Home economics students in the early years were thrilled to be
at Cornell and felt privileged to have access to higher education,
since most women did not have such an opportunity. Home economics
faculty and students created a supportive community of women that
fostered connection and loyalty among students and alumnae. Yet
women students found it hard to achieve an equal place with men
at Cornell, and they struggled for equality both in and out of the
classroom.
As a college education became more common for women, home economics
students began to think of themselves and their relationships with
others differently. By the late l930s, they assumed leadership roles
on campus. They also became more integrated into the life of the
university, took a wider array of classes, and expanded their horizons
beyond homemaking to a variety of professional careers. In the postwar
era however, the ideal of traditional femininity still played some
role in college activities and lingered in students' ideas about
their future roles. In conjunction with the growing attention to
women's issues in society at large, by the late 1960s, students
in home economics showed a new and broader understanding of the
value of their Cornell education.
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