Home economics is a neglected field in the history of economics. My aim in this article is to give an historical account of how this answer came about, by telling the story of the home economics movement founded by Richards.
These two landmarks represented the two sides-one theoretical and one applied-of the answer home economists formulated to the issue of addressing consumption. While the first is recognized as the foundation of the economics of consumption (Kiss and Beller Reference Kiss and Beller2000 van Velzen Reference van Velzen2001, Reference van Velzen, Barker and Kuiper2003 Dimand and Lobdell Reference Dimand, Lobdell, Durlauf and Blume2008), the second is associated with the movement’s orientation toward applied science, which promoted the idea of “rational consumption” (Goldstein Reference Goldstein2012). Footnote 1 In 1923, two events made home economists’ expertise in consumption particularly visible: the publication of Hazel Kyrk’s Theory of Consumption, and the creation of the Bureau of Home Economics in the US Department of Agriculture. This shift was so significant that most home economists would call their discipline “the science of ultimate consumption” by the mid-1920s. Yet, the home economics movement she founded at the turn of the twentieth century would shift its attention towards consumption in the marketplace, claiming that economists were ignoring the issue. Richards’s objective was to purify the home from germs, “our cruelest enemies” (Richards Reference Richards1910, p. Richards’s (1842–1911) effort to improve people’s living conditions began, it was not about helping them to consume wisely, and was even less about building a theory of consumption. I argue that the concept of consumption was central to the structuring of the movement from its beginning and allowed home economists to claim it as their field of expertise because, as they believed, economists were not addressing the issue. I examine how the movement problematized consumption by highlighting its relationship, and perception of itself, regarding economics.
However, by the 1920s, home economists rather identified their field of expertise as the “science of consumption,” emphasizing the idea of “rational consumption.” My aim in this article is to give an account of how this shift in focus came about, by telling the story of the home economics movement founded by Richards. Richards’s first interest was in improving the household’s well-being by using sanitary and nutrition sciences, an objective that was passed on to the movement.
FAVORITE RECIPES OF HOME ECONOMICS TEACHERS 1963 SERIES
Richards (1842–1911) instigated a series of annual “Lake Placid Conferences” (1899–1908) that became known as the foundation of the home economics movement.
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