Brumberg, Joan Jacobs and Nancy Tomes. Women In The Professions:
A Research Agenda For American Historians. Reviews in American
History. 10 (1982) 275 - 296.
Olin Library - call number E171.R45.
This article examines how historical writing before l982 handled
the issue of women in the professions both male-dominated ones (such
as medicine, law, and the academy) and also the feminized service
professions (such as teaching, nursing, social work, librarianship).
Tomes and Brumberg note that while historians have written extensively
on upper class and working class women during the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, they have shied away from the complexities
of the middle-class female professional. The authors argue that
due to the constraints family and society placed on women until
very recently, the professionalization process was different for
women than for men. They suggest alternative standards by which
to assess women in the professions, and they suggest that home economics
fits the model of the feminized service professions. This is an
excellent introductory article for anyone who wishes to gain an
understanding of issues that guided the research for this exhibit.
It has stimulated a great deal of historical work on American women
in the professions since its publication twenty years ago.
Nerad, Maresi. The Academic Kitchen: A Social History of
Gender Stratification at the University of California, Berkeley.
Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1987.
ILR Library (in Ives Hall) - call number TX285.U52 N47x 1999.
Nerad traces the development of home economics at another land-grant
institution, the University of California at Berkeley. She uses
the story of Agnes Fay Morgan and other Berkeley women faculty to
argue that home economics faculty were accorded second-class status
within the larger university. Nerad points out that the few women
who did earn Ph.D.s in the hard sciences could not find employment
in their disciplines, so they were pushed into departments of home
economics. Many embraced home economics, however, as the best way
to cope with the male-dominated university environment that excluded
them from positions of power and authority. Nerads discussion of
the second-class status of home economics points to the problems
home economists had in establishing their professional identity.
Rose, Flora. A Growing College: Home Economics at Cornell
University/New York State College of Human Ecology. Ithaca:
New York State College of Human Ecology, 1969.
Mann Library - call number TX285.N56 R796.
Rose's book is primarily an institutional history of the College
of Home Economics to l940; the period from l940 to l965 was covered
by Esther Stocks, Director of Placement from l933 to l964. For most
standard reference questions, Rose is the place to begin. This work
includes important primary source documents, and is filled with
fascinating insights into the world of home economists, such as
the controversy over admitting home economics graduates into the
American Association of University Women.
Rose, Flora, Pioneers in Home Economics. Practical Home
Economics. 25 (1947).
Library Annex and Mann Library - call number TX1.P89.
This series of eight articles, written by the one of the pioneers
in home economics at Cornell, provides a wonderful account of the
professionalization of home economics as well as of the women and
men behind the scenes.