"Home Economics stands for the ideal home life for today
unhampered by the traditions of the past [ and] the utilization
of all the resources of modern science to improve home life."
Ellen Swallow Richards (1904)
Instructor in Sanitary Chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and Founder of the Home Economics Movement
"The department of home economics was organized to train a
woman in efficiency and to develop her outlook to life. Such a department
is a necessity as a means of developing a society. It stands for
the evolution of womens work and place."
Liberty Hyde Bailey (1911)
Dean, New York State College of Agriculture
"Home economics should find its way into the curriculum of
every school because the scientific study of a problem pertaining
to food, shelter or clothing
raises manual labor that might
be drudgery to the plane of intelligent effort that is always self-respecting
Home
economics is not one department, in the sense in which dairying
or entomology or soils is a department. It is not a single speciality
Many technical and educational departments will grow out of it as
time goes on."
Martha Van Rensselaer (1913)
Professor of Home Economics and Co-Director of the New York State
College of Home Economics
" The material benefits [of home economics] have been many
and practical especially the lifting of the monotonous tasks of
every day into a science with a sure foundation
The contact
with the clean, quick thinking minds embodied in the charming, loveable
women who have come to us from the state college has been a privilege
The call to leadership in my own community has given me a certain
self-confidence
I have lost all fear of my own voice speaking
in public."
Mrs. Carl E. Hood (1923)
Homemaker, Ballston Lake, NY
"From the broad view of intelligent statecraft, the state
will find an education in home economics a tool of the utmost importance
in building up forces which increase physical well-being of the
population and which make for a reduction in the number of persons
thrown back to the state for support by reason of physical, mental,
or moral failure."
Albert R, Mann (1930)
Dean, New York State College of Agriculture
"Home-making today should have a background of scientific
training because only in this way can real efficiency be achieved.
The average girl wants to be able to keep her house with the least
possible strain, and in order to do this she must have good training.
This can best be achieved by taking a good course in home economics."
Eleanor Roosevelt (l933)
First Lady and Social Reformer