| This dissertation examines the relationship between the emergence of the home economics movement and the rise of an American consumer society in the early twentieth century. It uses a broad array of sources, including university archives, business records, government documents, trade journals, and papers of professional organizations, to situate home economists in the context of three interrelated historical developments: changes in household technology and consumer products, changes in the definition of feminine and masculine roles, and changes in cultural ideas about the meaning of consumption in American life.; In the Progressive Era, home economics emerged as a nationally organized profession dedicated to reforming society through promoting an ideal of rational consumption. Although most home economists worked as teachers and extension agents, after World War I, a growing group of home economics graduates found opportunities for employment in the United States Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Home Economics, with producers and retailers of processed foods and household equipment, and with gas and electric utilities. As they did, they assumed a complex mediating role among manufacturers, government agencies, and consumers, particularly homemakers. At the Bureau of Home Economics, their research both sought to influence consumer behavior and represent consumers' needs in matters of food and nutrition, textiles and clothing, and family economics. Bureau staff members cooperated with industry representatives in efforts to standardize refrigerators, and garment sizes for women and children. Inside corporations, home economists helped managers communicate with consumers. By demonstrating, testing, and improving products, they legitimized these goods as scientific and efficient and also projected friendly, human image of the corporation. Although the commercial and service aspects of corporate work sometimes came into conflict, home economists pursued a professional agenda that generally dovetailed with business and government goals. By bridging and obscuring boundaries between public and private, technology and culture, and corporation and community, home economists became central actors in the culture of corporate capitalism. A diverse but influential social group that shaped popular ideas about new technologies, and often the goods themselves, home economists contributed to the cultural construction of consumption as a white, middle-class, and feminine activity. |
