About this item
The surprising, often fiercely feminist, always fascinating, yet barely known, history of home economics. The term "home economics" may conjure traumatic memories of lopsided hand-sewn pillows or sunken muffins. But common conception obscures the story of the revolutionary science of better living. The field exploded opportunities for women in the twentieth century by reducing domestic work and providing jobs as professors, engineers, chemists, and businesspeople. And it has something to teach us today. In the surprising, often fiercely feminist and always fascinating The Secret History of Home Economics, Danielle Dreilinger traces the field's history from Black colleges to Eleanor Roosevelt to Okinawa, from a Betty Crocker brigade to DIY techies. These women—and they were mostly women—became chemists and marketers, studied nutrition, health, and exercise, tested parachutes, created astronaut food, and took bold steps in childhood development and education. Home economics followed the currents of American culture even as it shaped them. Dreilinger brings forward the racism within the movement along with the strides taken by women of color who were influential leaders and innovators. She also looks at the personal lives of home economics' women, as they chose to be single, share lives with other women, or try for egalitarian marriages. This groundbreaking and engaging history restores a denigrated subject to its rightful importance, as it reminds us that everyone should learn how to cook a meal, balance their account, and fight for a better world.
About the Author
Journalist Danielle Dreilinger is the author of The Secret History of Home Economics, forthcoming from W. W. Norton. She was a 2018 Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellow at the University of Michigan, was named best features writer by the Louisiana Press Association and has received grants or fellowships from the Robert B. Silvers Foundation, the Education Writers Association and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. She spent five years covering New Orleans' nationally contentious education revolution for the Times-Picayune. Before that she produced WGBH's local news website and wrote for the Boston Globe, most notably as the Somerville correspondent focused on gentrification, diversity, politics and city life. She began her career covering the arts for several outlets, including WBUR, where she was part of the team that won the station's first Online Journalism Award. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Hechinger Report, USA Today, Ploughshares, Nashville Scene and No Depression, among (many) other publications. She holds a bachelor's degree, summa cum laude, from Columbia University.
