home economics
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Feminists, Feminisms, and Advertising
It was great to see the promotional materials available for the book, Feminists, Feminisms, and Advertising. My chapter is about home economics and careers for women in advertising. As I wrote: Many of these women – both in the women’s pages of newspapers and adverting copy writers – found their careers through home economics. The stories of educated women’s paid employment are often defined by careers as nurses, teachers, or librarians. Yet, home economics (initially called domestic science) was a popular college major for women who found careers upon graduation. As part of their majors, they learned about writing copy, understanding new technologies, and educating consumers. They went on to…
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Home Economics Journalism
I am getting back to my work on home economics journalism.I was happy to find this scanned catalog from the 1950s which mentioned home economics journalism as a career option.
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Pirate Museum & Home Economics
We had a great time at the Pirate Museum in St. Augustine last month. Interactive exhibits and great use of technology. Fun movie and pirate pop culture at the end. Curtis loved lighting the cannon. My favorite part was learning how many home economics skills that a pirate needed. They mixed up interesting drinks. They had interesting menus. And, best of all, they needed strong sewing skills for those flags.
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Did Feminism Kill Home Cooking?
Some critics have blamed feminism for the lack of home cooking today and the increased reliance on convenience food. (Isn’t it sad that feminism is blamed for so much and rarely given credit for what feminism helped women achieve.) Perhaps the most vocal of these was food writer Michael Pollan who wrote in a 2009 essay in the New York Times. He wrote that one of the reasons that women do not cook was that women went to work. In his New York Times essay, he also described Betty Friedan’s 1963 The Feminine Mystiqueas the book that taught millions of American women to regard housework, cooking included, as drudgery, indeed…
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Kitchen Literacy
I just started reading the book Kitchen Literacy: How We Lost Knowledge of Where Food Comes From and Why We Need to Get It Back. It is a great piece of culinary history. The author, Ann Vileisis, includes the usual sources like David Kamp and Laura Shapiro. Yet, she also does her own reporting – analyzing advertisements and archival materials. I was most impressed with her mixing of news and advertising since consumers obviously get food information from both sources. She does not write much about food reporting in newspapers and instead focusing on women’s magazines. (I was happy to find a Jane Nickerson reference – there is a footnote…
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Food Studies Presentation: Ohio Food Editor History
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Home Economics and the Women’s Pages
I enjoyed this book by Carolyn M. Goldstein about this history of home economics but was disappointed there wasn’t more about the home economists who became recipe testers and food editors for the women’s pages of newspapers. It was rather common for female students to major in journalism and minor in home economics (or the other way around) as training for the women’s pages. I did enjoy the background material about home economics – especially the final chapter about the changing of the field (or lack of) in the 1960s and 1970s that led to its down fall. It was very close to what led to the end of the…
