much afraid they will put strong temptation in her way. We cannot afford to lose her. She has done too much to place the Institute high in public esteem here, among almost all kinds of people. I think we can keep her, but it will take some persuasion. I believe a word of appreciation from you would do a great deal; she is a woman who works with all her might, and she likes to feel her work is appreciated."24