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thesis entitled

Obstacles and Opportunities:
Home Economics at Michigan State University
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presented by

Susan Stein-Roggenbuck

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OBSTACLES AND OPPORTUNITIES:
HOME ECONOMICS AT MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
IN THE POSTWAR BRA I

BY

Susan Stein-Roqgenbuck

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of History
1994

ABSTRACT
OBSTACLES AND OPPORTUNITIES:

HOME ECONOMICS AT MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
IN THE POSTWAR ERA

3?
Susan Stein-Roggenbuck

This thesis examines the home economics program at Michigan State
University during the postwar period to consider the role the feminized
profession played in providing professional opportunities for women. As
members of a feminised profession, home economists grappled with
numerous contradictions between their professional and personal/family
responsibilities. The solution offered by home economics educators (and
many other education professionals) was the life course education idea
for women: prepare women for the different stages of their lives,
including marriage, motherhood, and a return to the professional labor
force. An analysis of a 1968 alumni study shows that women used this
life course idea, however, to demand increased opportunities for
continued education. It also points to more continuities in ideology
between the decades of the 1950s and the 1960s than the current

historiography suggests.

Copyright by
SUSAN STEIN-ROGGENBUCK

1994

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Without the assistance of numerous people, I would never have
completed this thesis. I conducted much of the research for this
project in the University Archives and Historical Collections at
Michigan State University. Archivists Dorothy Frye and Stacy Gould
helped me throughout the duration of the research. I thank them for
their patience and kindness with my endless requests.

Dr. Douglas Miller and Dr. Julia Grant, both members of my thesis
committee, also proved very helpful. Their comments, criticism, and
suggestions only improved this thesis. Working with Dr. Grant as a
research assistant during the academic year 1993-94 provided me with
insights into my own project on home economics. I thank both for their
advice and comments.

This project began during a research seminar taught by Dr. Lisa
Fine in early 1993, and her guidance has been invaluable. She read all
my drafts quickly and offered helpful comments and criticisms, and
provided encouragement when I needed it most. She always found time in
her own busy schedule to assist me. She is a model of both a fine
scholar and a dedicated teacher, and I value the experience of working
with her. Without her assistance and guidance, I would not have
completed this project.

I owe a debt of thanks to my fellow students in the graduate
history program for their friendship and support: Kyle Ciani, Laura
Carlson, Jeff Janowick, Ed McGinnis, Patricia Rogers and Tammy Stone-
Gordon. People outside the history department who assisted with this
project include Amy Brenner-Pricke, Cheryl and Dave Crowley, Kristen

Salathiel, Mark Stein and Mary VanderWilt. Although they were often far

iv

away, their contribution to the completion of this thesis was
significant and appreciated.

The people who deserve the most thanks are Frank and Jacob
Roggenbuck. Jacob, with a child‘s wisdom, knew when I needed to work
and amused himself. he was also most generous with his endless love and
wonderful hugs, and helped me to keep my work in perspective. To my
husband, Frank, I am the most grateful. His friendship, love, and
laughter never failed to sustain me and his presence in my life brings
continuous joy. He is my best friend, husband, and partner, and it is
difficult to imagine my life without him. It is to him, with much love,

that I dedicate this thesis.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Chapter 1 The Limits and Opportunities of
Home Economics . . . . . . . . . . .
Chapter 2 Rome Economics at MSU: From a Nemen's
Course to Academic Discipline . . .
Chapter 3 Conformity and Consensus: Home Economics
in the Fifties . . . . . . . . . . .
Chapter 4 Fighting an Uphill Battle: Attaining Equal
Status in the University . . . . .
Chapter 5 The Meaning of Home Economics Education:
Students at MSU . . . . . . . . . .
Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . .
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

vi

vii

18

29

52

81

115

119

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. x - percentage of total enrollment occupied . . . . 87
by women at MSU
o - College of Home Economics' market share of degrees
awarded to all women at MSU.
* - College of Home Economics' market share of total number

of degrees awarded by MSU.

vii

CHAPTER 1

The Limits and Opportunities of Home Economics

Cooking, cleaning, sewing, child care, and food production have
been primarily the tasks of women throughout history. The scope of
these tasks and the value placed on them has changed, but seldom has
their allocation to women varied extensively; advocates of eradicating a
gender division of labor within the home and society were usually a
minority, and domestic work and child care largely remained the domain
of women. Even though widespread efforts to challenge the allocation of
domestic tasks to women were rare, numerous groups strove either to ease
women's burden from those tasks or to elevate the value placed on them.
Professional home economists, or "domestic scientists,” sought to
enhance the value of domestic tasks and to use the knowledge of science
to improve the home and the lives of its occupants. They also hoped to
create new professional opportunities for women in the sciences at a
time when few paths were open to female scientists.

Although the development of home economics resulted in
professional opportunities for women, home economists were seldom at the
forefront of efforts to challenge existing gender roles and the

l

expectations connected to those roles. One historian argues that home

economics was based upon beliefs about women's traditional ”natural"
role, and that the home economists' concern with professional
legitimation limited their ability to see the significance of gender

issues in the evolution of home economics. The profession's obsession

 

lSue Zschoche, “Seduced and Abandoned by Objectivity: the Home

Economist and the Woman Question, 1890-1920.“ Presented at the American
Education Research Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, 1992. Copy
of paper courtesy of Mary Julia Grant, Michigan State University.

1

2

with “science“ and “rationality“ prevented it from addressing women's

roles in either the home or the larger world.2 Some economists often

failed to address gender, as Sue Eschoche argues:
All the myriad issues of gender - the place of women, the power
differentials between men and women, the stubborn endurance of a
sexual division of labor - were not issues but “facts,“ mere

componepts of the “nature“ of the social universe at any given
moment.

Such a statement cannot be applied to the entire profession. Home
economists were a diverse group, and some certainly considered women's
roles in a more critical way than their colleagues. But many more did
not. Zschoche's work focuses on the earlier decades of home economics,
but the neglect of gender issues continues into the postwar period.
Despite the professional opportunities opened to women in home
economics, the profession's failure to challenge the existing sexual
division of labor resulted in channeling women into what many believed
was a "natural, feminine“ field. As a feminized profession, home
economics increasingly came under attack in the academic world during
the postwar era. Home economists found themselves defending the
profession's very existence, and the inclusion of its disciplines (foods
and nutrition, child development, textiles and clothing, and home
management) under the auspices of home economics. The profession
eventually was criticized because it was dominated by women,
particularly unmarried women.

Ironically, home economists never claimed their field to be only
for women and encouraged men to join their profession, but despite their
efforts to recruit men, women continued to dominate home economics. Few
men majored in home economics and almost none pursued graduate study
until the 1960s. Efforts to make the profession attractive to men were

increasingly hampered by the postwar backlash in women's opportunities,

 

2Ibid., 12. Also, see Regina G. Kunael, zgllgn_flgmgn‘_finglgm
rm- 1 .0 !< » Lid 1; ' 0 is: 01— -. O! 0 0 - 0 .
1&2931215 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993) 170.

3Ibid., 15.

3

an emphasis on women's more “traditional” roles, and a renewed
association between home economics and those female roles. The
'feminised' stigma would prompt major changes in the field, including a
name change or reorganisation for some programs, a shift from female
control to male control, and even the elimination of home economics from

some universities.4 Yet throughout this period, home economists never

questioned the devaluing of their profession simply because it was
dominated by women. They seemed to concede that men were needed to
legitimise the profession, and accepted the criticisms about the
inability of unmarried female “professionals“ to understand the family,
the cornerstone of home economics.

Home economics educators bemoaned the lack of women interested in
pursuing higher education, but did not directly address why women did
not. The responsibilities of marriage and children often stalled the
professional aspirations of many women. Rather than seeking to address
the conflicts women faced in balancing both family and profession, home
economics educators and university administrators turned to men to fill
its faculty ranks. As members of a feminized profession, home
economists faced contradictions inherent in a field which reinforced
traditional gender roles and expectations. These contradictions
included: 1) reconciling a woman's professional responsibilities with
the demands of her family; 2) maintaining a professional staff when most
married women faculty left the field (perhaps temporarily) to marry or
raise their own families; 3) adapting the profession to changing roles

of women within society and the family and adjusting programs and

 

4Margaret Rossiter argues that the 1950s were a period of
regression for women professionals, especially scientists, as the long
history of female achievement in science was rewritten by men. ”Then
this ‘scientific' evidence was used to justify curtailment of future
opportunities for academic women. The result was that decades of
women's struggles in academia, summed up in the phrase, ‘celibate
overachievement,’ was by 1960 brusquely dismissed and a myth created
that women could not become and never had been scholars and scientists."
See Margaret W. Rossiter, 'Outmaneuvered Again - The Collapse of
Academic Women's Strategy of Celibate Overachievement;' paper presented
June 12, 1993, at the Ninth Berkshire Conference on the History of
Women; Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York.

4

philosophy to those changes: and 4) struggling to attain equal status
with other professions and conforming to the academic definition of
scholarly excellence, which emphasised research over teaching.

This thesis examines the speeches and correspondence of the three
deans who led the program at Michigan State University from 1929 to 1971
- Dr. Marie Dye, 1929-1956; Dr. Thelma Porter, 1956-1964; and Jeanette
Lee, 1964-1971. A study of these papers, with particular emphasis on
the postwar era through the fifties, reveals these contradictions and
the accompanying problems these administrators faced during that era.
They also illuminate the debate within home economics over its
definition and direction, and the defense of its very existence as a
profession at the university. This debate is evident in the speeches
given by the MSU deans at professional gatherings, articles in the
professional publication of the home economics field, the Journal 9:
figmg_§ggngmi§g, and in their speeches given within the MSU community.
Writings by other faculty members, faculty meeting minutes, and faculty
workshops also shed light on the issues and debates of other home
economics educators. From this evidence, it becomes clear that the home
economics program at MSU could not escape the contradictions outlined
above.

Connected to the struggle to attain professional respect was the
eventual debate over the inclusion of certain disciplines under the
collective umbrella of home economics, and criticism from male college
and university administrators who failed to see the importance of home
economics. This latter phenomenon occurred most often at universities
seeking to improve their academic prestige. Administrators at such
institutions, including Michigan State University, saw the home

economics program, with its lack of doctoral professors and students and

its emphasis on vocationalism, as detracting from their hoped-for

prestige.5

This study also reveals the intertwining of home economics with
the “life course" education idea endorsed by many educators and
administrators in the postwar period. This concept entailed training
women for the different stages in their lives: full-time
professional/employee (before marriage), marriage and full-time
motherhood, and the eventual return to the labor force after the demands
of children and home lessened. This ”life course“ plan was the solution
offered to educated women who wanted to pursue a career. Rather than
addressing how to help women remain in the profession during those
years, educators assumed that mothers wanted and needed to remain at
home with their young children, and instead sought ways to help them
return to the profession when their family duties decreased. They
failed to account for those women who could not afford to remain at home
fulltime, and they also assumed that all women professionals could leave
their work for a period of time and be able to return after several
years.

This study of the MSU program begins to explore the history of
women in home economics, the difficulties they encountered, and the
strategies they used to advance their opportunities. The study of women
professionals is a growing field, but home economics has received little
attention from historians. Traditional history of the professions tends
to exclude a gender analysis, and even historians of women focus less on

middle class women than the working class.6 Joan Jacobs Brumberg and

Nancy Tomes noted this gap in historical work in a 1982 essay, arguing

that much of the problem with earlier scholarship is one common to most

 

58ee Margaret W. Rossiter, Chapter 8, "Protecting Home Economics,
the Women's Field,” in her forthcoming book, figmgn_§gigntig§§_in
W. 225.

6Burton Blodstein's W is a prime
example of this. Although a standard text on the emergence of the idea
of professions, it includes little on women and no gender analysis.

6

fields that fail to address the role of women and the concept of gender;
most use definitions of professionalism that tend to exclude women or

fields dominated by women.7 Newer scholarship has begun to examine

women professionals, particularly those in traditionally female-
dominated fields, such as nursing and social work, but no comprehensive

work on home economics exists.8 It is often accorded a chapter in a

book on women in the professions, such as Margaret Rossiter's firmer

MW. at in studies
of housework or domesticity, as in Glenna Matthews's ”12;; 5 fiogsewire';

W?

The study of women in the professions requires a conceptual
distinction between those women who entered male-dominated fields, and
the problems, struggles, and strategies they encountered, and those

women who trained for a feminized profession, such as home economics.10

In seeking acceptance and opportunity in the male-dominated sciences,
women fought society's norms, which relegated them to roles as wives and

mothers, and often opposition from men, who felt threatened by women.

 

7Joan Jacobs Brumberg and Nancy Tomes, ”Women in the Professions: A

Research Agenda for American Historians,” Reviews Lg Amerirrn aggrory 10
(June 1982) 275-276.

8For nursing, see Darlene Clark Mine, ac W e te:

Cogflicr and Cooperatron in the Nursigg Profession, 1890-1950
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989); Barbara Melosh, 21h;

{hysicran's fland”: WorkI Culture and Conflict in American Nursing
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982); Susan M. Reverby, Ordergg

t9 Care: The Dilemma of American NursingI 1850-1945 (New York: Cambridge

University Press, 1987). For social work, see for example, Regina G.
Runzel, a e Wome P ob m G' : 'ed oth d

' 0 SO ' W 90- 4 (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1993).

9Other such works include Phyllis Palmer's 22m2§£121£¥_329_21£§i
ted State 920- 9 ; Annegret Ogden's Tng_grgrr
Amgric an flogsewife: From Helpmate to Wage Earner; Susan Strasser' s Ngggr

20 re: A gisrory 9: American Housewor ; and Ruth Schwartz Cowan' s Mgr;
at h onies o Househo d Tec olo om he

flgarth to the urcrowave. These books deal with domesticity, and
although their focus is not home economics, the authors address the
profession's influence on the average homemaker and on domesticity.

10Brumberg and Tomes, 278.

7

For most women scientists in the early years of the twentieth century,
the only positions open to them paid little and generally were those as

assistants to male scientists.ll .Entering a field such as home

economics yielded a very different experience. Women in home economics
did not face the competition from men that women entering male-dominated
professions encountered; home economics was not a threat to an area
occupied by men, as few wanted to enter the profession. In addition,
many saw the profession as “natural“ or beneficial to a woman's future,
which was seen as almost certainly to include marriage and children;
this view continued to prevail in the profession throughout the postwar
period.

Home economics, as a feminised profession, experienced not only
”territorial” segregation, argues Rossiter in figmgg_§gignr;rrr_;n
AmrrLg3r_5rrggg1gr_gng_§rrrrgg;gr_rg_1ggg, but also “hierarchical“

segregation; few women achieved the status of full professors, and

salaries were often lower than other faculty.12 MSU also experienced,

particularly in its early years, a lack of full professorships, a

problem also documented at Cornell University.13 As a feminized

profession, home economics and the professionals within it struggled

constantly to earn the respect accorded other professions and academic

 

llRossiter, Women Scientists 'n America, 55-63. Regina Markell
Morantz-Sanchez provides an excellent overview of the experiences of
women striving to enter the male-dominated field of medicine in §ymprrny

rnd figiggge: Womeg ghysicians in Americar Medicine (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1985).

12Rossiter, nggg §cientisr§ in Amgricr, 65. Also, Rossiter's
Chapter 8, forthcoming. William Chafe also documents this in In;

Brrrdgr of Chrngg: Americag nggr in the 20th antrry (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1991).

l3charlmfim Williams Conable. WW1
figggrrrgn (London: Cornell University Press, 1977) 127- 128. Conable
documents that the first female professors were accepted only in the
College of Home Economics. Also a study of faculty listings in Maude
Gilchrist's ree me onom cs a
lelggg finds no full professors in the college before Dr. Marie Dye who
earned the title in the 1920s. This is in part due to the fact that few
faculty members held doctorates in home economics in its first few
decades.

disciplines; this study of the history of the MSU home economics program
demonstrates this effort.

Home economics was also unique in that it was one of the few
scientific fields virtually dominated by women until the late sixties
and early seventies; at MSU a woman served as dean of the department
until 1971. But the profession was also segregated from other science
fields, and as other academic disciplines, professions, and educational
administrators began to attack the value of home economics, it found
itself isolated. Under such circumstances, home economists were unable
to advocate new roles for women, but instead merely struggled to

maintain the ground they gained in the last half-century.l4 The

profession, even after its emphasis shifted from teaching homemakers to
training professionals, failed to address the problems its graduates
faced as professional women. It also never resolved the tension between
professional training and training for homemaking. The field continued
to debate practical versus professional training, and a study of the
students of home economics reiterates this conflict.

A study of the postwar period must begin with World War II. The
war years and the postwar era were a period when more women than ever
worked in the labor force, and women continued to enter the labor force
after the war ended, despite the prevailing rhetoric that women should
remain in the home. By 1952, there were two million more women working
in the labor force than in the peak years of World War II. But although
more women were working, they were employed in specific jobs, and during

that same period fewer women were employed in the professions.15 Women

were working to supplement family incomes to provide middle class

 

l4Margaret Rossiter documents this change from female-controlled to
male-controlled in “Protecting Home Economics."

lsBarbara Miller Solomon, in Eng annnny gt zgucatgd nggn: A

fligrnry of Wgnen nnd fligngr Enncarion in America (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1985) 127. See also Alice Kessler-Harris, 922.52

finrk: A fligtory g: ane-finrning Women in Eng United Stntgn (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1982) 302- 303.

9

lifestyles, or in the case of lower-class families, women worked for
their family's survival. That women were concentrated in certain
occupations, largely low-wage with few benefits or opportunities for
advancement, illustrates the discrimination women faced in attaining
equal employment with men, and the need for strong challenges to a
gender division of labor. Home economics, although offering
professional Opportunities, also trained women for many fields which
were low-paying and labeled as feminine or “women's work.“

Heidi Hartmann's analysis is useful in the study of home economics
because it sheds light on the problem inherent in many feminized
professions and fields: training women for what is inevitably low-value,
low-wage employment. The persistence of patriarchy, Hartmann argues, is
evident in the illustration of the division of housework within the
home. She asserts that despite women's increased employment outside the
home, they continue to do the majority of housework; thus men continue

to maintain control over female labor.l6 This also enforces lower wages

for women, particularly in the 'feminized' jobs and professions (such as
home economics). Home economics, even as a profession, trained women
for low-wage careers: teaching (even at the college level home economics
faculties at MSU rarely had a full professor on staff), child care, food
service, and clothing and retail trades. The continued subordinate
status of women in society is rooted in the historical sexual division

of labor, argues Hartmann.)l7 Such subordinate status also is linked to

the educational opportunities available to women, and the professional

 

l6Heidi Hartmann, ”The Family as the Locus of Gender, Class, and

Political Struggle: The Example of Housework,” Sign; 6 (Spring 1981)
381.

l7Heidi Hartmann, "Capitalism, Patriarchy, and Job Segregation by
Sex,” e d W k ace° I c t one o 0 cu t
, ed. Martha Blaxall and Barbara Reagan (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1976) 139.

10

paths open to them once they complete that education.18 Using

Hartmann's analysis, home economics, in furthering such occupational
segregation, has probably worked more to the detriment of women's
opportunities than to their benefit.

What role did higher education, and home economics, play in
women's opportunities? Jill Conway argues that educational opportunity,
particularly that offered in coeducational institutions, was not the
impetus for women to enter new fields. She asserts that colleges and
universities and the education they provided for women did not
necessarily translate into higher intellectual pursuits; instead,
education often directed women into ”acceptable" areas, such as home

economics.19 Women's professions, including home economics, failed to

question the sexual division of labor, thus resulting in stifling
women's intellectual develOpment and creativity, argues Conway. "Only
the abandonment of a sexual division of labor in the life of the mind
can effectively change women's consciousness of their worth as scholars
and creative intellects," Conway concludes. Feminized professions -
echoing traditional gender assumptions about abilities and reinforcing a

gender division of labor - actually hampered women's professional

 

18Linda K. Rerber, Women of the e ub c: Intel ect a d Ideo o
Begginrignnry_nmgrign (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1980) 192.

Kerber writes, in the context of her discussion of education for women
in early American, that the differences in literacy and education

between women and men - ”from the basic ability to sign one's name and
to read simple prose to the sophisticated ability to read difficult of
theoretical prose, foreign languages, and the classics - have enormous
implications for the history of the relations between the sexes." (192)

19Jill F. Conway, ”Perspectives on the History of Women's Education
in the United States." W 19 (Spring 1979)

9. Conway asserts that liberating women's minds resulted not from
educational opportunities, but from the increase in women's
consciousness about themselves. She concludes by noting the danger of
'institutionalizing certain kinds of feminine intellectual activity
within an existing pattern of male controlled professions.“ Accepting
any sexual division of labor, she argues, channels creativity and
reinforces social patterns.

11

opportunities, rather than providing them with opportunities, according

to Conway.20

Conway's argument minimises the opportunities feminised
professions and education programs offered women, both professionally
and socially. Male-controlled education, which ultimately occurred in
some home economics programs, did affect the opportunities offered to
women. But the predominance of women throughout most of the home
economics programs created opportunities for women as teachers,
researchers, and administrators. Home economics, although a segregated
and feminised field, did offer women a place in professional life.
Although the development of segregated fields for women did have
definite limits, as Conway and Hartmann argue, the existence of such
limits does not negate the benefits realized. Many women found
opportunities in home economics that did not exist elsewhere, especially
in the early decades of the century.

To understand these limits and opportunities, the interaction of
the philosophy of home economics and its view of women and the family
and the accompanying social changes is an important area of study. As
Joan Scott argues, concepts of gender roles are not fixed, and the
dynamics of change affecting those roles are an important focus of
gender analysis. Social institutions, such as colleges, may reinforce
social constructions of gender behavior, but such action is not without
conflict and does not guarantee consensus. The analysis and recognition
of that conflict and action against the accepted norms is a key part of

21

historical work in gender. Disagreement existed within the profession

of home economics and higher education in general over what women's role
was and how best to educate them for those roles. This disagreement is

an important area to consider as it reflects the type of conflict to

 

20Conway, p. 11.

21Joam Hannah Scott. W (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1988) 43.

12

which Scott refers, and also places home economics in the context of the
debate within higher education. The profession of home economics was
not a monolith, but a diverse group of individuals with varying ideas,
despite the existence of majority opinions. Although many home
economists reinforced more traditional roles for women, not all did.
Such exceptions thus played an important role for women within their
limited sphere. They challenged gender assumptions and provided role
models for women students. Through such efforts, they chipped away at
entrenched gender ideas held by society and higher education. The
extent of such efforts within this feminised profession helps illuminate
how it created and limited opportunities for women. Its limitations
became more apparent as the profession, and society, grappled with the
problem of the conflict between a woman's career and family
responsibilities.

Home economics education reinforced not only traditional roles for
women, but also reinforced the contradiction for its graduates between
their professional and personal lives. Home economists were both
professionals and individuals, with responsibilities in both areas.

Home economics struggled to reconcile the professional responsibilities
and values it taught its students in the postwar era with the
responsibilities women faced as members of families, especially as wives
and mothers. Ultimately the field subordinated professional goals to a
woman's responsibility to raise her own children and to be a homemaker,
rather than devising ways for women to pursue both.

Conflict over family roles and within family units is an important
element in the historical study of the family. Given the connections
between the family and the philosophy of home economics, one cannot
study home economics without examining the family. Much of traditional
family history focuses on the unity within the family, viewing the

family as a single unit, rather than recognizing that it is comprised of

13

individuals with possible conflicting interests and goals.22 And as for

women in other professions, family responsibilities created conflict
between home economists' duties to the family, as taught to them in
their education, and their professional aspirations and goals.

In the previous two decades, feminist historians questioned the
conceptual framework of family history, focusing specifically on
potential conflicts within the family unit, the subordination of women
within the family, and the importance of the study of power relations
within families. Gender became an increasingly important aspect of
family history and theory, placing the idea of gender roles,

particularly those of women, at the center of analysis.23 Feminists

working in family history also questioned the universality of the
“nuclear" family, and "identified the family as a crucial institution in
the reproduction of social relationships generally, and decisive for

women's subordination."24 Home economics educators, including those at

Michigan State University, espoused and taught traditional gender roles,
believing that women had special abilities, particularly as mothers, and

should accept primary responsibility for child care.

 

22Hartmann, ”The Family as the Locus of Gender, Class, and

Political Struggle,” 369. See also Wini Breines, Margaret Cerullo, and
Judith Stacey, "Social Biology, Family Studies, and Antifeminist
Backlash,” [gmini_r__rngigg 4 (1978); Barrie Thorne, ”Feminism and
Family: Two Decades of Thought,” t t e am Some
Qggnrignn eds. Barrie Thorne and Marilyn Yalom (Boston: Northeastern
University Press, 1993); and Tamara Hareven, "Family History at the
Crossroads,” ournai of Family gistory 12 (1987). The major historical
analysis of women and the family remains Carl Degler's nt dis: nggn

d th F e ica from the Revo ut 0 he P sent. Degler
argues that women's individual aspirations and attempts to achieve
equality were at odds with the idea of the family; when women pushed
against the boundaries of families and responsibilities, they often
reached an impasse.

23Thorne, Barrie, "Feminism and the Family: Two Decades of

Thought.“ WM 068- Barrie
Thorne and Marilyn Yalom (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1993)
5.

24Breines, Wini, Margaret Cerullo, and Judith Stacey, "Social

Biology, Family Studies, and Antifeminist Backlash.“ zgminigr_§rngign 4
(1978) 43, 62.

14

This responsibility makes the study of the relationship between an
individual and family critical in the study of women in the professions,
particularly in home economics where family was emphasised so much.

This analysis (termed life course analysis by family historians) places
family change within the context of historical time, and examines how
families interact not only as a separate domestic unit but also in the
context of outside influences, such as work, education, and community

and social agencies.25 Life course analysis also examines how social

and cultural circumstances, ideas, and norms affect the planning of life

events, whether they be marriage, children, work, or education.26 Such

interaction is important to consider in the study of home economics,
which dealt with professionals who chose certain responsibilities at
specific times in their lives, such as college, work, marriage, or
child-rearing, and seldom opted to try to combine work and children at

the same time, unless economically necessary.27 It also is important

given the dominance of the life course idea for women's education, which
encouraged women, including home economists, to plan their lives, both

personal and professional, entirely around the needs of the family.

 

25Hareven, Tamara K. ”Family History at the Crossroads.” Journni

or Enniiy History 12, 1-3 (1987): x. See also Louise Tilly, "Women's
History and Family History: Fruitful Collaboration of Missed
Connection?” Journgi of Eamiiy flistgry 12, 1-3 (1987): 313. Tilly's
idea of the relationship between women and institutions is critical for
home economics education. See Charles Tilly, Forward, Iransitionn:

zng Family nnd tne Lire Course in gistorical Perspective ed. Tamara K.

Hareven (New York: Academic Press, 1978) xii-xiii. See also Hareven,
”The Historical Study of the Life Course" and Glen Elder, Jr., "Family
History and the Life Course" in the same volume. Life course analysis
is more applicable than family cycle analysis, which tends to focus on
the stages of life for an average nuclear family. The result often
emphasizes parenthood, rather than the individual, in this study, the
woman.

26Ibid, p. xiii.

27An alumni study done in late 1960s illustrates how women planned

their lives in relation to their families. A more extensive analysis of
this concept will be undertaken in chapter five, using the "College of
Home Economics Alumni Study, 1948-1967," (East Lansing: Michigan State
University, 1969).

15

This thesis is organized into four major parts and analyzes not
only the discourse and rhetoric presented by home economics educators to
their students, but also the ways in which graduates received and
implemented that discourse. The second chapter highlights the history
of home economics at Hichigan State University and its role in women's
education, providing the backdrop for the issues and events of the
postwar period. Chapter three discusses the prevailing ideas and
attitudes and edcuational rhetoric of the fifties and early sixties, and
how they affected women and home economists. It places the MSU deans -
Harie Dye, Thelma Porter, and Jeanette Lee - in the larger context of
the period, and demonstrates how their ideas fit into those of the
larger society. What emerges is the prevalence of such ideas about
women's education and their roles in society far beyond the confines of
the profession of home economics. Chapter four addresses the
profession's struggle to become a respected part of the professional and
academic world, and the obstacles it faced, including the predominance
of women in the field. The final chapter examines the students'
education in the College of Home Economics - how they reacted to their
education and how it affected their decisions in life. That chapter is
based largely on the results of an alumni study conducted by the College
of Home Economics in 1967. An analysis of these graduates' surveys and
comments reveals their use of the education and rhetoric espoused to
them by their home economics educators.

As noted earlier, an analysis of the speeches, articles, and other
writings by the deans of the H80 program forms the core of the source
base. The deans who headed the program did not speak for the entire
college nor the profession, but their writings are signicant given their
role in the larger professional organization of home econoimcs,
including state and national organizations, and the debate about women's
education both at MSU and in the academic community. Home economics, 1
would argue, is also a slightly different discipline than other colleges

in the university, largely because its goal included training students

16

for a profession, rather than providing a general liberal arts
education. All these deans taught at MSU in the college prior to
assuming their administrative positions, and all were active in the
profession beyond the confines of Michigan State University. They were
situated between the day-to-day realities of running a college home
economics program, which included extensive contact with groups,
organizations, and businesses which would one day employ their
graduates, and the larger philosophical and theoretical issues of what
home economics was and how it should develop in order to serve society.
All three women were highly respected in the field and clearly spoke for
more than only themselves in the home economics community.

Faculty discussions in workshops and meetings and the articles and
speeches by faculty members supplement the words of the deans and
broaden the source base for this study. Given the limits of the sources
available and the study undertaken here, the result, while not a
definitive account of home economics and its debates in this period,
yields important insights into the role of home economics education in
the postwar period.

This study shows that home economists did not deal directly with
the problems and contradictions their graduates faced in pursuing a
professional career while also marrying and raising children. Like many
other areas in society, home economists did not offer assistance with
the responsibilities women faced as wives and mothers. This study
uncovered almost no discussion about the need to reevaluate the division
of labor within the home or to provide child care for mothers who also
continued in their profession. It left the burden of combining both
tasks on the woman, rather than developing institutional supports to
assist them. Educators adopted the ”life course" education model to
address women's roles, but these women turned that to their advantage,
as the final chapter shows. These graduates, facing a return to the

profession when their children no longer demanded their full-time care,

1?

turned to the university to provide them with the educational retraining
to resume those careers.

This study also adds to the continued revision of the postwar
period. Rather than depicting a profound break between the fifties,
with its emphasis on conformity and consensus, and the sixties,
characterized by social upheaval, this study points to more continuity
between the two decades. Hints of change exist, but a definitive
alteration of ideology is not evident. The extreme dissatisfaction
experienced by women in their domestic roles, as described in Betty
Friedan's Ihg_z§mining_flyg§iggg, also is not expressed. These women,
while anxious to return to their chosen field and seeking help in doing
so, are not rejecting their roles as wives and mothers. They are asking
for recognition of those roles and the responsibilities and work
attached to them.

This study addresses the issue of opportunities within a
segregated feminized profession in one program: HSU's Department of Home
Economics. Despite professional rhetoric, women in the postwar era also
were inundated with ideas about their appropriate roles in society and
the importance of home and family. Such information was potent
competition for professional education and aspirations, and
unfortunately the MSU program often reinforced these ideas. But despite
the drawbacks, this study shows the positive side of the history of home
economics, and its contribution as a source, although a limited one, of

professional opportunity and advancement for women.

CHAPTER 2

Home Economics at MSU:
From a Women's Course to Academic Discipline

Home economics grew from efforts to help women in their domestic
tasks, to elevate the value placed on those tasks, and to apply
scientific knowledge to the home, giving wives and mothers the benefits
of such knowledge to improve the management of their homes.
Professionalizing the home through home economics or ”domestic science"
began at the turn of the century, and, as reflected in most areas of
society, generally failed to question the division of labor; domestic
work was women's work, and it was the woman's role to protect, serve,
and enhance family life. When the Women's Course (later the Department
and College of Home Economics) began in 1896 at the Michigan
Agricultural College in East Lansing, the course catalog noted that the
purpose of the program in its early years was

To give a good college education in which the science and art of

home making shall be a prominent feature. We endeavor to so train

young women that they will be able to apply science to the

ordinary duties of the home. At the same time we give them a

training in music, art, modern languages, literature and such

other ftudies as will develop them into broad-minded, cultured
women.

The catalog also noted that since 90 percent of most women would assume
the role of homemaker, their education should prepare them for that
role. And, "Why should not science be compelled to relieve women of
much of the drudgery of life, just as it has accomplished this for

men?"2 The first curriculum for the Women's Course included

 

lMaude Gilchrist, The s ee ec d s ome c om
Mighiggg_§§a§g_§gllggg (East Lansing: School of Home Economics, MSC,
1947) 9.

21bid., 9.

18

19

mathematics, history, lnglish, languages, and the sciences, in addition
to domestic arts, physical education, and music. Forty-two women

enrolled that first year to study under the new program.3

If women were to be taught the prOper way to maintain a home, they
must have teachers to instruct them, and thus came the new profession of
home economists, the “experts” on foods and nutrition, child care, home
management, clothing, textiles, and a host of other duties and
activities associated with the home. Many of the early pioneers of the
field were scientists, trained in some of the best colleges and
universities in the country, both coeducational and women's colleges.
Ellen Swallow Richards, assumed to be the founder of home economics, was
a chemist who earned her first degree from Vassar College in 1870 and

earned a second degree from MIT in 1873.4 She continued to study for
two more years at MIT, but never was granted an advanced degree.5 But

as was the case with other women who successfully broke the barriers to
women's education in science, Richards had few employment prospects
despite her advanced education. Her husband's position on the MIT
faculty enabled her to do some work, unpaid, for the university, but she
had few other Opportunities. She eventually taught sanitary chemistry,

and began her efforts to use science to improve housework and the home.6

Richards did not question women's domestic role or child rearing
responsibilities, but believed that housekeeping was a profession that

could utilize the knowledge of science to improve its efficiency and

 

3Jeanette Lee, Katherine M. Hart, and Rosalind Mentzer, zggm_Hgmg

Hcgngmigg t9 Human Hgoiggy: H History Digest (East Lansing: College of
Human Ecology, 1972) 2.

4Margaret W. Rossiter, Wome t s c - St

fig;g§ggigg_§2_iggg (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982) 68-
69.

5Glenna Matthews, ”Jug; g Hogsewifg': Ihe Hisg agd 23;; Q; Ameriggn
nggggigi§y_ig_gmggigg (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987) 147.

c"ac-liter. MW. 68.

2O

reduce the labor of women. Learning the practical art was not enough.
A.woman also needed to learn to think and to apply basic science
knowledge to her tasks:
The head can save the heels only when the heels have had practice
young and remember without telling what to do at the slightest
hint. In other words, housework is a trade to be prepared for by

manual exercise, as houqekeeping is a profession to be prepared
for by mental exercise.

Richards advocated equal education for women, believing that their
future roles demanded it, and that such education was not wasted on
women who devoted their lives to homemaking:
We must awaken a spirit of investigation in our girls, as it is
often awakened in our boys, but always, I think, in spite of the
school training. We must show to the girls who are studying
science in our schools that it has a very close relation to every-
day life. We must train them by it to judge for themselves, and

not to do everything just as their grandmothers did, just because
their grandmothers did it...8

Richards wanted women to apply science to the home, and to do so, they
had to learn basic scientific principles and broaden their education.
Her goal was to educate women to be ”experts” at homemaking, because
homemaking demanded special education and training.

Most early home economists followed an education path similar to
Richards. Isabel Bevier also studied chemistry at several universities
and colleges, including MIT, as did Marion Talbot. Bevier entered the
field after being told by a professor that the only place for a woman

chemist was in food chemistry.9 Home economics became a field in which

women scientists could achieve some success and faced no competition
from men for jobs, as men did not want to work in the field,
particularly in its early years. For women with aspirations beyond the
lower, entry-level positions in science fields, home economics was

virtually the only occupation open to them. Home economics was the only

 

7Ellen Richards quoted in Carolyn L. Hunt, 2H;_Lifg_g§_§iign_Hy
Higngggg (Boston: Whitcomb & Barrows, 1912) 172.

8Ellen Richards quoted in Hunt, 181.

9Matthews, "gggg g Hogsggige", 147.

21

field to accept women as full professors, department chairpersons, or
deans.lo At MSU, the department did not have a male dean until 1971,

and although few faculty members achieved the status of full professor,
women held virtually all department chairs and other administrative

posts. 11

Home economics at MSU was an outgrowth of the Morrill Land-Grant
Act (1862), which established colleges in rural areas to teach

agriculture and mechanic arts to both women and men.12 A result of this

was the establishment of home economics courses for women to provide
them with a practical education that they could use in their roles as
wives and mothers. The sons of Michigan's citizens were to learn
agriculture and other practical arts; the daughters were to learn
cooking, sewing, and other homemaking skills. Prior to the
establishment of the Women's Course, some women did take agricultural
courses along with the men, although few remained to take a degree.
After the college began the Women's Course to serve the educational
needs of women, federal legislation further stimulated the program's
expansion. The first was the Hatch Act (1887), which allocated funding
for Agricultural Experiment Stations throughout the country. The
stations were to provide teaching and research in agriculture and rural
living. The station was a major source of research funding, primarily
in foods and nutrition, for the home economics program, and in 1925 the
School of Home Economics received a grant to begin its first major

research planning effort.13

The Smith-Lever Act (1914) provided funds to expand the Extension

work, which began in 1897 and focused primarily on rural farm women.

 

mac-sit». MW. 70.
"Lu. W. 37.
”Ra-sitar. WW2. 67-
‘3m. WW: 5.

22

The Smith Hughes Act (1918) designated Michigan Agricultural College as
one of two state institutions to prepare teachers in vocational home

economics.14 Training home economists to teach in secondary schools

would become one of the largest parts of the MSU program, and the demand
for trained teachers, certified under the Smith-Hughes Act, remained
high, even during the Depression and World War II, providing employment
opportunities for numerous young women.

Another legislative act important to home economics was the
Purnell Act (1925), which endorsed the use of federal funds, channeled
through the Experiment Stations, for research related to rural homes,
which provided money for home economics research. Dr. Marie Dye's first
project using these funds entailed studying the vitamin content in
commercially canned peas in 1926. Other projects included studying the

relation of soil fertility to the vitamin A content in leaf lettuce.15

The department, as noted, began in 1896 as the Women's Course,
under the direction of Edith F. McDermott. She taught a program in
domestic economy, instructing the 42 women enrolled in care of the home,
foods and nutrition, health, clothing, and medical emergencies (first

aid and anatomy and physiology).16 The curriculum also included
mathematics, English, history, languages, and science.17 Originally

housed in Abbot Hall, the program moved into the new Women's Building
(now Morrill Hall) in 1901; the building was constructed with funds

appropriated by the Michigan legislature. By 1905 teacher training had

 

141bide ' 4-5 s

lsIbid., 11-12.

l6Gilchrist, IHg_£i;§§_1H;gg_QggHgg§, 9. McDermott was a teacher
of domestic science in Alleghany's Fifth Ward Manual Training and
Domestic Science School prior to coming to MAC. She received her
training at Alleghany College, Drexel Institute, and Cornell University.
In addition to teaching, she served as
matron for the women students during the year.

l7Lee, zggm Hgmg Ecogomics to Human Hcgiogy, 1.

23

begun in earnest at MAC, and the program's primary emphasis was to train

homemakers and teachers of homemakers, through a single curriculum.18

1908 saw the formation of the American Home Economics Association, the
field‘s professional society, which also published the ggygngi_gf_Hgmg
Hggngmigg, and 1912 marked the beginning of Omicron Nu, the profession's
national honor society for college students. Maude Gilchrist, dean of
Home Economics at MAC from 1901 to 1913, founded Omicron Nu which was to
become one of the most powerful women's honor societies in the 1920s and

1930s; by 1940, 32 chapters existed throughout the United States.19

Women continued to be excluded from most scientific societies, and
”women's” groups and societies such as Omicron Nu provided an important

professional support base for women.20

The twenties proved to be a decade of many changes, including the
construction of a new building for the program. Funded by a $400,000
grant from the Michigan legislature, the building opened in 1924.21 At

that point, the program had four areas of specialization: foods and

nutrition, clothing and textiles, vocational education, and general.22

 

18Ibid., 6. It was in 1920-1922, under the administration of Dean

Mary Sweeney, that the curriculum underwent a major revision. The
program expanded the number of elective courses offered and instituted
four fields of concentration: foods and nutrition, clothing and
textiles, vocational education, and general.

19Rossiter, Women Scientists in Americ , 299.

20See Chapter 11, "Women's Clubs and Prizes: Compensatory
Recognition," in Rossiter, Womeg Scientists ig America. For a

discussion of the professional subculture of women in social work, see
Daniel J. Walkowitz, ”The Making of a Feminine Professional Identity:
Social Workers in the 1920s,” American Historical Heyigy 95 (October
1990) 1054.

2'lLee, [rpm Hgmg Economics to Humgg Ecoiogy, 4. The building still
houses the College of Human Ecology at MSU. Efforts to expand the
college's facilities throughout the next half-century were never
realized, despite repeated efforts to secure additional space. Such
requests are found throughout the period of this study, and are a
continual theme in the department's annual reports to the
administration. See chapter four for a more extensive discussion of
these efforts.

22mm. , 6.

24

A nursery school and a nursing training program began during this
decade. The first nursery school was established in 1927, but the home
economics program did not offer child development as a major until World
War II increased the need for nursery school teachers and child care
workers. A five-year nursing program conducted jointly with Sparrow
Hospital of Lansing started in that decade. The Depression years saw a
drop in enrollment, although the department responded to the times with
increased emphasis on frugality and the best use of resources, again
adjusting its work to the needs of the times. By 1935 enrollment was on
the rise, and continued to climb until World War II began. The
department became the Division of Home Economics in 1935, and was
renamed the College of Home Economics twenty years later.

Those years also saw expansion in other areas of the university,
prompting changes within home economics. Music, elementary and physical
education, and nursing all began in the home economics program, but
slowly developed into separate departments on campus. Physical
education became the Department of Physical Culture in 1916 and music
left home economics in 1919, although home economics majors were still

required to take both.23 The School of Education absorbed the

elementary education program in 1942 and the five-year nursing program
with Sparrow Hospital was transferred to the College of Science and the

Arts in the new nursing curriculum in 1950.24 All originally were

housed in the Women's Course and later home economics because they were
considered "feminine” fields and natural extensions of women's role in
the domestic sphere.

Perhaps more important to the history of the MSU home economics
program are the people who led it and formulated many of its changes and
developments. After 1929, the department was led by three deans before

it reorganized in 1970 as the College of Human Ecology. Dr. Marie Dye

 

23Gilcluriat. W. 31. 41.
24L“. WM. 18-

25

became dean of the home economics program in 1929, seven years after
joining the faculty at MSG. She oversaw the program until 1956. Dye
was a well-known scholar and teacher in the field of foods and
nutrition. She began the first research efforts and organized the
department's graduate studies program. By 1930 she was directing four

major research projects.25

Dye was greatly respected within the profession of home economics.
She served as secretary (1931-33), treasurer (1942-44), and president
(1948-50) of the AHEA and was president of the Michigan Home Economics

Association from 1929-31.26 She published numerous articles in the

1gggn§i_gfi_Hgmg_figgngmigg and served on several committees in the AHEA.
She held influential positions in state and national organizations, and

was a well-known, published scholar in home economics.

Dye headed the program for 27 years - the longest tenure of any
administrator of home economics at MSU. She was followed by Dr. Thelma
Porter, who oversaw the program from 1956-1964; Jeanette Lee, who was
Porter's assistant, became dean in 1964 and retained the position until
1971. Porter was the only one of the three who married. All three
women earned great respect within the profession. They served on AHEA
committees, university committees, and also contributed research and
papers to the ggugggi 9: Home gcgggmics and to various professional
meetings. All three were trained in the fields of foods and nutrition;
Lee was the only one without a doctorate. Dye and Porter received their
doctorates from the University of Chicago. Porter was the chairperson

of the Department of Foods and Nutrition at MSU until 1945, when she

 

25m, WM. 11-12. Her four
projects in 1930 (all under Purnell funds) included two regarding the
vitamin content in vegetables, another on physiological needs of
children, and the fourth was the "effect of the antirachitic factor and
ultraviolet irradiation on calcium metabolism." Because of the funding
source (agriculture), many of the research projects dealt with foods and
nutrition. This would later limit investigations in matters related to
social and economic factors in family life.

2§Hh9;g_flhg_ig_fim§;igg, v. 29, 1956/57 (Chicago: Marquis, Who's

Who, Inc.) 740.

26

left to head the home economics department at the University of Chicago.
She returned to MSU to serve as dean of the College of Home Economics in
1956, after the University of Chicago abandoned its home economics

program.27 Lee, a graduate of the University of Minnesota, joined MSU's

foods and nutrition faculty in 1937, becoming assistant dean in 1941.
Lee also was chairperson of the French Lick Seminar in 1961, which was a
major event in the reevaluation of the field of home economics.

In the midst of Dye's administration, the department began a
lengthy curriculum revision in the late 1940s. In 1940-41, all home
economics students were required to take 14 courses: orientation, color
and design, clothing selection, clothing construction, textiles,
nutrition, food preparation, meal planning and table service, home
management practice, child study, home furnishings, social and economic

problems of the family, the child and his family, and consumer buying.28

Student and alumni evaluations revealed a growing discontent with the
program: common complaints were that the program was too rigid,
requiring too much laboratory work and courses that were not related to
the major field. By 1953-53, only eight core courses were required of
all home economics majors; clothing courses, consumer buying, and the
child and the family were eliminated from the core program. Home
economics enrollment was not keeping up with the rise in student
enrollment in the university, despite employment opportunities in the
field, thus prompting a reappraisal of the program. The result was a

decrease in home economics requirements and a shift in focus from the

 

27Marie Dye , om c e v -
(Chicago: University of Chicago Alumni Association, 1972) 94.

28L”. W. 20.

27

technical aspects of study to a more professional focus, reflecting

wider trends in education during the 1950s.29

Each of the next two decades also saw additional curriculum
changes and major debates over the field's focus. The faculty finalized
one revision in 1961, further reducing the number of core requirements,
and another revision a decade later, with a shift in focus from simply a
study of people and their immediate environment to the study of the
interaction of the environment and people.30 This latter change

coincided with the adoption of a new name: the College of Human

Ecology.31

Dye, Porter, and Lee oversaw the program during its most
tumultuous years. They adapted to and guided changes within the field,
and helped the profession seek a redefinition during their
administrations. Their words, both in publication and speeches, help us
to begin to understand the meaning of home economics education for
women. Although all recognized, and perhaps encouraged, women's
traditional role in the family and society, all three women were strong
advocates of women's education. They believed in equal opportunities in
education for women and stressed that women were the intellectual equals
of men. They all firmly believed that home economics and its concerns
with the family had much to offer both women and men - husbands and
fathers - and society as a whole. As educated professionals, they

likely served as powerful role models for many of the students whose

 

29L”. W. 17-18; "Home Economics
and Core Curriculum," March 1948 committee report and "Core Courses
Required of all Home Economics Students"; MSU Archives, Box 379, Folder
36.

30Lee, £59m Hgme Hgonomicg no Hnnan Ecoiogy, 37-38; Rosalind

Mentzer, "A Report on the Process Used in Revising Curriculum in the
College of Home Economics,” published pamphlet, 1962: MSU Archives, Box
379, Folder 38, p. 1-17.

31A similar change occurred at Cornell University in 1969. See
Charlotte Williams Conable, Hongn nt Conngiig 102 Hygn of Hgnai
Hgnnnninn (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977) 154-155.

28

education they oversaw. They also fought to keep home economics in the
university curriculum, believing it to be a necessary field of study to
improve family life and health.

All attained professional stature within the field, and
contributed greatly to education philosophy and practice at the college
level. Their contributions were not limited to home economics: instead
they participated in education debates university-wide. The following
chapters detail more fully their own views about home economics,
education, and women's roles, and also document how their ability to
support changes in traditional roles was limited by the growing attack
on home economics at the university level. Home economics, as a
feminized profession, increasingly was on the defensive, and all three
administrators were involved in the effort to defend and advance home
economics as a viable academic and professional discipline.

The next chapter analyzes more fully these women's beliefs - both
written and spoken - about women's roles and the education appropriate
for those roles. A study of their work illustrates the messages

conveyed to their students, the next generation of home economists.

CHAPTER 3

Conformity and Consensus:
Home Economics in the Fifties

Few periods in American history present the anomaly that the 1950s
do, and few eras illustrate more fully that history is not always a
story of progress and improvement. For women, the 1950s was a decade of
limited choices and a regression of opportunities accompanied by a
renewed emphasis on traditional roles and values. Fewer women pursued
college degrees, and a larger proportion of those who did left early to

marry.1 Marriage and birth rates went up for the first time in decades,

and ideas about women's education returned to a philosophy of the
inevitability of women's roles as wives and mothers and how best to

prepare them for those roles.2 Few women opted to combine marriage and

career, and almost no institutional supports to enable them to do so
existed. Yet when women became a more needed element in the work force
as the decade progressed, many commentators lamented the lack of
ambition among the nation's young women, often not realizing the role

they had played in fostering such feelings.3

 

1Barbara Miller Solomon, n the Com a o c te W :
Hinmogy 91 Higngr Education in America (New Haven: Yale University

Press, 1985) 63.

2Douglas T. Miller and Marion Nowak, e F t'es: Th W W
Hgng (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977) 147; Steven Mintz and Susan

Kellogg, st vo u “one: o e 'c

(New York: The Free Press, 1988) 178-179; and Eugenia Kaledin, HQEDEII
° o W e 950s (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1984)

49-54.

3Frank Stricker, ”Cookbooks and Law Books: The Hidden History of
Career Women in the Twentieth Century.” ggnznni_nfi_§n§ini_flingggy 10
(1976) 12. Stricker argues that ”it was as much this conservatism of
academic thought as the alleged disillusionment among anonymous women
that allowed the surge of domestic ideas in the late 1940's and 1950's.“

30

Many women did choose marriage in the 1950s. Rates of marriage,
divorce, and births were all out of line with demographic trends up to
that time. There were 2.5 million fewer single women at the end of
World War II than in 1940, “and by the end of the 1950s, 70 percent of
all women were married by the age of twenty-four, compared to just 42

percent in 1940 and 50 percent today."4 Both women and men married

younger, and most couples had larger families than was the historical
norm. The 1940s and 1950s were the first decades in which the birth
rate reversed its downward pattern, with the fertility rate rising 50

percent from 1940 to 1957.5 Likewise, the divorce rate increase was
lower in the 1950s than any other decade in the twentieth century.6

The 1950s, while a period of conformity and consensus, was also
one of tension and change. Social and economic forces prompted
redefinitions of women's roles even as the public discourse lauded the
importance of motherhood and marriage; those same forces affected women
differently, depending upon their race and class. Betty Friedan's study
of fiction articles in popular women's magazines found the ”happy
housewife” to be the dominant theme for white, middle-class women, with
few images of working wives or mothers, except for sad cases of economic

necessity.7 Historians have begun to reexamine the pervasiveness of

that image in middle-class women's magazines, and the result is a
picture of women that is more diverse than simply one that entails
domesticity, babies, and marriage. Joanne Meyerowitz's study describes
a more complex picture, one filled with tensions between conflicting

roles for women. Meyerowitz did not find any direct challenges ”to the

 

4Mintz and Kellogg, Domestic Hevoinginns, 178-179.

sIbid., 179.

61bid., 179.

7Betty Friedan, Ing_£gmining_Hyngigng (New York: Dell Publishing,
1983, rep. 1963) 33-68.

 

31

variegated oppression of women,“ but her study revealed “ambivalence and
contradictions in postwar mass culture, which included a celebration of
nondomestic as well as domestic pursuits and a tension between

individual achievements and domestic ideals."8

The tension and conflict highlighted by Meyerowitz can also be
found in the profession of home economics, where women's traditional
roles and their professional aspirations were often in conflict. Women
in the program often received conflicting messages: the importance of
family life and the need to contribute to society through meaningful,
paid work. Compounding this problem was the profession's need for
committed home economists to continue and to grow as a discipline.
Educators sought to balance the needs of the home economics profession
with the prevailing cultural ideas about women's roles. Attempts to
reconcile these often resulted in conflicting messages to home economics
students, messages which also mirrored conflicting ideas about women's
roles in society as depicted in the mass media. These contradictions,
found in many feminized professions, increasingly become apparent in the
speeches and writings of the MSU home economics faculty. Like many
Americans, home economists at MSU predicated many of their ideas on the
assumption that most women would eventually be mothers, thus leaving the
work force at least for a period of time. In addition, they often
espoused ideas of the ”natural" abilities of women, voicing ideas about
women's difference from men, rather than emphasizing equality between
the sexes.

Home economics educators expressed such beliefs and ideas in the

1950s and into the 19603, providing another example of the continuities

 

8Joanne Meyerowitz, "Beyond the Feminine Mystique: A Reassessment

of Postwar Mass Culture, 1946-1958," gonnnai n; Amegicnn History 79
(March 1993) 1465. See also William Chafe's The Panadox oi Changg:

Wome e 0 Centu (New York: Oxford University Press,
1991) 177-193, and Haledin, o s d . Susan Lynn suggests that
historians have too readily accepted Friedan's assessment of the period,
resulting in a distorted view of the period. See Lynn, ”Gender and Post
World War 11 Progressive Politics: A Bridge to Social Activism in the

1960s U.S.A.' nggg;_§_Hinng£y 4 (Summer 1992) 216.

32

in ideology between the two decades. This chapter depicts that
continuity in thought, a continuity that does not shift until women
become more in demand in the labor force. But the shift does not result
in changes in women's roles as wives and mothers (or in men's roles as
husbands and fathers). Instead, it results in the ”life course" plan
for women's education, which encouraged women to return to the workforce
after their children were grown.

The assumptions about women's future roles held by home
economists, both at MSU and elsewhere, are found in many mediums of
society at this time. Pervading much of the literature of the period,
either in the media, textbooks, or advice books, is the assumption that
women aspired to be wives and mothers. Women were found in the home and
not in the public world, not because of discrimination, but because they
did not want to be there; they preferred to be homemakers. Helen
Sherman and Marjorie Coe argue this in their book, Ing_gnniigngg_91

W : d t d v s d d e , an advice book
published in 1955:

But isn't it true that the majority of American women prefer to

make their contribution by functioning as wives and mothers? The

relatively small number of women in top positions in this country

is best explained not by men's desire to keep them out by an

insufficient drive on the part of the women themselves to get in.9

Sherman and Coe acknowledged that some women did combine marriage and
career, and did so successfully, "but only a woman of great energy

married to an unusually understanding husband is likely to succeed in
this dual role.“ Most women who tried to do both, argued the authors,

10

failed at great cost to their self-esteem and happiness. In short, a

woman could try to do both, but she probably would not succeed and would
likely harm her husband and children in the process. Authors,

educators, and other commentators usually characterized career pursuits

 

9Helen Sherman and Marjorie Coe, he e o e' a W a :
EnQeratangin9_2ara2122§_ang_29r_£hilgrea (New York: Harper 8 Brothers.
1955) 18.

loIbid., 1s.

33

and goals by mothers and wives as selfish and not in the interests of
the family or society.

Society's prescriptions advised women to conform to their
probable, and supposedly preferred, roles as wives and mothers. Sherman
and Coe wrote that “Marriage also requires that [women] accept the role
of woman.“ Women and men were different and a successful marriage
hinged on both sexes accepting that difference and filling their

appropriate roles.ll Ferdinand Lundberg and Marynia F. Farnham, in

their book Hngg;n_flgmnni_1ng_Lgnt_fign, also voiced these beliefs.

According to Lundberg and Farnham, women who espoused feminist goals or
who sought to break out of women's ”natural” role were actually pursuing
masculinity. The sexes were not equal, but different, and that

difference had inevitable consequences for their social roles.12 Women
had to 'submit..to their own nature, or suffer, as men must also do."13

A part of women's nature, according to many commentators, was
caring for children. Women who pursued a professional career faced a
common dilemma if they decided to have children: whether to remain at
home with their children, especially before they reached school age, or
to find alternate care for the children while they continued to work.
This dilemma created an obvious problem for women in home economics,
particularly in academic life; their philosophy emphasized the
importance of the family and the mother's role within it. Leaving a
child to go to work outside the home, particularly for professional
advancement and not out of economic necessity, seemed to contradict the
very tenets of their profession. Many women chose to place family

obligations first, resulting in an extreme shortage of qualified

 

llIbid., 42.

12Ferdinand Lundberg and Marynia F. Farnham, o W -
g5; (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947) 162.

l3Ibid., 171.

34

personnel, particularly at the college level, to teach and conduct

research.14

Despite the need for home economics professionals in business,
education, and academia, some commentators and educators believed that
the trend toward freeing women from home responsibilities to allow them
to pursue careers was not necessarily good, despite the needs of the
profession. Some saw a direct link between the dissatisfaction and
discontent of homemakers and the feminist movement. An article in a
1956 issue of the gnnznni_gj_flgmn_zggngmign addressed the role of women
in the family, and author Agnes Meyer made this connection. She
conceded ”that great numbers of American women are unhappy, confused,
and, therefore, suffer from emotional attrition." This prompts them,
she continued, to rebel against family responsibilities. But Meyer did
not agree with women who chose to rebel, although she sympathized with
them. She blamed the existence of such discontent on those people
seeking to expand women's opportunities:

Much of this mental and emotional confusion among women is a

bitter heritage of the feminist movement which taught women to see

themselvef as rivals of men rather than as partners of a common
endeavor. 5

Meyer wasn't the only person to blame the feminists. Sherman and
Coe warned their female readers that if they were in the market for a
husband but had not been successful, the reason may be because they were

”something of a feminist."16 Farnham and Lundberg equated feminism with

the hatred of men, arguing that the women's movement ”stood on a bedrock

 

14This became a major problem during this period in the profession
of home economics, and will be addressed in the next chapter.

l5Agnes E. Meyer, "Woman's Responsibility for the Family," 222:881

48 (September 1956) 499. Meyer's article is cited in
Porter's address at the vocational education meeting (see note 20).

“sh-mu and Com Wm. 62.

3S

foundation of hatred.'17 Not only was feminism based on hatred, but it

also signified an illness:
[The feminist] ideology, to come directly to the point, we regard
as an expression of emotional sickness, of neurosis. Feminism,
despite the external validity of its political program and most

(not all) of its social programs, was at its core a deep
illness. 8

These authors were not the first to espouse these ideas, but
Lundberg and Farnham based their ideas on the foundation of social
science, including Freud and functionalism. Their book blamed women for
many modern problems, and what made their work stand out was that it was
not just an emotional diatribe, but was (seemingly) grounded in fact; it
was “dense and cerebral“ and "its statements appeared more intellectual

and scientific."19 Their book carried the weight of “scientific“

evidence and the opinions of "experts.”

Antifeminism was found in countless arenas in the 1950s. The term
"feminist” was a pejorative, and was equated with unmarried, angry women
who hated men. Such women were “ill” and suffered from neuroses. In
addition, the media furthered the ideas espoused by ”experts“ such as
Farnham and Lundberg, and reiterated ideas about women as happy

housewives with little, if anything, to complain about.20 The media

also played a role in its lack of attention paid to the women's rights
movement. Feminists were seldom connected to an active women's rights

movement, perpetuating the idea that no movement existed. As Leila Rupp

 

l7Lundberg and Farnham, Hodenn Woman, 33.
lsIbid., 143.

19Miller and Novak, The Higgins, 1977) 153. Miller and Novak
provide an excellent overview of women in the fifties in the chapter,
"The Happy Home Corporation and Baby Factory.” For another good
discussion of these works and their role in the fifties, see William
Chafe, e do 0 Ch e: e Women 0 C (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1991) 176-179. For a contemporary

Inalynil. loo Priedan. Th2_£eminine_nxstigse. 119-120.
20Rupp and Taylor, Snnvivni in ED! poidrumn, 18.

36

and Verta Taylor have shown, an active, although small, women's movement

did exist, but received little attention.21

Clearly authors such as Sherman, Coe, Farnham, and Lundberg do not
speak for the entire society. Meyerowitz characterizes the positions of
the antifeminists and women's rights advocates as the two extremes of
opinion, representing only a minority, in American society. She argues

that most Americans held views somewhere between these two extremes.22

While this may be true, the beliefs held by the three MSU deans tend to
place them, if not directly in the antifeminist camp, on its margins.
Little evidence of pro-feminist views or any notions challenging a
woman's traditional responsibilities appears. Porter held the most
extreme views, while Jeanette Lee, who headed the program throughout the
1960s, seemed to have a greater understanding of the conflicts women
faced and struggled to deal with those issues. Dye's position is harder
to pinpoint, as she left few clues in her writings.

Thelma Porter downplayed any contradictions between family and
work for women, arguing in the mid-fifties that home economics utilized
“the intellectual capacities in which [women] tend to be most adequately
endowed” and that the profession did not discourage marriage and family,
but rather encouraged it and contributed to its success. "This point of
view seems in opposition to the feminist attitudes. The facts are,
however, that Home Economics is natural and negotiable as training for

young women," Porter noted.23 Porter's comments, however, seem to apply

only to those women who earned a bachelor's degree and then joined the
work force. For them, returning to the profession after raising their
own children was less problematic than for a woman who pursued a

graduate education. Porter also commented on the applicability of home

 

21mm. , 20-23.
22Meyerowitz, ”Beyond the Feminine Mystique,” 1477.

23Thelma Porter, Speech given at the Faculty Women's Association
Luncheon, October 10, 1956; MSU Archives, Box 364, Folder 33, p. 6.

37

economics education for homemakers, which she believed many women would
be, at least for a period of their life. As noted, Porter was the only
one of the three deans to be married; her writings and speeches offer no
clues as to how she managed to combine family with a successful career
as a college teacher, researcher and administrator. But her ideas about
women's roles are clear and she had definite ideas regarding a married
woman's duties and responsibilities. A woman's first responsibility was
to her home and family, and her professional life should be secondary.
Porter held very firm convictions regarding the traditional role
for women, despite the increasing number of women in the work force.
While acknowledging that phenomenon, Porter distinguished between those
who worked out of economic necessity and those who chose to work, and
alluded to the loss in values inherent in a career mother. “She may
find many satisfactions in her job, but the chances are that she, her
husband and her children will suffer psychological damage and that she
will be basically an unhappy person," Porter noted. She did not think
women should sit home idle, with no intellectual pursuits, but argued

that those endeavors should center around the family responsibilities.24

She shared Dye's view of different educational needs, although she also
believed in more basic differences between the sexes and found fault
with feminists who espoused equality:
The feminist movement has resulted in broader educational and
professional opportunities for women but it is based upon a
concept of equality of men and women which denies the reality of

sex difference and there are some very real and complex
intellectual and emotional, as well as biological, differences.25

This was a speech Porter used often and for different audiences; she
also loaned it to others to use, indicating how strong her views were on

the subject.

 

2“Thelma Porter, "Occupations for Women and Their Dual Role,“

speech given at the Kellogg Center, Fall 1956, at a vocational education
meeting: MSU Archives, Box 364, Folder 33, p. S.

2SPorter, ”Dual Role,” p. 8.

38

Conflict between a woman's role in the family and her profession
was not an easy one to resolve, even within a field that seemed to
espouse traditional values and gender roles, as noted by Porter's
assistant and later successor, Jeanette Lee. Lee struggled with the
problem of maintaining an adequate faculty in a field comprised
primarily of women, whose first commitment, according to society and the
system that educated them, should be to their families. Many of her
teachers and faculty members resigned, either to raise their own
families or because their husband's career required them to move, before
they achieved experience and stature within the profession. Because
women tended to subordinate their careers to men, they were less likely
to remain long enough to obtain tenure and make a continuous commitment

to the program.26 Some women also accepted only part-time or temporary

positions, preferring not to take a full-time jobs. Consequently, Lee
was torn between the traditional view of women and their family
responsibilities and the need for them to make a professional
commitment. In one of her speeches to an administrative group, she
penciled in the margin: "The only reason I got where I am is because I
don't have a husband,” indicating her struggle to deal with that

contradiction.27 In the same report, she also added an observation that

a woman's commitment to a career was second to family responsibilities,
”as it probably should be.” She recognized the inherent conflict
between women as professionals and their traditional, and subordinate,
role to men in the family, and struggled to find a resolution. Yet she
only felt comfortable commenting on the problem in the margins, rather
than in the body of the speech. Perhaps like other educators, she did

not feel able to address the problem directly.

 

26Jeanette Lee, notes for a report to be given to the dean's group
in home economics, January 26, 1965. MSU Archives, Box 364, Folder 20,
p.22. The files of the three deans contain several letters from former
students seeking assistance in finding positions after their husband's
careers have forced them to relocate.

2"’Lee, “Notes," p. 22.

 

39

The profession also struggled with whether to emphasize practical
or professional training, and what a woman's education should entail.
Was the program training its graduates for a vocational career, or for a
profession? In its earlier years, home economics programs sought to
train homemakers, believing that a formal domestic education would serve
women's future roles as wives and mothers. At a conference in May 1925
at MAC, “the discussion indicated a tendency toward a general education
for intelligent living, but with a decided slant toward preparation for
home-making.“ And the faculty discussed plans to include more courses

for the general homemaker.28

The emphasis on a woman's traditional future as a wife and mother
continued, despite a trend toward professional training in higher

education and also in home economics.29 The philosophy of most programs

entailed training women as home economists in the employment market,
particularly since most women would work for a period of time before
marriage and family. But because most eventually married, it seemed
wise to prepare them for that part of their life too. This assumption
about women's future roles served as a basis for planning women's
education, and not only by home economists.

An address given by Lynn White, Jr., president of Mills College,
dealt with the question of women's education and whether it should be
different from men. White made the speech at a 1947 American
Association of University Women convention, and it was published in the
fall edition of the gournai of tne American Association of Univgnnigy
Hgmgn. In it, he maintained that the problem was that women did need a
different education than men, and that in trying to teach women a male-
defined education, educators were doing women a disservice. He called

for ”equality of differences as well as equality of identities,“ and

 

”mud- Gilchrist. WWW;

(East Lansing: School of Home Economics, MSC,
1947) 57-58.

291-00. MW. 18.

4O

reiterated the almost inevitable future for most women: “The great
majority of women will, and should, devote themselves to building and

maintaining homes and families."30

White argued that women should uphold domestic values and that
education for women should include homemaking and family living skills:
in not teaching those, women were succumbing to male definitions of
importance. But not all agreed with him. According to an editor's
note, the address and publication caused a heated debate, and the
journal published two responses to White's viewpoint in a later issue.
One questioned his assumption that women must be full-time homemakers,
and that educators should de-emphasize gender stereotypes, not re-
emphasize them, in education. Opportunities and social expectations
have limited women's accomplishments; until they are accorded equality

in education and opportunity in employment, differences would remain.31

Another author responding to White's article questioned society's
assumption that all women would marry, but still believed that women
must learn certain ”feminine” duties, including "how to be a gracious
hostess, to make guests feel at ease; in a word, to smooth the way for

all those she touches."32

The debate depicts the divisions created by the question of
women's education, and Porter's citations in her speech, ”Occupations
for Women and Their Dual Role," shed light on where her viewpoint
rested. Porter firmly agreed, as evidenced from her writings, with

White's ideas about women's proper role and responsibilities and how

 

30Lynn White, Jr., "New Yardsticks for Women Education,” Jounnni gt

Eh! ngnignn Hsgocintign o: aUniversigy Women 41, 1 (Fall 1947) 5. See
also, Lynn White, Jr., t Ch e

Qgiigggn (New York: Harper 8 Brothers, 1950) 68.

31Mirra Romarovsky, "Measuring the Yardsticks,“ gnnnnni_ni_§ng
mmmmm 41. 4 (Sumner 1948)-

Komarovsky was an associate professor of sociology at Bernard College.

32Dorothy Yost Yeegan, ”Education for Spinsters," gmnnnni_gfi_gng
MW 41. 4 (Summer 1948) 214-

41

best to educate women for those roles. She quoted him in her speech on

women and their dual role, and clearly shared many of his beliefs about

women's education. She never alluded to the responses to White's speech
published in the AAUW Journal, which differ from his viewpoint. All

were published before she gave her speech.33

John Hannah, MSU president from 1941-1969, shared Porter's views
about women's education, at least in relation to home economics. In a
1952 speech to the home economics faculty, Hannah, citing the declining
numbers of women enrolling in home economics at MSU, addressed what he
believed was "wrong with home economics,“ targeting the college's
emphasis on professional training. He argued that universities should
educate women not only for their working lives (which will be short,
given that women would marry and remain at home to raise their children)
but also as homemakers, "giving them courses so they might be more
efficient in the operation of the home deriving pleasure and
satisfaction from that operation” and “making them more intelligent

spenders."34 Home economics was to play an integral role in providing

this important education, even for students who did not major in home
economics:
'[Home economics] has gone overboard on dignifying Home Economics
and has lost sight of the greatest contribution of a School of

Home Economics which lies in the area of providing training for
nil women in the fields only Home Economics can offer.”

While Porter focused on the need for women to fulfill their roles
as wives and mothers, Marie Dye's emphasis was on the need for education
for women. Dye argued that women and men were intellectual equals, but

her views on whether women and men should have different types of

 

33Porter, ”Dual Role." See note 20.

34John Hannah, "What Is Wrong With Home Economics?“ Speech notes

from a presentation at a home economics faculty meeting at MSU on
September 17, 1952; MSU Archives, Box 359, Folder 18, p. 1.
Unfortunately the record does not include any mention of discussions
about Hannah's remarks at this meeting or at a future meeting.

351nm. , 2 .

42

educational training are less clear. She was a firm believer in the
value of home economics as a profession and an academic discipline.
Since many women would become wives and mothers, home economics could
serve two purposes. "If this training for an occupation can be related
to women's probable future role in her own home, a double purpose is

served," she noted.36

Dye also believed women should have equal access to financial aid
for their college education. More than once she voiced her opinion
about equal opportunities for scholarships and other financial aid for
women. In responding to a questionnaire about federal aid for
education, Dye said that “any aid for education should be given to both
men and women. Able young people should have some help in attending

college if they wish.'37 In another instance, Dye urged the granting of

scholarships to members of Future Homemakers of America, an organization
for high school girls. Such scholarships already existed for members of
Future Farmers of America, an organization for boys, and 4-H clubs. Dye
took a strong stand on the issue and noted that while local chapters of
the organizations gave scholarships to local members, other sources of
financial aid would enable MSU to "attract more of the outstanding young

girls."38 Dye was a strong advocate for women's education, despite her

ideas about their roles.
To resolve the dilemma about women's education, educators, both in
home economics and elsewhere in the university community, focused on

planning a woman's education and her career around the "inevitability”

 

36Marie Dye, ”The Place of General Education," Jounnai Q: Hgmg
Hgnngmigg 43 (April 1951) 251-252.

37Marie Dye, letter of February 7, 1951, in response to a letter
dated January 18, 1951 from the Association of Land Grant Colleges and
Universities to MSU president John Hannah about a prOposal for
education aid for students. Hannah forwarded the notice to the
university deans, including Dye, for input; MSU Archives, Box 379,
Folder 1.

38Marie Dye letter dated April 6, 1956, to John Hannah, in response
to his request for input on the issue; MSU Archives, Box 379, Folder 21.

43

of her roles as a wife and mother. Underlying this "solution“ was the
assumption that all women would follow a similar life course. In the
postwar era, a woman's life had four recognizable stages, according to
most education professionals: pre-marriage, which included work; early
marriage, as evidenced by the increasing numbers of women choosing
marriage in the fifties: “peak years” when a married women had young
children and was most likely a full-time homemaker with no paid work
outside the home; and the years when the children were either in school
or grown and on their own, thus freeing a woman to pursue her own

interests, which might include a return to professional work.39

Discourse about these four stages are found in countless places in the
papers of College of Human Ecology. It is hard to overemphasize how
many people assumed women would follow this course and the dominant

acceptance of this life course plan for women.40 If women did pursue a

career, it was expected that they would leave the work force while their
children were young. The idea that a mother might work, out of choice,
while her children were young carried with it the stigma that the woman
was neglecting her "first” commitment and responsibility - her children.
Among the eight goals for women's education outlined in a
subcommittee report in MSU's College of Home Economics were to "Help her
recognize and respect homemaking as her unique role in society" and that
“homemaking is the most important job in our or any society and that she

as a woman has the unique privilege of doing that job."41 A study of

1951 alumni of Michigan State College in home economics showed most of

the graduates eventually married, prompting Marie Dye to note:

 

39These four stages were laid out most clearly in a faculty

subcommittee report, "What Is More Important in Women's Education?" Dr.
Irma Gross was the subcommittee's chairperson. Subcommittee report
dated November 11, 1950; MSU Archives, Box 360, Folder 21, p. 1.

40The issue of whether students actually followed this trend will
be discussed in chapter 5, which focuses on the graduates of MSU's home
economics program.

41"What Is More Important in Women's Education,” p. 2.

44

It would seem advisable then, to reconsider our goals in home
economics education to provide training for successful homemaking
as well as for the specific payroll job whichzis, in most cases,
held for only a short time after graduation.

The acceptance of the inevitability of a marriage and children for
women, and that this would require their exit from the paid labor force,
was in effect an easy way for education administrators to avoid dealing
with the complex issue of women's education. Many women did marry and
have children, but rather than address the problems facing those women
who wanted to continue their professional lives, administrators tended
to assume women needed and wanted to remain at home with their children.
Questioning women's unequal burden of responsibility in the family, both
in attending to household chores and caring for children, or addressing
the issue of child care for women who did work was more difficult and
simply not considered by the majority of educators. The life course
"solution" also assumed a family had the financial means to do without
the mother's wages, allowing her to remain at home full time with her
own children. For working-class women, and for many minorities, this
was simply not the case. For them, the idea of leaving the work force
during the ”peak years” was not an option, and thus the solution offered
them no help with the problem of combining work and family.

The acceptance of a specific life course for most women is found
in the final report of the President's Commission on the Status of
Women, released in 1963. The Commission was formed in 1961 with an
executive order issued by John Kennedy, and its report reiterated the
need to educate women for the world of work and their responsibilities
at home. Women must be educated for their "special role" and that her
future as a wife and mother ”differentiates the educational requirements

of girl and boy from the very beginning."43 Programs also should be

 

42Marie Dye, "Revaluation in College Education in Home Economics,“
undated; MSU Archives, Box 364, Folder 11, p. 2.

43Excerpt from Education Committee Report quoted in Harrison, 9n
W. 154.

45

designed with a woman's “traditional“ role in mind, and thus should
strive to enable women to return to the labor force when her children
were grown. Its proposals were very similar to those articulated by
educators at MSU and the committee also failed to see the conflict women
faced between their family and professional goals: ”Many of the
characteristically male-dominated fields did not mesh well with the

traditional roles of women.'44

This retreat into beliefs about “feminine“ education accompanied

declines in numbers of women attending and completing college.45 In

1940 40.2 percent of all college students were women, but in the next
decade women comprised only 30.2 percent of the college student

population. Their share of the college population would not reach the
1940 level until 1970, when women made up 41.9 percent of all college

students.46 Fewer women also remained in college to complete degrees.47

Numbers of women staying in college to earn doctorate degrees also
declined. In 1920 women earned 15 percent of all doctorates, but only
10 percent in 1950.48

Numbers for professional and academic career women also reflect
these trends. Numbers of women entering medicine declined from 12

percent of all medical students in 1949 to 5 percent in the mid-fifties.

 

44Harrison, Qn Hccounn Qt Sen, 155. The report also demonstrates
the persistence of these ideas about a woman's life course. Evidence of
this plan appears as early as 1950 in the College of Home Economics, and
is still a dominant idea in 1963, when the report was issued.

4SSolomon, In tng Company a: Educated Women, 193-194. Solomon
discusses the rationale, both scientific and religious, which backed
those people advocating a ”feminine” education, and the difficulties
faced by those who opposed such ideas.

46Ibid., 63. Solomon notes that although percentages declined,
actual numbers of women attending college increased.

"salmon. MW 133: Mabel Newcomer. a

(New York: Harper 8
Brothers, 1959) 46.d

48Johnston, fignnni_2ggg;, 348, footnote 22.

46

Likewise, the percentage of women faculty at the college and university
level declined after peaking at 28 percent in 1940. By 1950 the
percentage of women serving as faculty declined to 25 percent and

further dropped to 22 percent in 1960.49

The declining numbers of women college graduates and professionals
began to concern educators and other public commentators. Too many
young women were conforming to society's prescriptions for women's
roles. Lee discussed this problem in a 1964 speech, although the
concern arose before then:

Never has American society in terms of its own survival been so

greatly in need of using its intellectual and social womanpower -

and never have women internalized so little those societal needs

as personal goals and aspirations. Never have American woggn had
so many opportunities open to them - and wanted so little.

Lee ended her speech by challenging students to heed these remarks and
avail themselves of the opportunities before them. Although women might
not try to combine both children and a career, they should prepare
themselves for those years when children did not demand their full
attention. A part of that preparation was completing their college
education.

By the late fifties and early sixties, administrators in home
economics and other areas of academia were beginning to realize that
they had to play a role in changing how women students viewed their
futures. Women were a growing proportion of the population, and

represented a large pool of underutilized talent and intellect.5l But

they needed to help young women realize their potential and intellectual

abilities, regardless of society's prescriptions for behavior.

 

49Solomon, in tne Cgmpany of Higne; Hgncatign, 133, 189.

soLee discusses this problem in "College Night for New Students,”
September 28, 1964: MSU Archives, Box 364, Folder 19, 4-5.

“solo-non. MW. 1913-199.

47

Most of the women at the university have heard the facts about the
potential for years of working in their lives, but certain
societal pressures make it difficult for coeds to accept them - to
absorb them into their thinking and planning for the future.
Helping our students to absorb and encompass the full range of
their lives in their educational and future plans is difficult.

It will take imaginative planning, it involves guidance and
motivatigp. It involves helping young women to project into their
futures.

Thus the profession of home economics realized the importance of not
only recruiting women, but also cultivating their professional
aspirations and talents. Although it did not intend to discard the
entire philosophy of the family, the profession sought to maximize
women's potential when her life was not dominated by family duties,
especially the care of small children. This is the first hint of the
recognition of a problem many women in professional and academic fields
faced then and continue to face: how to retain professional status if
time off is taken to raise children, and how the profession can
facilitate the return of such professional women to the field.
Increasingly educators began to consider a woman's education in terms of
her own life course and the duties associated with its different stages.
They did not see the limits of the life course plan for women's
education.

Even Porter, who believed the primary duty of women was to their
family, recognized that a small portion of their lives was dedicated to
raising children, especially in light of the trend of women having their
children younger in the fifties and living longer lives. She viewed
these women, the married home economists, as a potential that must not
be wasted, but she nonetheless had firm ideas of what that potential

should be and when such women should reenter the work force.53 Helping

women return to professional life when their family responsibilities

 

szQuoted (no citation given) in Jeanette Lee, "The Role of

Administrator,” November 5, 1965; MSU Archives, Box 364, Folder 20, p.
8.

53Thelma Porter, ”Home Economics and Higher Education," Speech to
summer students, July 5, 1960; MSU Archives, Box 364, Folder 37, p. 2.

48

lessened was a common theme during this era. Finding ways to facilitate
a woman's return from the “deep freeze,“ as the period when a women
remained at home to raise children was termed at one home economics

seminar, consistently entered the education discourse.54

Home economics educators did urge women to return to the
profession, particularly at the graduate level, but they also placed the
burden on the women, as professionals, to do so. While recognizing the
challenge this posed for women, Lee also offered few specifics about how
women should accomplish this:

So challenge Number One then is to the professionally motivated

alum woman home economist, the one who is an intellectually

competent person, who is prepared to become deeply involved and
committed to an academic program and a career, to use her
intellectual capacities to the fullest. This may require some
adjustment in life style if there has been a period of break in
the continuity of one's education. Undoubtedly, it requires
cooperation from family and friends, it will require considerable
drive, as well as a willingness to fill in the gaps, refresh, and
often undergird a graduate program with some of the knowledge that

has eithe§ gone stale in the interim or that has become completely
obsolete. 5

Lee also urged the same ”retraining” for those women who did not wish to
pursue a career at the graduate level, but who had a bachelor's degree
and wanted to resume a career as a professional home economist in their
trained field. She compared home economics to other professions
(nursing, medical technology, or social work) in the need of members to
adapt to advances and changes in the field, but noted that such efforts
were necessary for professions: ”So, if one's commitment is to re-enter

the profession as a serious venture, then one must face the necessity of

 

54See ”Home Economics in a Changing World,” suggested topics of
discussion in the planning of the workshop, December 1957; MSU Archives,
Box 379, Folder 30. The workshop was held January 2-4, 1958, in the MSU
Union Building in East Lansing, MI.

55Jeanette Lee, “The Challenge to Home Economics Graduates,”

presented at the Home Economics Alumni Symposium, April 14, 1967: MSU
Archives, Box 364, Folder 22, p. 3.

49

getting oneself ready to do a professional level job."'56 Recruiting

trained home economists who had left the field to raise their families
to return to the profession was discussed, and the College conducted the
alumni study that year with the specific purpose of finding ways to help
its graduates further their education. But the burden was on the
individual woman to find a way to balance both family and professional
responsibilities: those advocating her return to the profession did not
see fit to consider how they might assist her.

In line with these ideas, some educators believed women's
education needed to be diverse enough to permit her return, later, to
professional employment. As undergraduates, many women had less
commitment to their work than men, largely because many expected to
leave the work force after they had children. A broader, more liberal
education, some educators argued, would help a woman to adapt her later
career aspirations with her experiences as a homemaker and activities
associated with those years. A broad education also would serve her
better, some educators believed, because her interests and goals likely

57

changed during her years at home. If a home economics education was

not broad with numerous courses in the sciences, humanities, and liberal
arts, then “our home economics graduates may not be most effectively
prepared for the multiple roles which women are sure to play in our

society during the coming decades."58 Home economics should "develop

 

56Lee, "Challenge," 4-6. Interestingly, Lee uses traditional

female fields (nursing, medical technology, and social work) rather than
more male-dominated professions as a comparison for home economics.

57Pauline C. Paul, "The Purpose of Higher Education in Modern
Society," August 1960; MSU Archives, Box 365, Folder 8, p. 7. Paul, of
the Department of Home Economics at the University of California -
Davis, spoke at the Home Economics Administration Workshop held August
8-12, 1960, at MSU.

58Roland R. Renne, "Responsibilities for Home Economics in
Developing the Intellectual Potential of Women of All Ages,” address
given before the Division of Home Economics meeting, American
Association of Land Grant Colleges and Universities, Michigan State
University, November 16, 1953; MSU Archives, Box 385, Folder 16, p. 5.
Renne was president of Montana State College. A major theme in his
speech was the need to ensure that women's education prepared them for

50

the maximum thought power of women students” to enable them to fill

their “multiple roles.'59

This theme was reiterated at a faculty workshop in 1965. Dr.
Laurine Fitzgerald, Assistant Dean of Students at MSU, urged a
redefinition of women's education that ”might be broader than a
curriculum or a major...I am talking about the totality of preparing
them not only for potential employment within the home and the community
or for renumeration but for the cultural role. I think perhaps this is

where we are failing."60 Fitzgerald again returns to the idea that

women are different from men in their life courses; their lives will not
be continuous period of employment, but rather one with interruptions
and changes. She also faults educators for their inability to see this,
and suggests that women's maturation and education is like “growing up
absurd”:
We've done some very strange things to these young women in terms
of fitting them into a mold as if they were to have a single line

continuum using their education for full time employment as if it
were to relate under one ratio.6

Such concerns about motivating young women to aspire for more than
a husband and home are common in the commentary of the fifties and early
sixties, and highlight the mixed messages women received about their
futures, as Meyerowitz argues. The profession of home economics
illustrates the tensions and conflicts over women's roles, and how they
were changing. While many recognized the need for change, few offered
concrete solutions to ”women's dilemma." Some educators, like Porter,

believed that women should remain at home to raise their children, and

 

their needed role in the labor force.

ngenne, “Responsibilities,” p. 5.

60Laurine Fitzgerald, "The College Student Today: The Michigan

State Student,“ presented at the Gull Lake Faculty Workshop, College of
Home Economics, September 19, 1965; MSU Archives, Box 365, Folder 3, p.
10.

61Fitzgerald, ”College Student," p. 6.

51

others blamed women for not being assertive or ambitious enough. An
increasing need for women - including home economists - in the labor
force prompted a rethinking of these issues, resulting in the “life

course“ plan for women's education.

Labor shortages in the postwar period prompted many people,
outside of home economics and academia, to encourage women to pursue
college educations, and also for employers to hire and train them for
management positions. These ideas are found at numerous levels in
society, from the university level, as shown in the College of Home
Economics and at MSU, to women's magazines. Women's labor was
increasingly needed, and analysts strove to find ways to attract women

into employment.62 More and more people within home economics were

anxious to recruit top talent to the profession, and to motivate them
beyond the undergraduate degree; home economics faced a serious shortage
of members with advanced training, a problem noted by Dye, Porter, and
Lee. A large part of that was social pressure; young women, even by the
early sixties, were not supposed to enter advanced training. An
undergraduate college education was accepted, and for some young women
it was seen as an effective way to find a husband, but graduate school

was at odds with what society expected of women.63

But herein lay a critical problem for the profession: too many
young women were conforming to society's concept of gender roles, and
the profession struggled continuously to secure an adequate faculty.
That issue, which is connected with the increasing attack from other
academics and education administrators regarding the validity of home
economics as an academic discipline, and how the profession,
particularly at MSU, resolved those concerns, is dealt with in the next

chapter.

 

5231121141 M. Rothman, m ' P : c

es 87 (New York: Basic Books, Inc.,
Publishers, 1978) 230.

63Graham, p. 770-771.

CHAPTER 4

Fighting an Uphill Battle:
Attaining Equal Status in the University

The profession of home economics faced a continuous battle to
attain equal status with other professions throughout its history, but
this battle reached new heights during the postwar period. The struggle
to become an accepted part of the academic community plagued all home
economics programs, and Michigan State University was no exception.
Continuing attacks on home economics as an academic discipline and as a
valid part of the university community characterized the postwar period,
prompting home economics professionals in academia to spend much of

their time defending and defining their field for administrators.1

Balancing ”pressures for both prestige and practicality" was a task home
economists faced throughout their history, but those efforts reached new

heights in the postwar era.2 The hostile and antagonistic environment

limited the ability of the profession to assert new ideas about the
field, or women's roles and education; most home economists in academia
simply tried to keep their programs from being eliminated from the
university curriculum, as occurred in some instances, or from being
sentenced to a slow death through budget cuts and a lack of

administrative support.3 The profession debated its direction, focus,

 

lMargaret W. Rossiter, Chapter 8, “Protecting Home Economics, the

Women's Field.“ in W. forthcoming.

documents the attacks experienced throughout the profession during this
period.

2Margaret W. Rossiter, Wo Am a: t u
fingnngginn_§n_igfig (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982) 67.

3Rossiter, ”Protecting Home Economics," 205-207.

52

53

and goals repeatedly during the postwar period and the MSU home
economics faculty, like others, conducted numerous studies, seminars,
and reports to address the issues before them. Efforts to increase the
research output of the profession also dominated the period, while
requests for additional building space, new equipment, and facilities -
critical elements for any successful research agenda - continued to be
rejected.

Achieving equal status with other fields and conforming to
professional standards became particularly important issues during the
1950s and 1960s, largely as a result of the growth in the behavioral

sciences and their overlap with issues and concerns in home economics.4

The field faced intense pressure to meet the standards of other
disciplines, including the hiring of more faculty with doctorates and
producing more doctoral candidates. Administrators expected the College
to produce more and better research, as well as teaching large numbers
of undergraduate students. The home economics faculty at MSU conducted
three curriculum revisions in this period - one during each decade - and
the field also began an in-depth self-analysis that continued through
the sixties, to come to a consensus on what home economics was and what
a good program entailed. This process was done under the auspices of
the American Home Economics Association. Marie Dye was the chairperson
of the AHEA committee organized to plan the workshOps, which were held
in the different regions of the country. The AHEA also published Hg!

Qinggginnn, H Snntgmgng Q: Eniiosopny and Objectives in 1959,
reiterating the field's focus on the family.5 Another study, Hgmg

W. was published later
that year by the American Association of Land-Grant Colleges and State

 

4Marjorie East, ome conom cs: s esent d uture (Boston:
Allyn and Bacon, 1980) 55.

SAHEA, ct me ' b v ,
(Washington, D.C.: The Association, 1959); MSU Archives, Box 385, Folder
54; see also Jeanette Lee and Paul L. Dressel, Libenni Edncntion nng
Hgmg_§gnngmign (New York: Teachers College, 1963) 32.

54

Universities.6 The French Lick Seminar, held in 1961, was sponsored by

the same organization to discuss the future direction and focus of home

economics.7 The home economics faculty also conducted its own study,

culminating in the "Report of the Committee of the Future of Home

Economics at Michigan State University“ in 1968.8 Clearly home

economics was searching for an identity, or more importantly, a unified

definition of what home economics was and should be in the future.9 The

critical issue debated was whether the family was still the foundation
of the profession. Connected to that was the organization of home
economics programs: if the family was no longer the unifying principle,
then some educators questioned the inclusion of the various disciplines
within home economics and suggested reorganizing the field.

The MSU program played an integral part in these debates, and also
experienced much of the administrative hostility firsthand on its own
campus. Questions about the place of home economics in the university
began in the 1950s, but reached their height in the 1960s. By the end
of that decade, the MSU program, although still on campus, is in a very
different form. Reorganized and renamed, the College of Human Ecology
replaced the College of Home Economics. That change coincided with the

naming of the first male dean of the college, as well as a substantial

 

6Lee and Dressel, Libenni Education, 33.

7Jeanette Lee was the chairperson of the committee organizing the

seminar, which focused on what curriculum and courses would be included
in home economics. This seminar, and its results and implications, will
be discussed later in this chapter.

8"The Report of the Committee on the Future of Home Economics,”

January 1968, Michigan State University; MSU Archives, Box 398, Folder
63.

9Earl J. McGrath, “Forward” in Lee and Dressel's Hmmg_Eggngmign_nng
, vii. McGrath writes that ”the most critical problem

now facing those involved in home economics education seems to be the
lack of a consensus concerning what it ought to be if it is to have an
integrity of its own and a program different from the instruction
offered by other related departments and schools.” This question
occupied home economists in countless workshops, meetings, and seminars,
including an Administrators' Workshop held at MSU in 1960.

55

increase in the number of male faculty. The road taken to the
reorganization of the college in 1970 is the subject of this chapter,
and a study of the events and debates reveals the roles played by the
faculty and the deans, many of whom supported the changes to their
program. Few verbally disagreed with the criticisms about the fact that
women dominated the field and that many of these women were also
unmarried, and thus could not truly understand family life. But the
outcome could have been much worse. Although the changes at MSU were
significant, they were still less severe than those experienced on other
campuses.

Home economists were aware of the reduced stature of their field
in the eyes of other academics, and responded to such criticism by
seeking ways to improve their standards and their programs. Dye
articulated the problem in discussing the shortage of home economists
with advanced training:

Even though the training of college teachers in home economics has

been improved in amount and quality over the years, it is still

below the edufiational qualifications for faculty in other subject
matter areas.

That sentiment was echoed by Lee in 1965, when she noted the importance
of adequately preparing home economists
to meet the demands and responsibilities of the ”professional” in
our society. The expectations for professional, intellectual

competence and depth of knowledge are rising in all fields and so
it must be for home economists.

Establishing membership requirements in the AHEA was an initial
step toward upgrading the field and likening itself to other
professional associations with membership restrictions. In the 1942
AHEA handbook, requirements stipulated that members hold a college

degree in home economics or a related field for voting members;

 

lOMarie Dye, 1942 speech to the AHEA: MSU Archives, Box 364, Folder
10, p. 5.

11Jeanette Lee, "The Role of Administrator in Implementing Plan of

Action,“ speech given November 5, 1965, at the College Club Advisers'
Workshop, MSU: MSU Archives, Box 364, Folder 20, p. 5.

56

homemaker organizations could join as a group, but had no voting

rights.12 Dye noted in a speech on the AHEA's 40th anniversary that the

requirements “made the AHEA a professional organization with increased
responsibilities for upholding high educational standards.“ She also
said that
by defining the educational requirements for home economists, it
provides status for the professional person and should help to
assure good training for those who enter this field. Membership

in a professional association provides employers with a rough
measure for judging qualifications of applicants for positions.13

Like other professional societies, AHEA sought to provide stature for

itself by rigorizing standards and restricting membership.14

The Jgngnni_gfi_Hgmg_Egmngmi§g, the field's major publication, also

was a sign of professional status. Like other professional
publications, the journal was the mode of written communication of

information for the profession.15 Its issues covered all areas of home

economics: teaching, research, and Extension. The journal kept its
readers current on the AHEA's events and activities, including its
annual meetings, as well as developments in the field. MSU home
economics faculty members played an important role in both the AHEA and
the ggngnni. All three deans during the postwar period contributed to

the publication and were also active in the AHEA, serving on numerous

 

12American Home Economics Association Handbook, 1942; MSU Archives,
Box 364, Folder 53.

13Marie Dye, AHEA speech, 1942; MSU Archives, Box 364, Folder 10,
p. 4, 2.

14Burton J. Bledstein discusses this trend in In; Cnituge of

a ° dd as d t e ev o t
Egngngign_in_nmgnign (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1976).
Although he gives home economics only a passing mention, the
profession's efforts do fit into the general professionalizing methods
described by Bledstein. See also Magali Sarfatti Larson,

(Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1977).

”Bledstein. Wigs. 303-304 -

57

committees. Their efforts were indicative of the status MSU held within
the home economics professional community.

A vital and productive research program, with clear results, was
an important element in the issue of gaining respect for the profession,
and home economists spent considerable time addressing this issue in the
postwar period. Generating research was a problem, in part owing to the
shortage of experienced faculty with advanced graduate training, and
also because of funding constraints. Most of the program's research
funding came from the Agricultural Experiment Station; with the
station's emphasis on agriculture, much of the research was on foods and

their nutritional value.16 Other funding sources, also for foods and

nutrition research, were the National Institute for Health and the
United States Department of Agriculture. Home economics, as an academic
field, was not considered a science by many organizations and
foundations which provided research funds, except in the case of foods

and nutrition, and thus was not eligible for many research grants.17

The problem was that funding sources for research in child and human
development, family life, and consumer behavior were scarce and funds

difficult to obtain.18 The college did not obtain its first large grant

for child development research until 1967; that funding came from the
Institute for Educational Development for the establishment of research

centering on the new Head Start education programs.19 The profession

had difficulty obtaining funds in the very areas that were growing most

 

16Lee, Egom Hgme Economics to Human Ecology, p. S, and Lee, notes

for a report to the dean's group in home economics, January 26, 1965;
MSU Archives, Box 364, Folder 20, p. 13.

l7Rossiter, "Protecting Home Economics," 201. Rossiter notes that

the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Health, and
the National Institute for Mental Health only saw the nutrition and
developmental psychology aspects of home economics as qualifying for its
research funds.

18Lee, notes to dean's group, p. 13.

19Lee, Eggm Hgme Economics 50 Humnn Ecningy, p. 32.

rapidly in importance. Not until the late 1960s, with the rise of
Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs, did funding became available
for research outside of foods and nutrition. As Rossiter notes,
however, the increased funding was not necessarily a bonus for home
economdcs:
But ironically this sudden federal interest in funding home and
family projects was to backfire on the women home economists, for
rather than finally helping them to do research and to earn
prestige, it was a signal to powerful men in academia that,
however trivial ‘home economics' had once seemed, it was now a

potentialig lucrative field worth taking over as soon as
possible.

When funding for research connected to Head Start programs and other
social programs was available, and a Head Start research and evaluation

program was started at MSU, a man was named director.21

The postwar period was a time of expansion and growth at Michigan
State University. On-campus enrollment increased from 16,243 in 1949 to
42,541 in 1969 and the number of faculty increased from 343 in 1935 to
2,590 in 1969. The institution had 44 departments in 1935; by 1969 MSU
had 104. The dramatic rise in the numbers of students and faculty
demanded increased classroom and dormitory space, as well as buildings

to house department and faculty offices.22 The university responded by

constructing numerous buildings. Many of the dormitories were built
with borrowed money, with administrators using the fees collected from
student residents to repay the debt, as the Michigan legislature was

reluctant to provide funds for residence halls.23 Years could elapse

between the submission of plans for buildings and the actual

 

20Rossiter, “Protecting Home Economics,” 215.

21 d S e to 6 - 969 'c State
Qniygnnigy, (East Lansing: Michigan State University, 1968) 140.

22Paul L. Dressel, o v : H a Yea
Hignignn_§§n§gy_iggg;ig§2 (East Lansing: Michigan State University
Publications, 1987) 374, 395.

23mm. , 373.

construction of them, and priority lists changed annually.
Administrators looked at numerous factors in prioritizing projects,
including enrollment demands and the "saleability' of a facility to the

current crop of legislators."24

The College of Home Economics, however, never made the final list
for renovations or new buildings, which further hampered its research
and teaching efforts. The lack of success by the home economics
department throughout the tenure of the three deans to secure any major
improvements or expansions in the college's facilities was a continued
source of frustration and discussion. Space was a problem throughout
much of this period. The program at MSU remained in the building
constructed for it in 1924, and repeated requests for more space and new
equipment yielded few results. Dean Marie Dye requested more space and
staff in a letter to President John Hannah (1941-1969) in 1948. Without
the additional staff and space, Dye warned that the program may have to
begin to refuse students. In the letter she asked that he request funds
for a new building from the state legislature, which provided funds for

the construction of the building then in use.25 Dye's frustration at

her inability to secure the needed facilities evidenced itself in a
letter to a home economics colleague, who had told Dye that their
program's building recently was redecorated. In response, Dye wrote:

How fine to have your building completely redecorated. Ours needs
it too but I am not sure when we will get it. We have done over
some of the laboratories and this Christmas my office was done
over...We so much need an addition to our building but I feel
discouraged about getting it. They have even taken the small sum
for our nursery school off the budget in the Legislature. I don't
see how we can get along without a nursery school. At present we
have put it in one of the home managgment houses and we need the
house for home management purposes.

 

24Ibid., 374.

2'sLetter from Marie Dye to John Hannah dated October 7, 1948; MSU
Archives, Box 365, Folder 76.

26Letter from Marie Dye to Dr. Gladys Branegan, School of Home

Economics, Ohio State University, March 2, 1954; MSU Archives, Box 379,
Folder 16.

60

The efforts to obtain additional facilities continued after Dye's
retirement, with no success. Jeanette Lee reiterated this need in 1965
in an administrative meeting with John Hannah, the provost, and other

members of the administration, to no avail.27 Faculty and

administration emphasized the need for improved and expanded physical
facilities in its 1968 “Report of the Committee on the Future of Home
Economics." In conjunction with its recommendation to increase the
amount and quality of research produced by the college, the committee
noted that without the appropriate facilities and support, such a goal
was unattainable: "Present facilities are critically inadequate to
accommodate programs projected from the philosophy and focus and to

carry out many recommendations contained in this report."28 Because of

the scope of the space and facility needs, and the long neglect of
requests for expansion and repair, the committee recommended the
construction of an entirely new facility, rather than simply remodeling
the existing building.29

Another contributing factor to the home economics program's lack
of prestige was its emphasis on undergraduate teaching. The MSU program
stressed the importance of teaching undergraduate students, and in the
academic world where the route to scholarly acclaim was via research,
teaching did not carry the prestige that publications and important
research contributions to the field did. This phenomenon also affected
the land-grant institutions, like MSU, which were begun to transmit
practical knowledge to the state's citizens. ”As the society evinced

great need for the expert or specialist, tolerances have diminished for

 

27Jeanette Lee, "Notes for dean's report," January 26, 1965; MSU
Archives, Box 364, Folder 20, p. 23. See also Rossiter, “Protecting
Home Economics," 211-212.

28"Report of the Committee,” 68.

29"Report of the Committee,” 69.

61

.30

non-professional expertise among professors, argues Patricia Albjerg

Graham. Graham asserts that this trend worked against women in
education, as they often covered the teaching and committee roles;
women's 'natural' abilities gravitated them toward teaching, and they
also often served on committees, a project not valued highly in the
education hierarchy. As home economics was not a great producer of
research, particularly in the growing behavioral sciences and their
connection to family issues, this concept worked to the profession's
detriment.

The fact that teaching was important to the home economics program
at MSU is clear. Lee noted more than once in speeches that the teaching
mission was the critical one, and that teaching undergraduate or
beginning-level courses was not second-class when compared to research
or administration. Although Lee recognized that this hurt the status of
home economics in academia, she still firmly stood behind her belief in
a teaching emphasis:

Perhaps the ”publish or perish" myth has not been as prevalent in

Home Economics as in other disciplines, yet I suspect that in the

large universities at least the relatively smaller productivity in

research and publication in Home Economics has been a deterrent to

full acceptance as a bona fidg field within the academic
community, in some instances. 1

Lee reiterated her dedication to the teaching mission later in the same
speech: "The ultimate factor determining the quality and excellence of a
student's educational experience depends to a large degree on the

teacher and the teaching process."32 She also believed it was the

administrator's role to instill in the faculty ”that good teaching is as

important a criteria for membership in the academic community as is

 

30Patricia Albjerg Graham, ”Expansion and Exclusion: A History of
Women in American Higher Education,” Eignn 3 (Spring 1978) 763.

31Jeanette Lee, Speech given at the North Central Regional Meeting

of College Teachers of Textiles and Clothing,” Chicago, IL, October 27,
1966; MSU Archives, Box 364, Folder 21, p. 11.

32Lee, North Central speech, p. 7.

62

research and publication."33 But there is little doubt that the wider

academic community did not share this vision, and the teaching emphasis
harmed the stature of home economics. Home economics faced a dual
feminized stigma; not only was it oriented toward the “feminine“
occupation of teaching, but its faculty also was dominated by women.
Home economists realized the importance research played in
establishing the field as a legitimate part of the university community,
and in response to questions about the home economics' focus,
organization, and value, the profession took steps to improve its
research efforts to try and counteract the criticism of its programs and
faculty. As awareness of the large social problems facing America grew,
home economics realized that it must play a role in helping to solve

these problems.34 The profession recognized, as evidenced by the

continuous attention both by the MSU faculty and the profession in its
journal, that a strong research program was essential to its very

survival.3s But despite these efforts, the output was ”never enough to

satisfy the relentless demand in these years at many campuses for ever

more research."36 And the MSU program reiterated its commitment to

teaching in its 1968 report. In that report, the committee recommended
that both teaching and research potential be considered of prospective

faculty. It also noted that "since the primary function of the College

 

33Lee, North Central Speech, p. 11. Lee espoused these views in
another speech, made during the College Week for Women in 1965. See
Lee, ”The Challenge of Home Economics at Your University,” given during
the College Week for Women, MSU, July 27, 1965; MSU Archives, Box 364,
Folder 20.

34"Report of the Committee," 18-19.

35'Report of the Committee,” Recommendation 11: "The Committee
recommends that the major research emphasis of the college in the future
be in accord with the focus as defined herein and that a concerted
effort by faculty and administrators be directed toward substantially
increasing research activities in the college in the next 5 years," p.
49.

36Rossiter, ”Protecting Home Economics,” 211.

63

is the education of young people, the most important aspect of the work

is the teaching function."37

Ironically, MSU was among the top producers of home economics
research in the profession. A 1968 study commissioned by the National
Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, and funded by
a $200,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation analyzed data from 75
institutions and their faculties.38 Ihn_gnnnging_Hinnign_gfi_Hgmg

Eggngmign, by Earl McGrath and Jack Johnson, was the published results
of the study. McGrath and Johnson ranked MSU's program fifth in
research activity, behind programs at Cornell, Iowa State University,
Florida State University, and Pennsylvania State University. At the
time, MSU had 30 research projects in process; PSU had 31, FSU had 38,

and 180 had 41. Cornell was the leader with 57.39 Clearly MSU had an

active research program in the field, although the report faulted the
overall research activity, as only 49 of the 75 institutions had

research in progress.40

The MSU faculty did begin compiling an annual report of its
research activities in 1962. The report listed all faculty members and
their research projects. The introductory letter states that the report
is intended to keep graduate students informed about the faculty's

research, but another likely reason for the reports was to provide

 

37"Report on the Future," 59-60.

38Earl J. McGrath and Jack T. Johnson, Ing_annging_Hin§inn_nf_Hgmg

 

- ._ 07:0,;
E;n§g_yni_g£nigign (New York: Teachers College Press, 1968) ix. See
also Rossiter, ”Protecting Home Economics,” 217. Rossiter discusses
this report at length, including the association's intention to have the
study conducted by an outside group to consider the merits of home
economics.

39Ibid., 58.

4°161a., s9.

64

documentation of the faculty's research efforts.“1 The report's content

included a description of the project, funding source, current status,
and the future steps to be undertaken. The report also listed projects
by master's and doctoral students. Faculty members undertook research
projects in an assortment of topics, from studies of family expenditures
to the nutritional values in certain foods.42 Other projects looked at

the effect of clothing selections and attitudes on adolescents.43

Margaret Rossiter convincingly documents the growing attack on the
field of home economics during this period, and argues that the McGrath
report, was the culmination of years of hostility toward the female-
dominated field. Continuous efforts by home economics faculty and
administrators to provide documentation and evidence of the field's
importance and contribution fell on what appeared to be deaf ears. Many
programs faced reorganization, cuts, or even elimination, despite their
size and prestige. One such victim was the home economics program at
the University of Chicago, which terminated its home economics program
in 1956, after the departure of its chairperson, Thelma Porter, for M80.
The reasoning given by university administrators was that the program
was unable to compete with the “great advance in the programs of the
state universities,“ and thus the administration opted to close the

program. Marie Dye disagreed. An alumnus of the University of Chicago

 

ese ch ccom 'shments Re , College of Home

Economics; MSU Archives, Box 383, Folder 137; letter dated October 23,
1962. The reports began in 1962 and continue through 1969.

42w, 1967 and 1968; 1450 Archives, Box 383, Folder 138.
A sampling of projects includes “Family Receipt and Expenditure
Analysis“ by Barbara M. Ferrar; “Values Underlying Managerial Decisions
in the Family“ by Jean D. Schlater; “Biological Value of Bread Proteins
for Adult Human Beings“ by Olaf Mickelsen; and “The Effect of Drying
Processes on the Functional Properties of Eggs,“ by Doris Downs and Raye
Funk.

435nng§1_fig22;§, 1967 and 1968,; MSU Archives, Box 383, Folder 138.

‘ Projects included “The Measurement of Clothing Attitudes and Behavior“
and “The Relationship of Clothing to the Personal and Social
Acceptability of Adolescents,“ both by Anna M. Creekmore and “Adolescent
Girls' Viewpoints from Ninth Through Twelfth Grade Concerning Dress,
Social Acceptance and Related Factors“ by Joanne Eicher.

65

and retired by then from MSU, she wrote a history of the program, and

blamed the program's demise on the lack of administrative support and

funding for adequate space and staff. But beyond that, wrote Dye:
perhaps the basic factor was that the University did not want to
continue to offer work in Home Economics. Certainly the
University has given little recognition to its Home Economics

Alumni who have achiextd national and international recognition as
scholars and leaders.

Dye faulted the administration's negative view of home economics,
despite the program's success, for home economics' demise at the
institution.

The program at the University of California-Berkeley encountered
similar hostility from administrators, and while the program survived,
much of it was moved to other campuses, so that its existence would not

detract from Berkeley's prestige.45 Rossiter notes that many of these

instances occurred at schools with presidents who wished to increase
their institution's prestige. Many of these men (including MSU's John

Hannah) saw home economics as detracting from the university's status.46

Rossiter attributes changes in the home economics programs to the
ambition of university presidents “to remake overnight what had been

perceived as a ‘cow college' into a prestigious university.“47

Improving home economics' professional standards and addressing
the research program were two methods used by home economics
professionals to respond to the criticisms of other academics and
administrators. Another method was to develop a unified definition and
direction for the profession as a defense against efforts to challenge

its validity. The profession recognized that it needed to adapt to the

 

44Marie Dye, Hingory of the Denantment of Home Economics, Eng
Hniygnni§y_gj_§nigngm (Chicago: Home Economics Alumni Association, 1972)
153. See also Rossiter, “Protecting Home Economics,“ 206.

4sRossiter, “Protecting Home Economics,“ 207.
46Ibid., 225.

47Rossiter, “Protecting Home Economics,“ 225.

66

changing needs of families and people and began to address how home
economics could serve those needs. The debate centered on the search
for a consensus on a definition of the field and what the unifying
concepts were. To address these issues, the AHEA formed the Committee
on Home Economics in Higher Education, and Dye was named chairperson.
The committee sought to determine, by investigating and studying the
programs around the country, what constituted a good program, and what
was necessary for one. Rather than accreditation, the committee
recommended self-evaluation as a means to standardize the field, and
held twelve workshops in the different regions of the country to help

institutions conduct the process.48 As a profession, little was

resolved immediately, but the work resulted in a curriculum revision at
MSU that was instituted in 1953-54; the changes included fewer

requirements in home economics and a greater professional focus.49 It

was the first of several programs to debate the purpose of home
economics, its focus, and definition. A critical issue was whether the
family, which was originally the cornerstone of the study of home
economics, was still the profession's central idea. The organization of
home economics, or whether the disciplines within it belonged together,
also was a constant topic of debate.

A speech by Paul Miller, an MSU provost, addressed these issues
and highlighted the controversy within the home economics community and
the faculty at MSU. Miller's speech, presented at the 1960 meeting of
the American Association of state Universities and Land-Grant Colleges,
addressed many of the issues confronting home economics, including the

lack of a definition and a unifying concept, and the profession's

 

48Marie Dye, “Implementing the AHEA Study on Home Economics in
Higher Education,“ undated, MSU archives, Box 385, Folder 55; and

"Higher Education Moves Ahead.” 129W. 43. 9
(November 1951).

49Lee, Engm Hgmg Egonomigs to Hnman Ecoiogy, p. 18.

'1‘ .LL

 

67
“anchor of relevance“ in the family.50 Miller's comments clearly placed

him in the camp that advocated a reorganization of home economics, and
questioned the inclusion of so many varied disciplines in one college.
The speech touched off a heated and lengthy discussion among the home
economics faculty, which invited Miller to attend a faculty meeting to
discuss the paper. In a rare instance, the meeting's proceedings were
carefully documented, with 12 pages of discussion entered into the
meeting's minutes. During the meeting, the faculty's dissension over
the meaning of the family for home economics and the organization of the

college were the primary topics.51 The faculty debated whether the

family was the “anchor of relevance“ for home economics and how that
related to the College's core curriculum and organization. Little
agreement existed within the faculty itself about these issues,
reflecting the dissension within the profession.

The debate continued, and another attempt to deal with the lack of
unity among the disciplines within home economics was made in the
sixties, beginning with a week-long seminar in French Lick, Indiana, in
1961. Lee was chairperson of the committee organizing the week-long
July seminar. The critical task of the profession was considering, and
justifying, what was included in the College of Home Economics. The
profession included disciplines rooted in sociology, psychology,

chemistry, and the arts. Again, the question was whether that was the

 

50Paul A. Miller, “Higher Education in Home Economics: An Appraisal

and a Challenge,“ Presented November 15, 1960 at the meeting of the
Division of Home Economics of the American Association of Land-Grant
Colleges and State Universities; MSU Archives, Box 364, Folder 28.
Miller was a provost at MSU at this time. He left MSU in 1962 to become
president of another land-grant institution, West Virginia University.
Lee referred to Miller as “one of (home economics'] most vocal critics“
in a faculty meeting. See Faculty Meeting Minutes, September 21, 1966;
MSU Archives, Box 359, Folder 36, p. 2.

51Faculty Meeting Minutes, College of Home Economics, MSU, January
12, 1961; MSU Archives, Box 359, Folder 34. What is perhaps more
telling is what was not discussed, and this will be dealt with later in
this chapter.

68

best way to organize them and if a unifying concept justified their

inclusion in home economics.52

The seminar, while laying important groundwork on the issue,
resolved little. The closing speech of the seminar reflected the lack
of unity within the field over what the unifying concept was and
whether, in fact, a college focused on the family was necessary. Dr.
Paul Dressel, a consultant for the seminar and an assistant MSU provost
as well as director of Institutional Research, questioned the necessity
of such an organization when virtually all parts of the university dealt
with the family in some way, a theme also voiced by Miller in his 1960
speech. Dressel suggested essentially dismantling the college by
placing the different departments with the appropriate discipline:
biological or physical sciences, the social sciences, business, and the
arts. Grace Henderson, of Pennsylvania State University, disagreed in
her closing address to the seminar:

It is precisely because the family is dealt with piecemeal by so

many forces in society - it is the focus of pressure from the many

segments of industry, law, church, medicine, and school - that a

branch of learning devoted exclusively to the family as a whole

(rather than to its fragments or to those agencies that have

vested interest in it) is essential. In such a college, all

fields of learning mergf to help the family find itself and its
most effective routes.

By 1963, Lee, too, doubted the focus on family for home economics,
not because the profession's center had shifted from family issues or
helping people deal with them, but again because of the field's lack of

research on family issues. Despite her commitment to teaching, Lee

 

52Home economics, because it originally contained many areas
considered “feminine“ fields, had lost other disciplines. Music was
originally taught in the Women' s Course, but was moved out of home
economics when the department of music was organized in 1919 (Gilchrist,
1n; Einn; Inge en Qecades o; Hom eEconomign, p. 31). Music continued,
however, to be required of home economics students (Gilchrist, p. 41).
The School of Education absorbed the elementary education program in
1942 and the five-year nursing program with Sparrow Hospital was
transferred to the College of Science and the Arts, in the new nursing

curriculum in 1950 (Lee. W. p- 18)-

53Grace Henderson, “Speech at Last Session of French Lick Seminar,“
July 28, 1961; MSU Archives, Box 385, Folder 35, p.2.

69

believed research was important to the advancement of any field, and
home economics research was not at the level of other disciplines, some
of which were more directly related to the family. Even in areas such
as foods and nutrition, where home economists conducted much of their
research, the output was “relatively small compared with the total.“

She also noted that a comparison of the total number of dissertations on
the family found few from home economics; “yet we talk about being the

only field that focuses on the family.“54 The numbers seemed to dispute

the dominance of home economics in dealing with family issues in Lee's
mind.

In addition to the issues of a definition of home economics and
what the field's fundamental basis was, the profession also faced
growing attention on its status as a predominantly female field.
Throughout these years women held most of the faculty positions, a fact
that was gaining increased notice on the part of administrators. The
program's preponderance of women made it “suspect“ or “unnatural.“ The
continued shortage of qualified faculty probably enhanced the importance
of this issue in home economics. But instead of addressing the
fundamental reasons why more home economics undergraduates - who were
predominantly women - were not pursuing advanced degrees, many
administrators and educators, including those in MSU's home economics
program, looked to recruit faculty men to solve the problem. Yet the
turn to men also revealed the suspicion surrounding a faculty
predominantly comprised of women. Some administrators, including
Miller, questioned the view of the family held by these faculty women,

many of whom shared the same role in society:

 

54Jeanette Lee, “Comments on the paper ‘The Roles of Home Economics
in Higher Education' by Dorothy Scott,“ given at the March 1967 meeting
for the Central Region Home Economics Administration; MSU Archives, Box
364, Folder 22, p. 4.

70

How stylized and rigid may one expect a faculty of women to be
when are involved in addressing one of the most fluid and dynamic
zones of social life from a life style which necessarily involves
them disproportionatggy in one of them - the professional role of
the unmarried women.

This point was raised in the faculty discussion of Miller's paper, when
Dr. Dorothy Arata mentioned her unmarried status - a status shared by
many of her colleagues - in relation to the discussion about the
profession's focus on the family:
For the most part we do not have a notion of what families do or
what they are like or what it is to be a member of one. It is a

complggely different sphere from what we have been in contact
with.

As the critics of home economics equated a woman's ability to understand
the family with her marital status, some home economists were beginning
to question the validity of their position. Underlying these ideas was
the belief that unmarried professional women were not “normal“ or
“natural,“ and could not truly understand American family life, although
all grew up in a family and remained a part of an extended family.
Miller's comments were a small but significant part of his paper,
especially in light of the fact that one of his suggestions for the

field was to hire men, a view shared by other administrators.57 None of

these administrators thought to consider why these women were unmarried,
or that perhaps pursuing both a professional career and a family was
difficult, given the division of labor within the family and society's
expectations about women's roles as mothers and wives. Instead, they

equated marriage with a woman's ability to understand family life, and,

 

5sMiller, “Higher Education and Home Economics,“ 40.

56Comments by Dorothy Arata in faculty meeting minutes, January 12,

1961, 9. Dr. Arata was an associate professor of foods and nutrition on
the faculty.

57Rossiter, “Protecting Home Economics,“ 216-217; Miller, “Higher

Education and Home Economics,“ 41. Miller wrote: “As we look to and
plan for the future, I would expect the faculties of your divisions to
not be almost entirely composed of women, nor to be exclusively led by
them.“

71

as evidenced from Dr. Arata's remarks, some of the home economists
agreed.

The belief that home economics needed larger numbers of men on the
faculty to make it a legitimate profession gained credence. Even
married women could not truly understand family life; men were necessary
as well to complete the picture:

I submit that as long as home economics remains predominantly an

arena for female action and opinion it has no right to presume to

speak for the family and cannot develop and implement ggose
programs needed to strengthen and improve family life.

The same author also noted that “home economics as a field of family
studies will have come to maturity when the presence of men among its

members is no longer an item worthy of publicity.“59 Men were a needed

component to make home economics a legitimate profession that could
study and research family interests.

As noted earlier, Lee struggled to deal with the shortage of
faculty, and one of the solutions she considered was to hire men, who
had the necessary “commitment“ to their career. Women were obtaining
fewer doctorates than men, and Lee, and the profession, viewed the
hiring of males as an immediate solution. Virtually no evidence exists
that administrators and home economists considered fundamental changes
in women's education and family responsibilities as a means to address
the lack of women pursuing graduate careers. Instead, they sought to
hire a more “committed“ labor force. These were not the first efforts

by home economists to encourage men to join their professional ranks,

 

58Luther G. Baker, Jr., “The Enigma of Men in Home Economics,“

W 61 (Hay 1969) 371-

59Ibid., 373. Baker's article also contains some progressive ideas

about gender roles, stating that “homemaking is man's work too“ and that
“fathers are parents too.“ But although he does recognize the changes
in women's roles, and thus the need for change in men's roles, he
neglects to take his consciousness about the oddity of being a male in a
women's profession and attempt to relate that to the numbers of
professions where the woman is the oddity. Apparently it is not
necessary for other professions to include women to the point where
their numbers are “no longer an item worth of publicity“ to come to
maturity.

 

72

but it is the first time that they made major changes in their
profession's organization and name to attract male faculty members.

Adding men to the faculty also served to help remove the
perception of home economics as strictly a female field; Dye, Porter,
and Lee all recognized that the feminized nature of home economics was
in part responsible for the lower stature of the profession in academia.
In 1967, Lee wrote,

The fact that home economics is essentially a feminine oriented

field is undoubtedly one of the major contributors to ouaopresent
dilemma both related to image and related to leadership.

What had prevented competition for jobs and provided opportunities for
women in science now was their chief problem: keeping women in
leadership positions within the field, as well as finding any qualified
leaders. Ironically, a field once thought to be the “natural“ domain of
women turned to recruiting men to maintain a quality faculty.

Conforming to male-defined standards of excellence proved to be the end

of the female domination of the profession.61

In 1957, the College of Home Economics at MSU had just one male
faculty member, an assistant professor in the Home Management and Child

Development department, out of a total staff of 80.62 In 1962, four men

served on the faculty: two in foods and nutrition, one in home

 

60Jeanette Lee, “Comments on the Paper,“ March 1967; MSU Archives,
Box 364, Folder 22, p. 1.

61Regina Runzel discusses this trend in relation to the
professionalization of social work, another female-dominated field, in
her book, W oblem G ls: Unma ed Mothe 3 nd t e

ess’ t o Soc'al Wo 890- 945 (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1993) 45. Kunzel writes that “The goal of raising
standards in social work often seemed to translate into a search for men
to join the profession.“

62See 0 and Sta 9 7- 8
Hniygnniny (East Lansing: Michigan State University, 1957) 98. At this
time, the college had four departments: Foods and Nutrition, Home
Management and Child Development, Institution Administration, and
Textiles, Clothing and Related Arts.

73

management, and one in textiles.63 In 1965, the college had seven men
on the faculty, out of a total staff of 81.64 The faculty had six men

in 1968, and by 1969 there were 10 men on the faculty. Four were in the
department of Family and Child Science (formerly home management and
child development), four were in textiles, and two in foods and
nutrition. That year also saw the first man appointed to head a home
economics department, when Robert Rice was named chairperson of the

textiles department.65 The year the college's name was changed to the

College of Human Ecology, 1970, saw little change in the make-up of the
faculty, although a man was named head of the new Institute for Family

and Child Research.66 When Lee retired later that year, Rice was named

acting dean of the college, the first male to hold that position since

the Women's Course opened in 1896.67 MSU's program actually had fewer

men than other programs. In 1965, while MSU's faculty was only 7
percent male, Pennsylvania State University's home economics faculty was
21 percent male, and Cornell University's was 17 percent male. As
noted, by 1971 MSU's human ecology faculty was more than 30 percent
male, but PSU's faculty was nearly 50 percent male, while Cornell

University's faculty was 38 percent male.68

A shift to a higher proportion of men on the faculty coincided
with the college's name change to human ecology, a change supported by

the MSU home economics faculty. The “Report of the Committee on the

 

63 t d f D ect M c ' an State 've -
(East Lansing: Michigan State University, 1962) 109-113. Another man
was a technician in foods and nutrition.

64Jeanette Lee, Notes for dean's group, p. 22-23. See note 33.

“MW. 138. 140. 143. 145. 170.
177.

66Engnity nng §§gfi§ Eingcgony, 1279-71. 185.
67Lee, Engm Hgmg Ecgngmics no Hnman Ecgiogy, p. 48.

68Rossiter, “Protecting Home Economics,“ Table 8.3.

74

Future of Home Economics“ endorsed the concept of a name change.69 The

change was necessary, the report stated, because of the college's
changing focus to the interaction of people and their environment and
because of the image attached to the term “home economics“. Home
economics was a pejorative among many in academia, and the MSU faculty
believed a name change would help remove that stigma:
In some respects, the name [home economics) is incidental in
comparison with what we actually Hg and hflfl_fll_£Qn§£12333 through
education to the well-being of individuals. On the other hand,
the name has come to hold for many such limiting connotations that

some who are trained in our various fields believe a name figange
is essential for creating a more accurate, positive image.

An article in the gnngnni_91_Hgmg_Egnnnmigg echoed these beliefs, noting

that the scope and definition of home economics had changed since its
inception, and a new name would reflect those changes. The author also
spoke of “the hidden nuances in the name,“ or the connection between

home economics and sewing, cooking, and the “less-able student.“7l' The

name “home economics,“ though, also was perceived to be a part of the
reason why more men were not interested in majoring in home economics,

another reason to institute a change:

 

69“Report of the Committee on the Future of Home Economics at MSU,“

71. For a discussion of the presentation of the report, see Jeanette
Lee, “Dean's Remarks, Presentation of Report of the Committee of the
Future of Home Economics,“ Home Economics Faculty Meeting, January 26,
1968; MSU Archives, Box 364, Folder 23. No records of subsequent
faculty meetings reflect the discussions about this report. A minority
report is mentioned, but is not included in the archival materials. The
minority chapter dealt with the philosophical background of home
economics, an early chapter in the report. Dr. Anna Creekmore, a member
of the MSU faculty, published a version of a minority report in the
1nn;nni_gj_Hgmg_Engnnmign, but she also favored restructuring the
college, although she does not address the issue of a name change. See
Anna M. Creekmore, “The Concept Basic to Home Economics,“ igngnni_mf

Hgmg_Egnngminn 60 (February 1968) 93-102.

70“Report of the Committee,“ 71.

71Patricia Durey Murphy, “What's in a Name?“ gmngnni_91_Hgmg
Eggngmign 59 (November 1967) 705.

75

Implications in the name seem to be a formidable deterrent to
recruitment of men into the program, either as students or
faculty, since the name and image seem to reflect home economics
as primarily a woman's field...Perhaps more men (faculty, majors
and non-majors) might be attifcted to this College if the present
name and image were changed.

The name change also reflected a shift in emphasis of study and
research. Rather than simply concerned with people and their near
physical environment, which was the original goal of home economics, the
term “human ecology“ reflected the study of the interaction of people
and the environment and the examination of the family, group or home as
an ecosystem. The new name signified a shift to a more ecological

approach in study and research.73

Although the faculty report encouraged a name change, it
recommended that a uniform name change be adopted at the national level,
preferably by the AHEA. Other programs already had instituted name
changes, but without any uniformity. The MSU report expressed concern
that several different name changes would result in a loss of identity

and unity within the profession.74 While it recommended that the

faculty take a leadership role in presenting the issue at the national
level, it did not recommend a name change only at MSU, but thought the
professional organizations should take steps to institute a national
name change.

Although the committee report included these recommendations, the

faculty reaction is unclear. No records of the discussions about the

 

72“Report of the Committee,“ 73.

73Jeanette Lee, “Change and Redirection at Michigan State

University,“ commencement speech, March 14, 1971, Michigan State
University; Voice Library, Michigan State University. Lee gave the
address at the morning commencement for graduates earning advanced
degrees that term from MSU.

74“Report of the Committee,“ 73. Name changes either instituted or
under consideration included the College of Human Development, College
of Family Living, College of Family Life, and the College of Human
Development and Environment.

76

report appear to exist, although in her remarks at the presentation of
the report to the faculty, Lee had concluded her speech by noting that:
For the time being these reports are to be kept “within the

family“ while we have the time to den} with the report and its
recommendations within this college.

Ho initiative was forthcoming from the AHEA or the land grant
association, and the MSU program formally changed its name in 1970 and
reorganized the structure of the college. The college still had four
departments, but they now included Human Nutrition and Foods (formerly
Foods and Nutrition and Institution Administration), Human Environment
and Design (formerly Textiles, Clothing, and Related Arts), Family and
Child Sciences (formerly Home Management and Child Development), and

Family Ecology, a new program.76

The largest changes occurred the following year, when the
department of Human Nutrition and Foods merged with the Food Science
department of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. After
1971, the department was held jointly by the two colleges, and the
faculties merged. The department office was moved to the Food Science
building, although faculty previously connected with the home economics
program kept their offices in the Human Ecology building. Dena
Cederquist, who headed the Foods and Nutrition department since 1956,
retired that year. Jacob Hoefer was acting chairperson for one year,
and Gilbert Leveille was appointed department chairperson the following

year.77 In 1970, before the two departments merged, the human ecology

 

75Lee, “Dean's Remarks, Presentation of Committee,“ p. 10.

76Lee, Engm Home Economigg tn Human Ecoiggy, 39.
77L... zr2m_B2m2_Esenemise_22_numan_zselegx. 49. Hoefer, WhOBO

doctorate was in animal nutrition, was a professor of animal husbandry
at MSU and served as the chairperson of that department from 1966-68.
He served as acting chairperson of the newly-formed Department of Food
Science and Human Nutrition in 1970-71. He was also named associate
director of the Agricultural Experiment Station at MSU in 1967. He
became assistant dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural
Resources and the College of Natural Science in 1978. See nmgninnn_Hgn
nng_Hgmgn_nz_§gigng§, 16th ed., volume III, 1986, p. 749.

Leveille, whose doctorate was in nutrition, was hired as a
professor at MSU in 1969. He had been an associate professor at the

77
faculty had 10 male faculty members.78 In 1971, with the faculties and

departments combined, 26 men served on the faculty of 84, or nearly 31
percent. Sixteen of those male faculty members were full professors, 14
of whom were from the former department of food science. Three of the
four male associate professors and three of the five male assistant
professors also were from food science; four men were in the department
of Family and Child Science, and one was in the department of Human
Environment and Design. None of the instructors in the college were

male.79 In addition, men headed three of the College of Human Ecology's

five departments: food science, human environment and design, and the
Institute for Family and Child Study, and Robert Rice was acting dean,
in addition to his position as chairperson of the human environment
program, although Lois Lund would be named dean of the college in
1973.80

A 1972 survey of home economics programs throughout the country
sought to evaluate the changes within the profession during the previous
decade. Considered in the survey were structural and organizational
changes, as well as changes in how those outside the profession

81

perceived home economics. Many reported a positive view of these

changes, reflecting improved attitudes toward home economics and a rise

 

University of Illinois at Urbana. He was chairperson of the Department
of Foods and Nutrition from 1971-1980, when he left the university to

work for General Foods Corporation. See Amenican Men and Women of
Science, 16th ed. volume IV, p. 714.

78£ngni§y and Etnffi Eiggcgogy, 1979-71, 146, 152-153, 185. The
breakdown of men according to department: four in family and child
science, three in human environment and design, two in human nutrition
and foods, and one family ecology.

”WW. 146-147. 152-154. 186.

80Lund had been chairperson of the department of home economics
research at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center. See

flh9;1_flh2_in_nmggign, 40th ed., volume 2, 1978-79, p. 2021.

81Susan Weis, Marjorie East, and Sarah Manning, “Home Economics
Units in Higher Education: A Decade of Change,“ gnnynni_ng_Hgmg
BEQDQELEI 55 (“CY 1974) 11-

 

7B

in enrollment, signifying perhaps that the efforts to better the
profession's status and to upgrade the field itself succeeded.

The survey found that just ten percent of those responding changed
the name of the program to something other than home economics. Just
four of the twenty-two reporting name changes chose human ecology, as
MSU did. Whether MSU participated in the survey is not known, but it is
evident that its name change was in the minority. What is more
interesting is that those reporting name changes also cited one
improvement factor more frequently than those not changing the name:
“Forty percent said the enrollment of men majoring in the field has F
increased, while 28 percent of the total group recognized an increase in

men majors."82 Why this occurred is only speculation, but the stigma

attached to the term "home economics“ and the reluctance of men to

 

pursue that study may be a part of the reason.

MSU's home economics program was at the forefront of efforts to
adapt and develop to changing demands in the university community. Its
faculty was aware of the criticisms of home economics, and spent a great
deal of time addressing and debating the issues raised. That may be, in
fact, why it survived with the changes described above. Lee hints at
this in a 1966 speech, just as the debate over the profession begins to
accelerate, culminating in the McGrath report and the restructuring at
MSU:

Home Economics has been criticized and praised, misunderstood and
challenged to greater things. But I think more important than
what is taking place at other institutions is the character and
spirit of the higher education enterprise at Michigan State
University. Michigan State is a University on the go...I have
heard both the Provost and the President say that those programs,
those colleges, those areas of study that come up with the most
forward looking and imaginative plans for the future - that are
consistent with the basic philosophy and objectives of this great
Land-Grant institution - will receive support. I am sure the call
is clear for us in Mom? Economics to lay out our projections, our
plans for the future.

 

82Weis, East and Manning, p. 15.

83Lee, Faculty Meeting Minutes, September 21, 1966, p. 3.

79

If the College of Home Economics did not address the changes the
administration believed necessary, then its future was in jeopardy. The
College did address the issues raised, and thus remained a part of the
university community.

The postwar period was a defensive time for home economics. Its
efforts to defend its place in the university and the academic community
consumed much of the profession's energy and efforts, and also placed
its members in a disadvantageous position to put forth new ideas about
women's role in the academy and society. Home economists did turn to
men to fill their faculty ranks, rather than aggressively questioning
why women were reluctant, or unable, to pursue graduate study in home
economics. They also accepted the drastic changes in their program, and
the idea that a part of its problem was the high numbers of women in it,
rather than asserting their value and equality. Feminized pursuits
continued to be devalued in a male-defined academic community, and
"women's work” was unworthy of men unless it adjusted its standards,
name, and content to accommodate men. The MSU faculty also acquiesced
as men began to take on more of the leadership positions and even the
deanship of the college. It adapted to society's definition of value
and worth instead of asserting its own.

But these results are not surprising, given the cards stacked
against home economists. They did try to communicate the importance of
their field to administrators and educators, but no one seemed willing
to listen. Their lack of public outcry at the treatment of home
economics is puzzling, and an explanation will likely come from a more
in-depth study of the women who led these programs, their activities,
and background. Eventually the seasoned defenders of the field retired,

most of them quietly with little said about these tumultuous years.8‘

 

84Rossiter, ”Protecting Home Economics," 227. Rossiter notes that

virtually none of these women became active in the women's movement,
including the National Organization for Women, although other groups of
academic women did participate. She speculates that these women may
have been too conservative “politically and stylistically" to join such
groups, although much more work on this remains to be done to draw any

80

Marie Dye's documentation of the elimination of home economics at the
University of Chicago is a rare exception, and she never wrote or spoke
about what occurred at MSU, or at least she did not leave any record of
it. These home economists did leave a legacy in the students they
taught and mentored during their years at MSU. Those students, how they
used their home economics education, and their reactions to that

education, are the subject of the next chapter.

 

definite conclusions.

CHAPTER 5

The Meaning of Home Economics Education:
Students at MSU

In a 1969 study of alumni of the College of home Economics, a 1956
graduate proudly noted on her survey that
home economics is related to my present job. I owe MSU and my

excellent teachers, and my field of emphasis very much for the
kind of person I am.

What kind of person was the Michigan State University home
economics graduate? Much of this thesis analyzes the role of
professional home economics educators and the message and values they
presented to their students. This chapter turns to the students to
address how they reacted to their education; what beliefs and practices
they internalized and embraced, and which they rejected. Although the
graduates span a period of nearly two decades (1948-1967), they shared a
common experience - their education in the College of Home Economics at
MSU - and that experience helped to shape the course their lives would
take.

The major part of the source base for this chapter is an alumni
study conducted in 1967 and 1968 and published the following year. The
study included input from graduates from 1948 to 1967, and its main goal
was to consider how the College of Home Economics could contribute to
the continuing education of its alumni. The study also aimed to analyze
what the home economics graduates thought of their MSU education and how
they used it. Because the study was geared specifically to serving the

educational needs of graduates living in Michigan, it was confined to

 

1 e e co c Stud 94 - 967: m at

19; figtuge Edugationgl grogramg (East Lansing: Michigan State
University, 1969) 119. The original surveys did not survive, therefore

the published results were used.

81

82
those alumni who were Michigan residents.2 The college hoped to use the

information and insights gained from this study to plan future programs,
both for the continued education of its graduates and the education of
incoming undergraduates.

The College sent surveys to 1,829 alumni, or about 47 percent of
the total degree recipients during the period (1948-1967). The College
selected the participants based upon residence (Michigan) and whether
current addresses were available. Of those sent, 75 percent, or 1,379,

were returned.3

An analysis of the study's results again points to continuities
between the 1950s and 1960s, especially in the discourse and rhetoric
about women‘s roles. But the hints of change appear. The alumni's
comments reveal the persistence of traditional values and gender roles,
but their rhetoric often conflicted with the reality of their lives,
including the large numbers who worked outside the home. Many assumed
primary responsibility for their children's care, and subordinated their
careers and education to those of their husbands. Many left the work
force while their children were young, emphasizing the need for them to
be full-time mothers and wives during those years. But a significant
shift appears in the comments of the alumni of the 1960s; although they
still believe their children need them at home, many return to work
earlier. While graduates of the 1950s might wait to return to work
until their children finished high school, the graduates of the 1960s

returned to work when their children began to attend school full time.

 

21bid., 2-3.

3Ibid., 9. The College of Home Economics awarded 3227 bachelor's

degrees and 661 advanced degrees during that period, for a total of
3,888. As noted earlier, the study coordinators targeted those
graduates living in Michigan, thus accounting for the difference between
degrees awarded and alumni contacted.

The College had a remarkably high return rate on its surveys. A
normal return rate for a mailed survey is between 33 and 40 percent,
according to Marcus Cheatham, Survey Director, Institute of Public
Policy and Social Research, Michigan State University.

83

The study also sheds light on what did not affect these graduates.
Although the College of Home Economics conducted this study in a period
of rising awareness about women's rights and the need for change in
women's roles, little overt evidence exists that these ideas affected
these graduates. But the vehemence with which some alumni defended
their decision to be full-time mothers suggests that perhaps the women's
movement was affecting their mindset, prompting them to justify why they
followed traditional expectations for women. But these graduates' lives
were not the image of the fifties full-time housewife catering to her
children. Employment rates and beliefs about when a mother should
return to work shift over the years of the study. Despite their claims
that they needed to be at home to care for children, nearly two-thirds

were working.4 These findings call into question the prevalence of the

image of the ”happy housewife“ and the ”problem that has no name" put
forth by Betty Friedan, and instead present a more complicated picture
of American women during this period.

Many of the survey's respondents accepted the dominant life course
idea for women's education, and followed that plan, but they then used
that idea to gain assistance from the university for the problems they
faced as mothers. They expected the university to provide accessible
educational opportunities to facilitate their return to the professional
world, and to accommodate their schedules which centered around their
children and husbands.

The sixties brought profound changes in the expectations of women
and the roles they occupied. More were working and the women's movement
called into question the rigid prescriptions of women as wives, mothers,
and housewives. The role of housewife and full-time mother was

increasingly recognized as unpaid labor.5 This study demonstrates that

 

41bid., 49.

58t-v-n Mintz and Susan Kellogg. 22m22tis_822212t12n2;_a_§22ial
aias2rx_Qf_hma£isan_zamilx_hife (New York: The Free Press. 1988) 207-209
and William M. Chafe, o : c W O

84

the issues, ideas, and concerns raised during the sixties did not reach
all people. Some issues held more appeal than others to these
graduates, but their silence on some of the key issues raised during the
movements of the 1960s speaks volumes about the limited appeal such
ideas held.

The study also offers an opportunity to consider how these
graduates dealt with the contradictions they faced as members of a

feminized profession.6 What emerges are contradictions similar to those

found in the lives of many American women, including the image of a
full-time mother and homemaker against the reality of employment rates
above the national average among the graduates. Comments regarding
their home economics education and its curriculum reflect tensions found
among educators and administrators of home economics in the debates
between practical and professional education and the appropriate
education for women. Some graduates criticized the college for being
too “professional,” resulting in what they saw as a neglect of the

practical arts, including sewing, needlecrafts, and cooking.

 

ggnnnzy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991) 194-202. Works
covering the goals, ideologies, and activities of the women's movement

include Sara Evans, Personal Politics: The Boots of Women's Libenaginn
in ghe Civil Rights Movemgnt & tne New Let; (New York: Vintage Books,

1980); Jo Freeman, e o t'c o Wome 's ber t 0 (New York: David

McKay Company, Inc., 1975); Cynthia Harrison, n Acc u 0 °
Enlitics of Womgn's IssuesI 1945-1968 (Berkeley: University

of California Press, 1988); Ethel Klein, d 0 cs:
Cnnggignnnegs £2 nnss Politicg (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1984).

6Many of these graduates completed their education at the bachelor

level. But despite the lack of advanced training, the College of Home
Economics (and the entire field) emphasized that its graduates were
professionals, training for a career. Home economists worked in
business, industry, education, social and community welfare programs,
and the Cooperative Extension Service. All three deans referred to
their training as one for a profession, and the students accepted that
definition.

The commitment to professional training was repeated in the alumni
study:

An important function of home economics at college level [sic] has
been generally regarded as education for a profession. The date
from this study may raise some interesting points in this regard,
even though data for women from other areas of specialization are
not available for comparison. (p. 47-48)

But, ironically, in an era when educators and policymakers
emphasized a woman's traditional roles as wife and mother, fewer women
who attended college chose home economics as their course of study.
While nearly all home economics students at MSU were women, not all
women chose home economics, and home economics graduates represent a
minority of women with MSU degrees. Rarely did women comprise less than
96 percent of the students enrolled in home economics, and more often

women occupied 99 percent of enrollments.7 Women also accounted for
more than 99 percent of respondents to the College's study in 1968.8

Although women dominated the MSU's home economics program, home
economics was not the education chosen by all, or even most, women at
MSU. By the middle of the century, women looked elsewhere at the
university for their majors.

The number of women attending MSU increased dramatically during
the postwar period. In 1946-47, women comprised about 27.9 percent of
the total student population at MSU; in 1950-51 that number was up to
31.7 percent. Women were 33.8 percent of the student population in
1955-56 and up to 39.1 percent of the total student body by 1960-61. In
1965-66 women accounted for 42.5 percent of all MSU students and in
1968-69 women were 45.2 percent of the student population (see Figure
1).9

 

7 o ult Women 0 ed t c
gniyggniny (East Lansing: Office of the Provost, 1970) 36; and a study
of registrar's reports from 1946-47 to 1958-59 shows this trend. Women
were 99 percent of enrollments in home economics in 1946-47; 98 percent
in 1950-51; 99 percent in 1955-56; 98.9 percent in 1962; and 96.8
percent in 1971. (Registrar's reports from 1959-60 to 1970-71 do not
provide a breakdown of enrollment by college and sex.)

3mm. 101-
9 o 0 cu t Wo e a d We e n o d at

aignignn_§;nng_gnigg;niny (East Lansing: Office of the Provost, 1970)
45a.

86

Figure 1.

x - percentage of total enrollment occupied by women at MSU

o - College of Home Economics' market share of degrees awarded to all
women at MSU.

* - College of Home Economics' market share of total number of degrees

awarded by MSU.

Snuggn; Reports of the Registrar, Michigan State University, 1946-1971,
were used to compile information on degrees. For information on
enrollment: of women. see W

Wain East Lansing: Michigan State
University, 1970) 45a. The Reports of the Registrar between 1965 and

1968 do not include a breakdown of degree awards by gender or college,
thus accounting for the break in the data (0). Because the College of
Home Economics' share of degrees awarded to all students remained

constant during those years, one can speculate that the number awarded

to women followed a similar path.

87

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Women students majored in many colleges on campus. Their numbers
were smallest in the colleges of Agriculture, Business, and Engineering;
in 1962 only 2.8 percent of all agriculture students, 12 percent of all
business majors, and 0.6 percent of engineering students were women; by
1971 those numbers increased to 10.9 percent in agriculture, 16.1
percent in business, and 4.6 percent in engineering. In 1962, when
women were 38.1 percent of the MSU student population, they comprised a
majority of the student enrollments only in the colleges of Arts and
Letters, Education, and Home Economics: 61.3 percent of arts and letters
students, 67.8 percent of education majors, and 98.9 percent of home

economics students were female.10 Degrees granted to MSU students in

-home economics rarely accounted for more 5 percent of the total degrees
awarded after World War II. For women students, home economics degrees
occupied a range of the market share of student majors. In 1946-47,
home economics degrees accounted for 22 percent of all degrees granted
to women, but that number slowly dropped during the next fifteen years,
reaching a low of 12.2 percent in 1957-58. After 1960, home economics

granted about 10 percent of all degrees to women (see Figure 1).‘1 The

actual number of degrees awarded in home economics continued to rise,

but a declining percentage of women majored in home economics.12

 

”MW. (1973). 36.

11Compiled by the author from a study of the Registrar's Reports

from 1946-47 to 1970-71. Reports from 1965-66, 1966-67, and 1967-68
again failed to provide a breakdown of degrees by college and sex, thus
accounting for a break in the author's compilation of data. See Figure
1.

12The same trend was true for enrollments between 1946-47 and 1958-

59. The actual number of women enrolling in home economics courses
increased, but the percentage of women choosing such courses slowly
declined. In 1946-47, 14.6 percent of women students enrolled in some
type of home economics course. By 1951-52 that number dropped to 10
percent. It rose slightly in the next four years, but dropped to 9.8
percent in 1956-57, 9.5 percent in 1957-58, and 8.9 percent in 1958-59.

The Registrar's reports for the remainder of the period in this
study do not include a breakdown of enrollments by sex and college, nor
does it include enrollment totals for the academic year.

89

The decline in the “market share' of students in home economics
was an area of concern for administrators, both at MSU and elsewhere in
the profession. Attrition rates averaged about 50 percent in home
economics, and prompted numerous studies as well as program revisions to

try to remedy the problem.13 The efforts resulted in curriculum

revisions at MSU, but the College's share of the student population did
not increase. As with the case of home economics faculty, the
profession began to recruit men to increase the numbers of home
economics majors and enrollments. In part because of the demand for
home economics professionals, educators renewed their efforts to attract
men to the profession, prompting one author to suggest:

Since a large turnover in personnel is characteristic of every

home economics field, could we consider more carefully our

practice of depending on women graduates as the professional

workers? Perhaps the increasing number of men graduates points
toward a more stable personnel. 4

Despite recruiting efforts, men, and most women, continued to look
elsewhere in the university community for their education, and women
continued to account for the majority of home economics enrollments and
majors. One historian suggests that declines in enrollment occurred for
two reasons: the availability of increasing opportunities elsewhere in
the university community and also because of the negative stigma

attached to home economics.15

 

13'Report of Committee ‘A' on Enrollments in Home Economics and
Drop-outs from this School of Home Economics,” 1950; MSU Archives, Box
365, Folder 4. For an overview of the period and its decline in
enrollment, see Ruth L. Bonde, "A Time of Growth, a Time of Decisions,”
gnnnnn1_nj_finmg_§gnnnmign 68 (January 1976): 29-32. See also: Florence
Corbin, ”What Can We Do About Drop-Outs,” tactical Home Economic; 33
(September 1954): 38-39; Beulah I. Coon, "Trends in Home Economics

Enrollment,” ougnnl of Home Economics 44 (May 1952) 334-337.

l4Beulah I. Coon, "Trends in Home Economics Enrollment,” Jounnnl n:
Hgm§_§gnngninn 44 (May 1952) 337. For discussions of men in home
economics, see Luther G. Baker, "The Enigma of Men in Home Economics,”
gnngna 1 9: Home Ecnnnnigg 61 (May 1969): 371- -373; Arnold Baragar,

”Opportunities for Men in Home Economics," onnna a1 9; Home Economigg 52
(December 1960): 833; Royston J. Lawson, 'Men and Home Economics in the

U.S.: 1900-1975,” _nn;nnl_nfi_figm§_fignnnnign 85 (Spring 1993): 47-52.

l5Rossiter, "Protecting Home Economics,” 203-204, 227.

90

Students in home economics, although representing a diversity of
backgrounds, did share similar characteristics. The alumni study, in
conjunction with other documents, provides a partial picture of the home
economics student population. The student population in the College of
Home Economics was predominantly white, middle class and from a
traditional, nuclear family. According to a study done by MSU faculty
of incoming freshmen in 1957-58, 91 percent of the new students were

from “intact families,“ or in families with both parents present.16 In

addition, most came from ”families in the higher status occupations,“
with 35 percent of the fathers listed as proprietors, managers, or
officials. Another 22.2 percent of the students' fathers were listed as
professionals and 15 percent were skilled workers. Nearly two-thirds
(63.9 percent) of these students' mothers were full-time homemakers,
with only 10.6 percent of the mothers listed as professionals. Most

families in the study had three children.” Nearly all the students

indicated a religious preference, with 85 percent categorizing
themselves as Protestant, 10.6 percent as Catholic, and 2.8 percent as

Jewish.18

Many of the students' parents were only high school graduates,
although some did attend college, even if they did not complete a
degree. Only 16.1 percent of the fathers and 23.9 percent of the
mothers held a bachelor's degree, and only 13.9 percent of the fathers
had education beyond that. Just 1.1 percent of the mothers held a
degree above the bachelor's level. Thus only a quarter of the mothers

earned a college degree and about a third of the fathers.19 Sending

 

l6Rosalind Mentzer and Jeanette Lee, ”Report of a Population Study

of Freshman Students Indicating Home Economics Preference, 1957-58,'
November 1958; MSU Archives, Box 364, Folder 52, p. 3.

171bide ’ ”R.”rt' 0| 3-49
18 e 3
Ibid., Report, 8.

19Ibid., “Report," 6.

91

their own daughters to college likely constituted an effort to provide
their children with more opportunities than they had.

Little evidence exists concerning the numbers of minority students
in MSU's College of Home Economics, and the lack of information is
probably significant in itself. It is not until the sixties, with the
rise of the civil rights movement and federal legislation seeking to
protect minority rights, that attention to minorities begins to surface.
Even as late as 1969, only eight, or four percent, of the incoming

class, which numbered 199, were African-American.20 For much of the

century, home economics at MSU was predominantly for white students.

The College's alumni study does provide some information about the
lives and backgrounds of the graduates participating in the alumni
survey. Overall, 80.4 percent were married. 82.2 percent of those
graduates holding a bachelor's degree were married, while 73.2 percent
of those with a master's degree were married. Only 28.6 percent of

those graduates educated beyond the master's level were married.21 The

 

20"Academic Advising of Black Freshmen in the College of Home

Economics,“ MSU Archives, Box 359, Folder 58. One of the only other
allusions to minority students is a disturbing letter among the
correspondence of the dean. The letter, addressed to Lee, then
assistant to the dean, requests racial information about one of its
applicants, a home economics student at MSU. Although the application
form does not ask for such information, and there are no restrictions,
the camp organizer is concerned:

This summer, however, it happens that the entire staff is white,
and I feel that if Pauline were colored she might feel somewhat
alone. She will share housing with 3 other girls and I am anxious
to have all the kitchen staff on the happiest possible terms with
each other.

Therefore, wrote Ruth Morris, a 1946 home economics graduate of MSU, she
requested a ”statement of her race.”

Lee replied, through her secretary, simply that "Pauline Wiggins
is a white girl.”

Such an incident not only indicated the feelings about African-
Americans at the time, but also suggests that although their numbers may
have been small, African-Americans were in home economics. See letter
to Lee from Ruth Morris, dated May 25, 1953; MSU Archives, Box 379,
Folder 9.

”am. 101.

 

92

average number of children per graduate was two.22 The educational

level attained by these women did affect their life course. Those with
more education had lower marriage rates; more chose to remain single.
Perhaps the most useful portion of the study is the collection of

comments written by the alumni.23 These comments bring to light the

ideals, values, and beliefs held by these graduates about balancing
their professional goals and plans with family responsibilities and
illuminates to some degree why those who worked outside the home did so.
The issues of how to juggle employment, further education, and family
responsibilities appeared most often in the comments by the alumni. The
graduates also discussed the ideas of women's education, including the
life course proposal common among educators of this period. To a lesser
extent respondents addressed the home economics curriculum, and brief
allusions to events and movements of the period, such as the women's
movement of the sixties, also appear. Examining these graduates'
comments for the above issues helps us to understand their reaction to
and use of their MSU education in home economics during a time of
questioning of women's roles.

The most common response from the graduates about employment and
further education was that the pursuit of both was contingent upon the
needs of their family. Most graduates expressed the belief that their
place was at home with their children, at least until they reached
school age. One graduate took issue with the definition of work and
education implicit in the questionnaire, noting that women worked inside

the home, even if the work was unpaid:

 

22Ibid., 101. The compilation of the alumni study results does not
provide a breakdown of numbers of children per graduate according to age
or level of education. Instead, the study simply lists the number of
children collectively under each education level, by the age of the
children. Thus it is impossible to tell how many had younger children,
when they graduated, or what their education level was. Without the
original surveys, this information is unfortunately lost.

23Of the 1,379 surveys returned, 216 (15.7 percent) included
written comments.

93

When people ask, “do you workP', my answer is, 'Yes, I am the wife
of Dale, the mother of Martha, Amy, Linda, and Jill.” I believe
that motherhood is the mostzgifficult, most challenging, most
rewarding job in the world!

She went on to note that her role as mother encompassed many duties and
skills both inside the home and in the community. She was a Girl Scout
leader and coordinator of the church women's group, and looked forward
to the opportunity to work through her church with low income mothers on
home management. She felt that such pursuits were as valid as paid

employment:

To me this type of ”work" is just as important as the woman who
supervises the school lunch program, the dietitian in the
hospital, the higasschool home ec. teacher and the so-called child
guidance experts.

This woman was not the only respondent to note that being a wife
and mother was a full-time job. Numerous others noted that "full time

homemaking is full time employment."26 Few entertained the idea that

working full—time was an option with children in the house. The notion
that such a combination - professional work and raising a family - was
possible or desired does not appear in these comments. Respondents
often used such phrases as ”can't,” "won't,“ and "of course" in their
decision not to work and the placement of their family's needs ahead of
their professional goals and aspirations. Most of the women responding
who alluded to family and work definitely placed the family first while
the children were young. Such responses as "I have a young family and
an obligation to them and my home” capture the sense of duty in these

women's words.27 Another example reads:

 

2‘Alnmni_§nngy, 119; respondent is a 1956 graduate of the MSU home
economics program.

25mm. , 119.

26Ibid., 131; respondent was a 1957 graduate of MSU living in Grand
Rapids.

27513mni_§nngy, 106. A 1954 graduate living in Sault Ste. Marie,

this woman was working full time despite her belief that her children
needed her at home. She had been out of the work force for eight years
but was unable to find part-time employment teaching home economics.

94

My most vital function at this time is as a homemaker. My “free
time" I devote to my family - at this Egme they are all still
young and need mother to be “at home.“

The importance these graduates placed on remaining at home with
their children is constant over the course of the study; graduates of
the fifties were as committed to their full-time role as mother and wife
as graduates of the forties. What does change is when they return to
work. While mothers who graduated in the early fifties tended to
express their intention to remain out of the paid workforce until their
children completed high school, graduates from the late fifties and
sixties expressed the intention to return to work once their children
were in school. Three women, all graduates before 1952, specifically
say that they would return to work after their children completed high
school. None do so in the later years. Some specifically say first
grade or elementary school, while others simply say when their children
reach school age. Only one respondent, a 1966 graduate, wrote that she

would return to work before her son entered school.29

Other women commented that their future plans depended on their
husbands' activities and wishes; a woman's goals competed with those of
her husband, and the husband's often won. One graduate's husband was

finishing a law degree, ”which must come first."30 Another noted that

she was teaching full time, but planned to quit at the end of the year:

 

Why she was working (economic necessity or personal choice) is unclear.

28Ibid., 117; respondent is a 1957 graduate.

29Ibid., 139. Respondent was a 1966 graduate from Webberville who

taught full time until her son was born. She continued to substitute
teach, but “probably” would return to full time, “within the next year
or two.”

30Ibid., 132; a 1953 graduate from Dearborn. Frank Stricker
discusses this trend in his study of professional women in the early
decades of the twentieth century. Frank Stricker, “Cookbooks and Law
Books: The Hidden History of Career Women in Twentieth Century America.“

W 10 (1976) 10-

95

My working has caused my family great inconvenience. Therefore,
my husband insists I not work full time again until my children
are grown.3

This graduate had substitute taught in an effort to only work part time,
but noted that “there is very little personal satisfaction in substitute
teaching.” As a result, she returned to full-time teaching, but its
strain on her family (including her husband) prompted her to leave the
work force.

This woman expressed her frustration at her inability to find
rewarding part-time employment, a feeling shared by many other
graduates. Rather than rejecting her career, she wanted to make it fit
within the demands her family responsibilities placed on her. As she
noted:

From speaking to other women, I know my situation is not unique.

Many of we 1960 college graduates love our professions and want to

use our knowledge, ability and talents outside the home. We find

we can't be competent full-time professionals, attentive mothers

and loving wives - and we cannot find part-time jobs that suit our
needs. HELPII I'm first in line!

Working full time and assuming all the duties expected of a wife and
mother was difficult for this woman, probably because her marriage was
based upon traditional gender roles. We do not know the dynamics of the
sexual division of labor in their home, but given her husband's
displeasure at her full-time employment, he probably expected her to
fulfill the usual duties in the home and was unwilling to help. Without
a change in gender expectations, and the institutional supports
necessary for mothers to work full time, such an endeavor clearly was
difficult. Many women who had children expressed a wish for
professional, part-time employment, especially jobs that would fit their

children's school hours. Many noted their inability to find such

 

3lIbid., 132; a 1962 graduate.

32Ibid., 132. See Stricker, ”Cookbooks and Law Books,” 4.

Stricker argues that women who did interrupt their careers to raise
children often did so for practical reasons, including a lack of
sufficient earnings to afford domestic help or child

care, if they were even able to find child care.

96

positions, prompting them either to leave the field or the work force
until their children were older.33 The burden was on the individual

woman to find ways to accomplish both tasks and these women expressed
frustration at their inability to do both.

Not all the survey respondents' voiced such beliefs, but the
comments from women who were active in the profession and engaged in
full-time employment seldom mentioned children, marriage, or husband.
The lack of reference to children or husband make it difficult to
determine whether they had either, and without the original surveys,
such information is lost. If some of these respondents were balancing
both professional and family responsibilities, they provided no clues to
explain how they did so or why they were different from their fellow
alumni.

Despite the preponderance of comments regarding the importance of
full-time motherhood and homemaking, the study results report that 62.5

percent of the respondents were employed at the time of the study.34

That figure is significantly higher than the employment figures for
women in the United States in 1967, at the time of the alumni study. In

1967, about 39.7 percent of all women over 16 years of age were in the

 

33Stricker, "Cookbooks and Law Books,” 4; Alice Kessler-Harris, gun

to - W e- rn W men the ted tates (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1982) 312.

35812mni.§§n§xo 49. This figure includes those respondents (5.7

percent) who did not answer the employment questions. If those surveys
are excluded, 70.2 percent of the respondents are employed. I chose the
other figure, reasoning that although they did not provide an answer to
the employment question, they still were a part of the survey's source
base. Also, the lack of a response suggests that the respondent was not
employed, rather than working outside the home.

For a discussion of women's employment rates in the late sixties,
see Eessler-Harris, Qn;_§n_fln;k, 300-301.

 

97
labor force (and 37.8 percent of all married women).35 The study also

found that 17.9 percent of the respondents had never worked or had been
employed less than one year after graduation from college. Of those
working, 68.1 percent were in education; 17.1 in business; 5.5 percent
in health fields; 3.8 percent in community service; and 5.5 percent in
related fields.36 Sixty four percent of those employed were working in

a home economics or related position.37

When the employment figures are broken down for each alumni group,
those women graduating in the sixties tend to have higher rates of
employment than those in the fifties. Forty-five percent of the 1948
alumni were employed at the time of the study; 50 percent of the 1950
graduates; 55.2 percent of the 1955 graduates, and 46.1 percent of the
1960 alumni. Seventy-one percent of the 1963 graduates reported
employment, and 80 percent of the 1965 graduates were employed. Of the
1966 alumni, 80.5 percent were employed, and 93.6 percent of the 1967

graduates were employed.38

One reason for the higher employment rates as compared to the
national figure may be that most of the women responding to the survey

likely were older than 22, as they all held college degrees.39 Also,

the pool of respondents who were more recent graduates was higher than

for earlier years. Numbers of alumni from 1948 to 1963 returning

 

35U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, gistonigni

§§§£L§§LE§ 9: fine United sgnten: Coioniai Times go 1970 (White Plains,
NY: Kraus International Publications, 1989) Part I, 133. The number of

married women with children under 17 years of age who were employed at
that time was 27.4 percent. Given the organization of the study
results, it is impossible to determine how many of the respondents who
reported employment also had children.

36Ibid., 62.
37Ibid.

3§hlumni_§tugx. 49.

39Employment figures for 1940-1966 include all women over the age
of 14, and after 1966 statistics included all women over the age of 16.
300 Hi!!9£1£11.§§2£1§£i§§o 123-

98

surveys was between 42 and 76 (per class). That number jumped to 90 for
the class of 1964 and continued to rise: 115 members of the 1965
graduating class returned surveys, while 158 did so from the class of
1966 and 169 from the class of 1967, the last group included in the

study.40 Recent graduates were less likely to be married and have

children, and thus were more likely to be employed full time in their
profession. The number of comments regarding the conflict between
employment, further education, and family responsibilities also drops
when the more recent alumni are studied. The bulk of such comments
originated from alumni from the late forties and fifties. What does
seem clear is that most women dealt with the conflict between their
profession and family responsibilities by not attempting to do both at
once, or by choosing part-time employment. Instead, they adopted the
life course idea that women would leave the workforce during the ”peak
years“ while their children were young. They combined motherhood and a
career by fulfilling these roles serially, focusing on the children when
they were young, and then returning to the paid labor force. But the
conflict between the high percentage of alumni employed and the large
number of comments expressing the commitment to full-time homemaking
suggests that perhaps women who were not employed felt compelled to
justify their decision to stay out of the paid labor force.

What is harder to pinpoint among the study respondents is why they
worked. The questionnaire offered three possible reasons: financial,
self-satisfaction, and commitment to the profession. Financial reasons
were cited by 48.6 percent of the respondents, and 43.8 percent listed
self-satisfaction as the major reason for working. Only 7.6 percent

listed professional commitment as the major reason.41 Some respondents

did comment on their reasons for working. Two noted that one answer did

 

4°Ibid., 9.

41Ibid., 80. Unfortunately this is one of the few instances in the
study results where no breakdown by alumni group is given.

99

not suffice, but that all three played a role in the decision to seek
employment outside the home. Some women worked with their husbands in
their business or profession (one worked with her husband in his dentist
office, two with their veterinarian husbands and another in an
unidentified small business). Another woman made draperies for J.C.
Penney Company in her home, noting that it allowed her “to take care of

ll'Y ftnily and help with the financial problems, too."42

Nearly half of the respondents said they worked for financial
reasons, but that category encompasses a range of possible classes and
financial situations. It is not clear whether they were working to
afford the middle-class lifestyle or if they were working to provide for
the basic necessities of their family's survival. One woman noted that
she worked because her husband was ill and unable to work, but also that

she worked for self-satisfaction.43 Another mentioned returning to work

to provide a college education for her children, and a 1963 graduate
noted that she worked part time for “luxury items...while we do spend my
earnings, the money goes for items we don't really need but are glad to

have."44 It is difficult to assess what the motivations were for women

who did not comment on their reasons for working.

The fact that some women were able to remain at home and care for
their children full time, rather than working outside the home, or to
work only part time, indicates that the husband's income was sufficient
to provide for the family's basic needs. Likewise, some women expressed
the urge to return to their profession, but believed their place was at
home with their children until they entered school. It is impossible to

determine the class make-up of this group, but this study suggests,

 

4’ZIbid., 134; a 1961 graduate living in Ann Arbor.
43Ibid., 115; a 1949 graduate from Fenton.

44Ibid., 118 (a 1952 graduate), 132. Although She did work, thil

respondent noted that she only worked part time (substitute teaching two
days per week) because of her children and household duties.

100

although tentatively, that many were middle class, and that the
graduates' incomes, if they did work, were not vital to the family's
survival.

A few women mentioned the difficulty of finding adequate child
care for their children, although day care concerns were not an
expressed major hindrance to these women's employment. One woman did
note that “a babysitter could not provide the religious-related moral

training we are trying to guide our children by.'45 What is perhaps

more significant is that nowhere in the study's questionnaire were
respondents asked who cared for their children if they worked, or if
securing such care was a problem. The study's content again illuminates
the attitudes and beliefs of the educators behind it; rather than
considering what factors inhibited women from pursuing careers or
education while they had young children, the study's authors (MSU home
economics faculty) accepted the “life course” idea of the era. Implicit
in the study's neglect of such an issue as the availability of child
care is the notion that women should not be concerned with day care, as
most are raising their own children; it is a part of their ”dual” role.
But this also points to the class bias of the study. It assumes women
have the luxury of making the decision to not work outside the home, but
instead could remain home to raise their children and be full-time
homemakers. The study does not fully address the financial or class
aspects of the employment issue. Do women need to work; is it not a
choice? And if they do work, how are they caring for their children?
These questions remain unanswered.

The alumni plans for further education were similar to their
employment plans - any activities were contingent upon the family needs,
if any conflict was mentioned. Many women noted the difficulty of

pursuing graduate study with children and a husband, either because of

 

4'sIbid., 133. Comments of a 1958 graduate residing in Elsie.
Despite her commitment to raising her own children, she did express a
desire to return to the business world: "I yearn strongly to re-enter
the business world at a future date."

 

101

the time or cost of both tuition and child care. Transportation was
another major problem for many women, particularly those who did not
live within commuting distance of MSU or other colleges and
universities. The lack of available courses also prompted some women to
pursue study outside of home economics, often in education:
Graduate courses in home economics are so difficult to obtain off-
campus and with many of the home economists assuming a dual role

of family life, I am feeling compelled toaghange my master's
degree area to obtain off-campus courses.

Some women faulted the university for its lack of support and
understanding concerning the desire of women (and mothers) to continue
their education. Some criticized the lack of coordination between the
various state universities regarding the transfer of credits or
restrictions on when credits were voided, and also the lack of
understanding about the constraints on many women's time and resources:

The universities must recognize that women with school age

children who are attempting to maintain a home (sometimes work)

and go to school have extremely severe demands made on their time
and energy and the universities should favor a position which
would help them (this being a basic philosophy of home economics)

instead of making restrictions so severe that ali7but the most
determined become thoroughly disgusted and quit!

One woman, frustrated at having her credits voided after five years,
questioned whether the university and the College of Home Economics were
truly interested in the married graduate or the experiences she had
outside mainstream education or employment:
The experiences I have had, have been more than equal to other
credits I might have been accumulating, in making me a more

effective teacher of Homemaking - or is the University advosgting
the ”well-rounded spinster' as a teacher of home economics?

Not all graduates viewed the university or the College of Home
Economics as negatively. Many of these graduates expressed pride in

their profession, or at least wrote that their ”leave" from employment

 

46Ibid., 112; a 1962 graduate. For similar comments, see 121.
47Ibid., 114; a 1954 graduate from Athens.

48Ibid., 108; a 1949 graduate.

 

102

was temporary and due to the needs of their families. Some graduates

placed a great value on their education, and were looking for ways to

use it that fit into their lives:
Your questionnaire is so appreciated; how wonderful to know your
committee is aware of the needs of frustrated Home Economist -
homemakers, who would rather donate their skills and efforts than
to spend the rest of their lives seeking time consuming
entertainment...I for one human being find myself burned to the
core with activities that are all talk and no concrete evidence of

work accomplished! Gaining an education was the fight 2; my life
and I want to do something with it as soon as I'm able.

Another graduate expressed a similar desire to contribute her talents to
society, placing a high value on the education she received:
I work because I enjoy it but closely behind that is the fact that
I feel very strongly that I have an obligation to more than my
profession - to the community and to society - to not waste the
education which I, my parents and the state have financed. I plan

to algays (assuming reasonable health, etc.) to work at least part
time.

Clearly many women accepted the "life course" education idea (see
chapter 3). This concept reiterated the likelihood, if not
inevitability, of a woman's eventual role as wife and mother. During
the “peak years“ when a woman had small children, the dominant thinking
was that she would leave the workforce (assuming her family was
financially able to allow this) and raise her children. The comments of
this study tend to show that these women followed this prescription, if
they were able, but the employment statistics are more difficult to
assess, largely because we do not know how many of those women working
were married or had children.

One respondent believed that motherhood was the most important job

for a woman and demanded her full attention, as prescribed by the life

 

49Ibid., 117. In stating ”when I'm able,” the respondent is

referring to raising her children. She expressed the intention to
return to work once they were in school.

Another graduate expressed a desire to have materials and seminars
which would help her update her knowledge in home economics. She noted
that she was ”sick of Women's Magazines (Journal and McCalls)." See

Ainmni_§§ngy, 113; a 1951 graduate.

5°1bid., 135; a 1964 graduate living in Grand Rapids, this person

does not mention family or children; it is unclear whether she is
married or has children.

 

103

course concept. She also, however, asserted that not all women could be
good mothers. She suggested that couples should be carefully screened
before marriage ”to find out if they will make good parents“ as “there
is too much social pressure to have children.” She believed mothers
should remain out of the workforce “until our other vastly more
difficult and rewarding job is over.“ She saw no contradiction between
motherhood and a profession. For her, it was an either/or choice. One
could not do both at the same time. She did not plan to pursue her
career or further education until her children were grown, as the life

course prescription suggested.5l

Many of the respondents did plan to return from their ”leave" from
home economics, and noted that the College of Home Economics could best
help its alumni by offering ”refresher” courses to enable them to do so.
Their requests for such programs echo the recommendations of the
President's Commission on the Status of Women, whose report suggested
assisting women in their return to the labor force after raising their
children. The report urged the utilization of community colleges and
university programs to encourage and facilitate the continuing education

of women.52 The MSU graduates requested similar programs from their

alma mater, or other state schools. They wanted programs that would
enable them to obtain the education and training they needed to return
to the profession, but expressed frustration at the obstacles in their
path.

The president's commission suggested that older women could be

trained to alleviate labor shortages in specific occupations. One such

 

5!Alnmni_§§ggy, 119; a 1956 graduate.

52Margaret Mead and Frances Balgley Kaplan, eds. nnggignn_gnngni

t oe de t' s Comm ss 0 th Status 0 We e a
c o C ' (New York: Charles Scribner' s Sons,
1965) 103-107. 0See also, Harrison, 9n nccgnnt of Sex, 154- 155.

104

occupation was elementary and secondary school teaching.53 One alumni

addressed this topic, questioning the talent wasted:
Why are the Universities permitting thousands of former teachers
to stagnate for six or eight years (while their children are

small) without making a rgtl effort to help these young mothers
continue their education?

This woman suggested that more course offerings in home economics be
available within a reasonable distance for travel. She also suggested
that local schools be used as colleges in the evenings to house these
off-campus course offerings:
As a result of an effort like this, thousands of college trained
people could continue their education, earn higher degrees and be

ready to rggoin their profession when family obligations are
decreased.

Other women wrote of the need for “updating" their knowledge, but
again within the bounds of their family's needs:
I am very interested in being ‘updated' by taking courses at a

nearby center (future; without neglecting my jinn; commitment - my
husband and children. 6

The respondents wanted to return to work and school, but did not
question the common beliefs about a women's life course, or the desired
"leave" from professional employment while their children were young.
They did not advocate a change in gender roles in the home and a shift
in responsibilities with their spouses to enable them to do more than
care for their families and homes. These women did believe that the
university, and the College of Home Economics, could do more to enable
them to return to the professional world when their family
responsibilities diminished. Their comments urged more accommodation to

their roles, rather than a change in those roles.

 

53Mead and Raplan, Angginnn_flgn§n, 106.
54513mni_§§ngy, 109; a 1953 graduate.

551bid., 109. For other examples of interest in ”refresher”

courses, see 124 (1959 graduate); 134 (1958 graduate); 104 (1955
graduate); and 107 (1952 graduate).

56Ibid., 104; a 1959 graduate.

 

105

Regarding the specifics of the education they received at MSU, the
comments tended to reflect a split found in the education profession
throughout the fifties and sixties: professional versus practical
training. And although the College of Home Economics faculty espoused
the training of professionals not just homemakers, some of the graduates
commented on the use of their education in their roles as housewives and

mothers.57 Some graduates who noted that their first responsibility was

to their family, commented that their MSU education prepared them well

for homemaking.58 A 1944 letter to Dean Marie Dye captures the spirit

conveyed by later graduates about the value of their education for their
roles as wives and homemakers:
Keeping house has been fun and many times my friends have remarked
that if they had it to do all over they would take home ec as then
they would know how to cook and sew and do things the easy way.
One friend remarked that she had to laugh because her cousin took
home ec and that the two of us went about things in the kitchen in

thesgame manner - that we thought things out before we plunged
in.

Other alumni echoed these feelings, stating that their education helped
them in their roles as mothers and homemakers, although the prevalence

of such comments declines for the more recent graduates.60

Other graduates, especially those either teaching or working as
agents in the Cooperative Extension Service, lamented the lack of
practical arts learned at MSU. As high school teachers, some noted,
their college education did not prepare them for the basic, fundamental

how-to questions they encountered when working with adults through the

 

57Ibid., 47-48. This belief is reiterated in the text describing
the employment status of the study participants. See note 6.

58Ibid., 132 (1952 graduate), 132 (1956 graduate), 118 (1959
graduate), 121 (1960 graduate), and 117 (1962 graduate).

59Letter from Betty (Nilsson) Stisser to Marie Dye, dated October
2, 1948; MSU Archives, Box 365, Folder 76.

fighiumni_§§n_y, 132 (1952 graduate); 119 (1956 graduate); 118 (1959
graduate); 121 (1960 graduate); and 117 (1962 graduate).

 

106

Extension Service or teaching students (mainly girls) in secondary
school programs. They found the emphasis on theory impractical in their
everyday work experiences, and wished the curriculum had included more
basic skills, such as sewing, cooking, and canning. As one graduate
commented:
I feel that the College of Home Economics could better prepare the
girls who will teach by requiring more courses in the practical
fields of sewing and cooking. Theory is a fine thing for college
but children in junior high and some in senior high expect to
learn how to sew and cook and many students taking home economics

in high school have a great deal of trouble applying the amounts
of theory that we are expected to teach them.

A woman working in the Cooperative Extension Service also criticized the I
lack of training she received in practical skills. She particularly
noted this void in dealing with the homemakers she served as an

extension agent:

 

When I got into Extension work, a good 25 [percent] of my
questions from women concerned canning and freezing. I had never
done either one or even discussed it in school. g? Extension
there should be far more in sewing and tailoring.

A 1958 graduate recalled an experience she had concerning this
issue during her senior year at MSU. A faculty member, seeking input
from the soon-to-be graduates, asked the class what courses they thought
were missing from their college education. This woman responded that a
course in needlecrafts ('knitting, embroidery, crocheting, etc.')
appeared to be necessary:

I was most embarrassed when she "ha-ha'd“ me and laughingly

explained that these things were all considered old-fashioned and

we should try to show others how impractical these things were.

However, when I planned homemaking units wg§h my students they
invariably asked me to teach them to knit.

This woman also noted her lack of knowledge about other subjects, such
as upholstering and slipcovers, when people sought her out for help.

She, in fact, was undertaking her first slipcover project, “with the use

 

61Ibid., 123, a 1967 graduate from Mason.
62Ibid., 118, a 1956 graduate from Clark Lake.

63Ibid., 109, a 1958 graduate from Grant.

107

of a very general article I found in one of my magazines. How much

easier it would be if I knew what I were doing."64 Another graduate

noted that the lack of skills was a common problem for teachers working
with student teachers from MSU: "I have heard so many, many teachers
complain about the student teachers they get from State who don't even

know how to apply zippers.'65

This lack of preparation for teaching basic skills prompted two of
the study's respondents to leave their fields, due to their own feelings
of inadequacy. One Extension agent left her position for elementary
education, noting that her lack of practical training was certainly a
part of her decision: ”I did not feel well enough informed to be

teaching women who had been homemakers for many years."66 Another

graduate echoed this belief:
I am leaving the field due to frustration in having to teach

subjects I have had little training in and w 1 work in a minor
field which gave me subject matter training.

Such attitudes about emphasizing the practical arts over theory are not
confined to one era of graduates; instead, women from the entire range
of alumni included in the study expressed these concerns. Clearly the
tension between professional and practical training existed among home
economics students as well as its faculty and university administrators.
Not all women shared this view of home economics at MSU. Several
women, especially recent graduates, commented positively about their
education, and noted that they saw no need to further it at the time.
This in part might have been because they had recently graduated, and
had not been out of the profession for long, if at all. Some, although

they did not remain in home economics, branched into related areas of

 

64Ibid., 109.
651bid., 130; a 1966 graduate.r
661bid., :13.

67Ibid., 127.

108

interest, such as education, social work, or journalism. Two of the
respondents commenting in the survey were college professors (a
professor in biology at Calvin College and an assistant professor of
foods and nutrition at Marygrove College) and another was an instructor

at MSU who was also working toward a doctoral degree.68 Several

respondents noted that they went on to earn master's degrees in
education, either at the elementary or secondary level. Another used
her family life education in her position as a guidance counselor at a

small high school.69 One graduate took her training in teaching basic

living skills and combined it with graduate work in special
education.7o. Another graduate used her education in home and family

living in her job at the Department of Social Services.71

One graduate was a newspaper reporter and copy editor in Detroit,
and although little of her time or work dealt directly with home
economics, she wrote that her education was very valuable. She also
expressed an interest in short courses to update her knowledge of the
profession:

I have an education in home economics because I believe this is

the best preparation for putting together a newspaper siftion that
is of interest to and beneficial to women and families.

 

68What is interesting about these three women is that although all
three were originally trained in home economics, and two were teaching
it at the college level, none of them were pursuing graduate degrees in
the field. The Calvin College faculty member was working toward a
degree in microbiology and the Marygrove professor's doctoral work was
in bacteriology. The instructor was teaching in the clothing and
textiles department at MSU, although her doctoral work was in sociology.
See ninnni Study, 137, 143 (1961 graduate); 136 (1957 graduate); and 143
(1964 graduate).

691bid., 143, 1958 graduate.
7°Ibid., 110, a 1949 graduate

71Ibid., 135; a 1955 graduate. At the time of the questionnaire,

this woman was on maternity leave, but wrote that she planned to return
to work within two or three years.

721bid., 136, a 1966 graduate.

 

109

What is common to many of these professionals is that they were
taking their knowledge of home economics taught by them at MSU and
passing it on to others: middle and high school students, college
students, social service clients, adults through the Extension Service,
and newspaper readers. Here is found the legacy of the home economics
faculty and professionals discussed in the previous chapter. The
beliefs and values they taught were being carried on through these
women. And although home economics did carry a stigma in the academic
world, a stigma faced by some of these alumni who pursued graduate
education outside of MSU or home economics, these women considered
themselves professionals. They took pride in their professional roles,
or in roles which they believed to be worthy of the term,

”professional,“ such as homemaking and motherhood. And those who left

 

the world of the paid professional to raise their families often
expressed the intention to return to the profession. Whether they
indeed did is not known, but they expressed professional pride in their
comments.

But these women were writing in a period of profound social
upheaval and change in American society. Student movements, the civil
rights movement, and the women's movement were just a few of the changes
sweeping the United States. While these events do not pervade the
survey comments, hints exist. Criticisms of the white, middle-class
focus of the home economics program and the people it was intended to
serve appear in the comments of the graduates from the 1960s. Several
graduates called attention to this bias, both economic and racial, and
asserted that it was time the program adapted to the realities of
American society:

Most of the traditional Home Economics training is geared to the

”middle class” child from a ”traditional” home environment. The

usual curriculum is most ineffective and meaningless when

presented to the individual coming from t9? unusual home, with
experiences peculiar to these situations.

 

73Ibid., 110; 1949 graduate.

 

110

In her comments, this graduate spoke not only of the special education
students with whom she worked, but also of lower-income and inner-city
residents, such as those served through the anti-poverty programs by the

Johnson administration.74

Another respondent noted this void in the home economics program:
I have had to become aware of an all new, moral standard, life
goals and way of life which the persons I've worked with have.
It's a shock at times - to my middle class - white background. It
would have beena ahelp for me and for any of our teachers to have

had some knowledge of a person in the low income and welfare
groups. 5

Clearly the changes of the sixties, including the heightened awareness
of the problem of poverty and the large numbers in the non-middle class
was affecting some of these graduates. While the home economics student
population might be predominantly white and middle class, the people
they were increasingly serving in their efforts to improve family life
were not, and some graduates were beginning to see this void in their
college training. Like much of the nation, these graduates were seeing
another side to American society, and expressed the desire for
educational training to enable them to deal with these problems as
professionals.

What is also interesting, however, is what apparently did not
affect these graduates. By 1968, the women's movement had begun,

although its full force was yet to come.76 The President's Commission

on the Status of Women, the first national commission to address issues

 

74See William H. Chafe, xng_gnfiininngn_gnngngy (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1991) and Jim F. Heath, cc de s o e

ed 0 e (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975)
192-193, and chapter 7, "The Years of Triumph”. For further discussion
of the sixties, see Godfrey Hodgson, America in Our Time: Fnom Wogid W3;
11 to NixonI Wnat Hanngned and Why New York: Vintage Books, 1978) and

Allen J. Matusow, U rav
Eh!_12§_! (New York: Harper 8 Row Publishers, 1984).

75mm, 113; a 1951 graduate.

7’6One author targets 1970 as the year the women's movement began
full force, although it began earlier. See Freeman, Ing_znii§ign_nf'
We 148-

 

111

relating to women, was formed in December 1961 and issued its report two
years later. The report did not advocate radical changes in women's
roles or argue women's equality with men, and in fact asserted that
”women's obligation to be the primary nurturers of children remained
immutable, a critical difference between men and women as workers.“ But

the commission and the report did bring women's issues to a national
forum for discussion.77 Betty Friedan's Inn_£§mining_uyn§igng, appeared

in 1963, the same year the Equal Pay Act was passed by the 0.8.

Congress.78 The Civil Rights Act was passed the following year and the

National Organization for Women was formed in 1966. All of these events
drew attention to the position of women in society. Yet these graduates
appear untouched by these events or issues.

The "feminine mystique" image made so popular by Betty Friedan is
not found among the few archival resources relating to students or in
the alumni study comments. The alumni do not express boredom or
frustration, although some are anxious to return to the workforce. None
refer to the presidential commission, the Equal Pay Act, or NOW. The
one reference made to the feminine mystique rejects the notion that
women were unhappy in their roles as wives and mothers and reinforces
the idea that full-time motherhood is critical:

And I say "humbug" to the Feminine Mystique advocates who say a

woman must leave home to be fulfilled...If a woman doesn't want a

family, fine, she can be a ”professional”. The rest of us should

wait ygtil our other vastly more difficult and rewarding job is
over.

Not only did this woman reject the feminine mystique, but she did not

believe women can be professionals and mothers. She placed a high value

 

77Harrison, Qn_nnnnnn§_nj_§§n, 138. Harrison provides a very

thorough analysis of the commission and its relationship to the Equal
Rights Amendment controversy. See also Mead and Kaplan, eds., Amgninnn

figmen.
7saarrison. W. 89-105.
79513mni_§§ngy, 119. Also see note 51. See also Betty Friedan,

t (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 1974
[1963]).

 

112

on her role as a mother, and did not believe she could divide her time
between her children and a job. And like many in the home economics
profession, and elsewhere in academia and society, she does not question
why fathers are able to be parents and professionals, but women are not.
Despite the lack of specific references to new ideas about women's
roles, one respondent hinted at a need to rethink the secondary place a
woman's aspirations took to those of her husband's:
I think it would be interesting to ask how many husbands were
involved in giving up work. When I was first married my husband
was in the service and his job involved moving to a different
place every three months so it was impossible to work for that

short a period. When the first child appeared my husband gaid I
couldn't work until the children were in school full days.

This woman raised an issue central to a rethinking of women's roles: why
was her career secondary? But her comment was an exception, as no other
graduates raised that issue.

Like the faculty who taught them, these graduates showed little
evidence of new ideas about women's roles, sexism or discrimination
touching their lives. These women placed their children, husband, and
family ahead of their own work, for the most part, subordinating their
own careers to those of their husband's. Women who opted not to combine
career and family did not question why no institutional supports, like
child care centers, existed to help them, or why roles in the home could

not change to assist their efforts to be both professionals and parents.

Those women who were anxious to return to their profession did not
express boredom or feelings of inadequacy. One result of the events of
the sixties and the women's movement may have been a feeling that they
needed to justify their lives and career decisions to the college that
educated them. This might account for the large number of alumni who
emphasized the need for their remaining at home with their children.

But like the educators in their MSU classrooms, these women did not

question the roles assigned to them. Gender roles and ideas about

 

sqhinmni_§§ngy, 118; a 1961 graduate from Clawson.

 

113

motherhood were not challenged nor are alternatives to society's
expectations offered.

Women who were pursuing either graduate education or professional
careers gave no hint of their family status; were they unmarried and
thus “free“ to devote themselves to their careers, or were they married
but with no children? If they were married and had children, how did
they manage both? Yet their comments do not suggest that they had
rejected the roles prescribed by society or the educators who taught
them. We are not sure if they reflect a decision - professional over
family life - or if these graduates did manage to combine both family
and career, and just failed to address their experiences in their
comments. They may simply have seen their efforts to do both as their
own problem, just as many educators and public policymakers saw a
woman's effort to combine a career and family as an individual burden
and not a public policy issue.

The alumni of the College of Home Economics offered little
explicit commentary on the changes and events of the sixties, but subtle
shifts exist. Although many of these graduates espoused the need for
them to be full-time mothers and homemakers and the primacy of family
responsibilities for women, nearly two-thirds were working outside the
home. As noted earlier, the percentage of women working outside the
home was higher than the national average; while this may not hold true
for all home economics graduates, it does indicate that the "radical
consequences of incremental change" and the desire to maintain class

standing were affecting these graduates.81 Like many other women in

this period, many married women with children were working outside the
home, not only for financial reasons but also for personal satisfaction.
In addition, comments about the importance of remaining home during the

so-called ”peak years” diminish throughout the study's chronology;

 

81Eessler-Harris, Oun En fingk, 300-319.

 

 

114

alumni from the late sixties did not comment on the importance of full-
time motherhood.

The graduates' personal goals were important to many of the survey
respondents, and they looked to renew their education and professional
pursuits when their time was less encumbered by children and home. The
alumni showed a tendency to return to work or school when their children
were at younger ages than their predecessors, a change that is evidenced
in the alumni study's comments.

These women, although not representative of all home economics
graduates, do provide a glimpse into their beliefs and values. The
alumni study illuminates the limits of the dominant images associated
with the fifties and the sixties, including the feminine mystique.

Their comments reveal as many continuities between the 1950s and 1960s
as changes. The social upheaval and questioning of societal norms
characteristic of the 1960s do not appear explicitly in these graduates'
comments. These women's lives were much more complex than simply being
housewives raising children. Like the rest of society, including the
profession of home economics, these women dealt with contradictions and
tensions between their family roles as prescribed by society and their

professional lives.

 

 

 

EPILOGUE

Like many feminized professions, home economics struggled to
reconcile ideas about women's traditional roles and nature with the
tenets of professionalization. Originally based upon women's "natural“
abilities and domestic talents, home economics remained caught between
its history as a field which emphasized the practical arts and its goal
to be a profession with equal status in the academic community and
society. Ironically, educators and administrators eventually called
into question the legitimacy and value of home economics because it was
comprised predominantly of females; to be a true profession, it had to
include men.

The postwar era was a time when women's roles were in flux.
Exhorted to work and contribute to society, women also were told by
society to remain at home and raise their families. These conflicting
messages also are found in home economics, which trained its graduates
for a profession while emphasizing traditional roles for women. In
response to the need to reconcile a woman's professional ambitions and
family responsibilities, home economists, and other educators and policy
makers, turned to the "life course” solution. Most women married and
had children, and thus it was assumed that women would leave the labor
force during the ”peak years." Rather than seek ways to enable women to
be both professionals and mothers at the same time, educators began to
look for ways to facilitate a mother's return to the workforce through
continuing education programs and counseling services. Because most
women would marry and have children, women's education should include

training to be mothers, wives, and homemakers.

115

 

These ideas and beliefs pervade the speeches and writings of this
period, and are found both inside and outside of home economics. Not
only did the life course idea permit educators and policy makers to
avoid addressing the problems facing women with young children who
worked, but it also failed to address all women. Assuming a woman could
leave the labor force for several years did not help working class
women, who did not have any choice but to combine work and family. It
also did not solve the problem faced by professional women who could not
leave their work for that length of time if they planned to continue
their career. The life course solution offered educators and policy
makers an easy out, and solved little for many women, although it did
offer them a context in which to make demands of the university which
educated them.

This study adds another layer to our understanding of the 1950s
and 1960s, pointing to areas of the population which exhibited more
continuity between the two decades than disruption. It also reiterates
the arguments put forth by historians such as Joanne Meyerowitz, who
questions the pervasiveness of Betty Friedan's "feminine mystique“ and
the dissatisfaction connected to women's roles as wife and mother. The
responses of the MSU alumni illustrate the persistence of traditional
values and beliefs, and the limited range of new ideas about women's
roles generated by the burgeoning women's movement. These women seem to
be untouched by the women's liberation movement, Betty Friedan, the
National Organization for Women, or the Equal Pay Act. Although women's
issues were increasingly a topic for national discussion, these
graduates continued to place their primary commitment with their family.

But the reality of their lives did not mesh with the images
conveyed in their comments. Although many discussed the importance of
raising their own children and being full-time homemakers and mothers,
two-thirds are working. Many graduates commented on their desire to
return to the profession or to further their education. They were not
rejecting careers or meaningful work; they simply were placing their

families ahead of their work while their children were young. The

116

graduates of the 1960s were returning to work earlier than the graduates
the decade before, highlighting the subtle changes taking place.

The conflict between the practical arts - cooking, sewing, etc. -
and the increasing emphasis on creating "professionals'i and not wasting

time on those practical skills continued throughout the postwar era.1

The alumni comments illustrate this conflict best, with many women
expressing frustration at their inability to teach these skills to
homemakers and students; they were not the “experts.“ Clearly home
economics' practice did not always mesh with its goals.

Home economics offered women important opportunities when few
choices were available in the early 20th century, and it continued to
provide women with positions as teachers, administrators, and
researchers. But ultimately the ”separate but equal" strategy failed.
The fact that women dominated the faculties and classrooms of home
economics programs stigmatized the field's professional image. Home
economists at MSU and elsewhere believed other academics who asserted
that these unmarried professional women could not understand the
”family," as they had never been married, or that without men, their
profession was not complete. Home economists exhorted all to believe
that their profession was important for both men and women, but
eventually turned to men to make it a profession. Rather than
questioning male values, they acquiesced to those standards and lost
much of the autonomy they had gained in the previous 75 years.

A minority of women college students chose home economics as their
field of study at MSU and other colleges and universities. The stigma
attached to it deterred not only men, but also women: from entering home
economics. Now home economics is taught to both boys and girls in
secondary schools; girls are not the only ones to learn to cook and sew.

Yet such courses are offered under different names. As MSU opted to

 

lThis conflict calls to mind the situation described by Melosh in

”In: Ehyniginn'n fland', which describes the differences between nursing
leadership, who advocated professionalism, and the nurses. Further
study is needed to determine the differences and parallels.

117

 

 

select a new name for its program, so did many middle and high school
programs. Home economics is still taught in today's curriculum, but in
a different way and to different students. The path it took to reach

that point remains largely a mystery, and one that warrants further

study.

118

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119

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