Home Work: Home economists unmasked
field reports from my book The Secret History of Home Economics
(I started this installment two weeks ago—whoops. I hope it will be a diverting read on a stressful day!)
As I write this update, I’m listening to Joe Biden’s policy director talk to the Education Writers Association about wearing masks. Like me, you probably frantically contacted friends with sewing machines this spring or spent hours bent over your own machine, suddenly seeking an accessory/vital health implement you never imagined needing. That surge of mask-sewing made me think back about a century—not to the flu pandemic but to World War I, which home economists helped America win through sewing and cooking.
As of the mid-1910s, home economics sewing classes focused on either clothing oneself or, at the college level, pursuing a career as a dressmaker. When the U.S. entered the war, those classes for younger students turned their attention instead to war work.
“Whenever possible articles useful to others rather than to the student should be made. This is valuable in establishing among the students interest in the great national and patriotic movement of the present time and in suppressing selfishness and vanity,” the U.S. Bureau of Education wrote in September 1917. After all, “there is no particular reason why the student in sewing should carry away the product of her efforts.” (That said, the author noted that a student would be more interested in the work if “permitted to attach the name of her school and room to the garment.”)
Forget fancy embroidery: Students made garments for the Red Cross, everything from layettes for orphaned babies to hospital scrubs, both simple and elaborate. Often the Red Cross provided that material; to conserve new fabric, needed for uniforms and cloth bandages, classes also learned to remake and mend old garments. Though schools had rarely taught knitting, knitters were brought back into the fold: Classes unraveled old sweaters and reknitted them into balaclavas and wristlets, and the Red Cross (and UK military) requested socks, seamless at the toe to prevent trench foot. Communities held sewing and knitting circles to craft even more supplies. "The girls are anxious to be doing something worth while," a Kansas City high school teacher reported.
In fact, sewing for the cause so dominated home economics that one year later the federal education bureau alerted teachers to reserve those projects for after school because winter was coming and students needed to make themselves coats. And Cornell University’s Martha Van Rensselaer, running the U.S. Food Administration’s conservation program, thought the government should take a page from the Red Cross’ marketing manual to convince Americans to curb their delight in meat, wheat and sweets. “It is time to do something besides knit,” Van Rensselaer wrote in a memo. “Women ought to be appealed to romantically, persistently, effectively, to leave knitting to those who cannot do anything else, and to put real honest-to-god brains into the production of food, the self-support of the community in food, and the conservation of food.”
By the time the war ended, Chicago students alone had made a quarter of a million garments. The effort earned the Red Cross’ enduring gratitude … and maybe even created permanently selfless junior seamstresses, educators mused.
One hundred years later, the home economics sewing-for-service spirit remains strong. I checked in this spring with Arkansas high school family and consumer sciences (née home economics) teacher Beth Elms. When not teaching virtual classes, and while her 10-month-old co-worker napped, Elms sewed masks for family and health care workers—120 as of early June.
Elms couldn’t make mask-sewing an assignment like the Great War teachers did. Many of her students didn’t have home sewing machines and couldn’t afford materials, and they weren’t allowed to go to the classroom. Still, about 20 of her students wanted to sew masks anyway, she said. Elms found an instructional video for them and videoconferenced as needed to walk them through the process, embodying a 1918 Education Bureau circular: “The great home-economics teacher is the fearless one who will teach that which she is convinced needs to be known, advocate that which she is certain should be practiced, and assume a position of brave leadership in her community in all patriotic endeavors.”
I myself don’t own a sewing machine, and I do not consider myself to be in "a position of brave leadership." I can, however, advocate for an entertaining and stress-reducing, albeit useless, pandemic needlework project: I am on my second profanity-laced COVID-themed cross-stitch.
Updates
I published a meganormous story on gifted education's race problem for NBC News/Hechinger Report and a Seattle Times story of more-normal length on how Miami has succeeded with distance education.
But c'mon, you're here for the book, right? The Secret History of Home Economics comes out May 4, and the Norton team and I are finalizing the design. A cover hint for you: Black woman scientist.
Follow my newly unlocked Instagram account for future giveaways and current photos of fiber, both fabric and bran.
I am starting to schedule speaking appearances for the spring! If you want to hear the true story of home economics in person (physical or virtual), email me or Norton publicist Erin Sinesky Lovett.
Recipe of the Month
World War I advanced vegetarian cooking by promoting the substitution of legumes for much-needed meat. At times, as in the 1918 pamphlet “Attractive Ways of Using Cowpeas,” home economists also helped farmers looking to unload crops. “Since there is a large surplus of cowpeas just at this season we need to stress attractive ways of using them,” the U.S. Agriculture Department wrote. I haven’t tried this recipe, but it sounds potentially workable, maybe if you added Worcestershire sauce or herbs? It wouldn’t hold together in a patty or a ball without eggs or flour—which in our time, fortunately, the military does not need.
Baked Cowpeas and Cheese ("A Meat Substitute")
1 T butter
1 T finely chopped sweet green pepper
1 T finely chopped onion
2 c. cooked cowpeas (field or black-eyed peas)
1/2 c. grated cheese
Press the peas through a sieve to remove the skins, and mix with the cheese. Cook the onions and pepper in the butter, being careful not to brown, and add them to the peas and cheese. Form the mixture into a roll, place on a buttered earthenware dish and cook in a moderate oven until brown, basting occasionally with butter and water. Serve hot or cold as a substitute for meat.
The earliest recorded usage of the word “unmask,” per Merriam-Webster, is 1562. You can sew your own Hoover apron and knit your own World War I woollies—check the linked patterns and let me know how it goes. Read about Tang, eugenicists and more in the Home Work archives.
Sources not linked in text: Martha Van Rensselaer letter, New York State College of Home Economics Records, 1875-1979,” Box 249; Joan L. Sullivan, “In Pursuit of Legitimacy: Home Economists and the Hoover Apron in World War I,” 1999 (a surprisingly illuminating article I have consulted many, many times). Header photo: "Girl sewing in home economics class, Greenhills, Ohio," Oct. 1938, Library of Congress.
Written content © 2020 Danielle Dreilinger. All rights reserved.