“So Comprehensive A Field”: Home Economics In The Department Of Agriculture, 1915-1968

Abstract

This thesis argues that the Bureau of Home Economics at the United States Department of Agriculture emphasized the importance of women’s work and highlighted the household as a domain deserving of governmental attention for several decades. However, the Bureau did not represent the full comprehensive scope of home economics. Home economics was, at its inception, multifaceted, research-driven, and reflective of the ambitions of the Progressive Era. Home economics’ founders and practitioners believed that the field's wide-ranging interdisciplinary focus was critical to successfully understand the everyday problems faced by citizens across the United States. The Department of Agriculture was not the right place to champion home economics, given its strict focus on farming and rural life. The decline of the Bureau of Home Economics was indicative of the broader decline in the field of home economics from the 1950s through the 1970s. This thesis tracks the rise and fall of the Bureau of Home Economics to better understand the relationship between gender, the home, and government in the twentieth century.