WILLIAM STEWART writes:

I’m not sure the scene depicted in your picture and caption is as innocent as it seems on the surface; in fact, I’m inclined to think otherwise. I don’t think the teaching in the public school system, of skills previously taught at home, was a good thing, because the teachers of “domestic science,” “household science,” or “home economics,” etc., tended towards an elitist view, that only experts knew how to properly cook according to the new “scientific” understandings of “hygiene,” and that what a girl might learn from her mother at home was no good, as that lady didn’t have the benefit of “scientific knowledge” that such self-appointed “experts” did. The fact that not only high schools, but universities and colleges, started offering courses in such “sciences,” strikes me as a means of furthering the rule of experts and the denigrating of knowledge held by ordinary people, and also it acted as a means to draw young women out of the home, and into higher education (not to mention creating jobs for such “experts”), which ultimately led to women going into other courses, too; in short, it had a domino effect. 

Laura writes:

Yes, I agree. Home economics was a part of the gradual replacement of domesticity with expertise, of tradition and craft with pseudo-science. In other words, it was part of the purposeful campaign against the home. Why did this occur? Well, your mention of jobs is key. A society that exalts individual autonomy, and discourages natural interdependence, focuses on jobs. Home economics created jobs. The food processing industry created jobs. The restaurant industry created jobs. The nutrition business created jobs. But domesticity itself creates few paying positions. It does not lead to economic autonomy for the individual woman and there is no middle man, no outside party making profit from this labor. The authentic domestic worker is a generalist, not a narrow expert or specialist. It’s interesting that so many people consider domestic work inherently servile. It entails service, yes, but paid work is, by contrast, much more servile.  

The more experts have taken over the business of everyday life the more incompetent the average person has become. And we have to remember: we are paying for all those jobs.

Still, despite these issues, I was charmed by the dresses those students in the photo were wearing. And there were no boys in the class! It was at least understood this was feminine work.

                              — Comments —

Jenny writes:

Those girls do look sweet. Regarding the science of cooking, I remember reading in a book about how when the switch from cooking with wood to gas or electric was made, there were often cooking disasters. Many a young wife who learned at her mother’s side over the wood stove just couldn’t cook with the new fangled stoves and were desperately eager for tested recipes with exact temperatures and measurements. I think the book might have been Finding Betty Crocker.

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