Remaking Home Economics

These new essays, relevant for a variety of fields--history, women's studies, STEM, and family and consumer sciences itself--take current and historical perspectives on home economics philosophy, social responsibility, and public outreach; food and clothing; gender and race in career settings; and challenges to the field's identity and continuity.

Until recently, historians tended to dismiss home economics as little more than a conspiracy to keep women in the kitchen. This landmark volume initiates collaboration among home economists, family and consumer science professionals, and women's historians. What knits the essays together is a willingness to revisit the subject of home economics with neither indictment nor apology. The volume includes significant new work that places home economics in the twentieth century within the context of the development of women's professions. Rethinking Home Economics documents the evolution of a profession from the home economics movement launched by Ellen Richards in the early twentieth century to the modern field renamed Family and Consumer Sciences in 1994. The essays in this volume show the range of activities pursued under the rubric of home economics, from dietetics and parenting, teaching and cooperative extension work, to test kitchen and product development. Exploration of the ways in which gender, race, and class influenced women's options in colleges and universities, hospitals, business, and industry, as well as government has provided a greater understanding of the obstacles women encountered and the strategies they used to gain legitimacy as the field developed.

The surprising, often fiercely feminist, always fascinating, yet barely known, history of home economics. The term “home economics” may conjure traumatic memories of lopsided hand-sewn pillows or sunken muffins. But common conception obscures the story of the revolutionary science of better living. The field exploded opportunities for women in the twentieth century by reducing domestic work and providing jobs as professors, engineers, chemists, and businesspeople. And it has something to teach us today. In the surprising, often fiercely feminist and always fascinating The Secret History of Home Economics, Danielle Dreilinger traces the field’s history from Black colleges to Eleanor Roosevelt to Okinawa, from a Betty Crocker brigade to DIY techies. These women—and they were mostly women—became chemists and marketers, studied nutrition, health, and exercise, tested parachutes, created astronaut food, and took bold steps in childhood development and education. Home economics followed the currents of American culture even as it shaped them. Dreilinger brings forward the racism within the movement along with the strides taken by women of color who were influential leaders and innovators. She also looks at the personal lives of home economics’ women, as they chose to be single, share lives with other women, or try for egalitarian marriages. This groundbreaking and engaging history restores a denigrated subject to its rightful importance, as it reminds us that everyone should learn how to cook a meal, balance their account, and fight for a better world.

Since the 1950s, divorces and out-of-wedlock births in America have risen dramatically. This has significantly affected the economic wellbeing of the country's most vulnerable populations. In Home Economics: The Consequences of Changing Family Structure, Nick Schulz argues that serious consideration of the consequences of changing family structure is sorely missing from conversations about American economic policy and politics. Apprehending a complete picture of this country's economic condition will be impossible if poverty, income inequality, wealth disparities, and unemployment alone are taken into consideration, claims Schulz. This book will trace how family structure has transformed over the last half century, ruminate on the causes of those changes, consider what conclusions can be drawn about the economic consequences of the changes in family, and offer ideas for how to handle the issue in the years to come.

This book offers a historical exploration of the genesis of feminist economics and gender economics, as well as their theoretical and methodological differences. Its narrative also serves to embed both within a broader cultural context. Although both feminist economics and gender neoclassical economics belong to the cultural process related to the central role of the political economy in promoting women’s emancipation and empowerment, they differ in many aspects. Feminist economics, mainly influenced by women’s studies and feminism, rejected neoclassical economics, while gender neoclassical economics, mainly influenced by home economics and the new home economics, adopted the neoclassical economics’ approach to gender issues. The book includes diverse case studies, which also highlight the continuity between the story of women’s emancipation and the more recent developments of feminist and gender studies. This volume will be of great interest to researchers and academia in the fields of feminist economics, gender studies, and the history of economic thought.