The Nashville globe. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1906-193?, 1913-03-28
THE HOME MAKERS OF TEN
NEssEE.
BY Ada Cooke Settle.

By Ada Cooke Settle.
It has ~nofrbeen so many years ago
that such organizations as the Home
Makers Section Of the Middle Ten
nessee Farmers Institute were en-
tirely unknown. The farm woman
as an individual and as a factor in or
ganized effort was given very little
thought indeed until a comparative
ly recent~time. The public at large
knew she existed; it knew that on
nearly every farm a farm woman was
helping the farmer make a farm
home; the publishing world %recognlz-
ed her existence in a few second rate
columns of household matter printed
on the back pages of the agricultural
papers and magazines, but the impor-
lance of her work to the whole coun-
try was hardly recognized.
Uncle Sam, always at heart a
staunch supporter of women's rights,
was among the first to realize the
rotentiality of the farm woman's liv-
ing. There were bulletins for farm
ers: why not bulletins for farmers
wives and daughters-in fact, for all
sorts of women, both city and coun-
try bred? So the expert writer's on
bread-making, poultry-raising, dairy
ing, canning, preserving and kindred
subjects were put to work, and now
women can obtain from the United
States Department of Agriculture,
Washington, printed matter of the ut
most accuracy IN nearly any subject
pertaining to household economics.
While the United States govern
ment has been printing and distribut-
ing this propaganda of the home,
spreading out over the country like
live wires of help and inspiration
has run the chain work of the Farm
ers' Institutes, conducted by the De
partments of Agriculture in the diff
ferent States. At first these were
men alone, but it soon became evil
dent that the farmer as a traveller
is a blnomial quantity; he likes to
have the woman go when he goes. so
gradually the woman interest crept
into the mems meetings. But it re-
NAMED for Tennessee to originate
such fully organized and conducted
separate bodies for women as the
Home-Makers Sections of the Ten
nessee Farmers Institutes.
There are oranges and Institutes
for women in other States, but moth
ing like the Home Makers Sections
of Tennessee. Realizing the value OF
cooperation, the Department of Agri-
cultures reasoning was not for a
woman's institute apart from the
mems, but a section composed OF
women, working in harmony with
the men of the Farmers Institutes;
being a part of the whole, and at the
same time a whole to themselves.
To this end, cooperation has be-
come the watchword of the Farmers
Institutes of Tennessee and every
farmer who attends the meetings
held in the three divisions Of the
State takes to the sessions a liyelier
interest, a keener anticipation because
the programs presented are open to
his women folks as well as himself,
with separate programs given by the
women assisted by men, and open to
men.
Such wise and generous conduct OF
official bodies has f%ar-reaching effect.
The farmer who attends a meeting
accompanied by his wife, daughter,
or sister, naturally broadens in view
when he find the Institute serving
him trebly through himself, his wom-
an companion, and through both as
one; three channels through which
his home is benefited. For, while he
is making careful notes from the
splendid addresses on soil, drainage,
crop. rotation, etc, this wife is doing
likewise with subjects ever dear to a
woman's heart; home in general,
home dressmaking, home cooking, ba-
bies, and at the same time the farm
err and his wife are enjoying discus
sions of equal interest to both. The
gentler sex is naturally fond OF de-
bate. and one could go a long way
before finding such congenial dis
cussions as take place in the Woman's
i Sections of the Tennessee Farmers
Institutes.
Everybody is expected to tell what
: they know and every woman can
imagine WuhI Il llNCly dlloiA " W.
| cussion on "How to Feed Babies
> might prove. No woman could re-
sist that subject. At the last session
of the Home-Makers of Middle Ten
7 nessee this topic brought out every
l means known from biscuit tea tc
boiled buttermilk straight.
The splendid feature about this
home making work though after all
. lies no more in the helpfulness OF
l the subjects touched than in the thor
: ough cooperation it is bringing about
among all women Of both town ant
g country. Women are learning more
r and more each day that in union lies
4 strength. They are finding that thu
9 secret Of mans success in business
J, organization of labor, and direc.
= methods of application, are equally
applicable to the home, and the tru'