num_pages: 368
description: 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 fields history from Black colleges to Eleanor Roosevelt to Okinawa from a Betty Crocker brigade to DIY techies. These womenand they were mostly womenbecame 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.
language: English
title: The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live
publisher: W. W. Norton & Company