http://hdl.handle.net/1813/15146 2013-05-19T16:44:50Z 2013-05-19T16:44:50Z Williams, Amrys http://hdl.handle.net/1813/28279 2012-01-12T14:09:32Z 2011-11-14T00:00:00Z

Title: Cultivating the Country's Best Crop: Developing Youth Through 4-H in the 20th Century Authors: Williams, Amrys Abstract: This presentation provides a look at the history of 4-H clubs and their relationship to the developing ideas about rural culture, community and modernity in 20th century United States. 4-H clubs—the youth phase of agricultural and home economics extension work—were central to the USDA’s program for rural modernization in the early decades of the 20th century. Cultivating “the country’s best crop,” as these young people were often described, was a matter of culture as well as agriculture, and 4-H club work sought to revitalize rural society alongside rural livelihoods. The biological metaphor of development—of crops, children, communities, and civilization—was central to these efforts, and 4-H’s work with rural youth in rural places illuminates a strand of thinking about development that relied on growth, guidance, and nurture to cultivate modernity on rural terms. Description: Amrys Williams was the 2012 recipient of the College of Human Ecology Fellowship in the History of Home Economics.

2011-11-14T00:00:00Z Moran, Rachel http://hdl.handle.net/1813/23134 2011-07-08T19:02:03Z 2011-03-03T00:00:00Z

Title: Watchful Weighing: The Body Politics of Home Economics 1920-1950 Authors: Moran, Rachel Abstract: Not long after the turn of the century, home economists, physicians, and public health workers made the height-weight chart into a household term. Historian Rachel Moran examines the spread of tables in schools, agricultural extension programs, and home economics curriculum. By the early 1920s, experts were debating the balance between the benefits and dangers of height-weight charts, and questioning the charts that many of them had helped popularize. Moran argues that the charts ultimately survived intense expert criticism only because lay-women had become such firm advocates of their use. The talk considers the relationship between female lay-citizens and experts, as well as the political power of statistics in early 20th century U.S. government. It also raises questions about the use and critique of contemporary physical measurements, especially Body Mass Index. Description: Rachel Louise Moran was the 2010 recipient of the College of Human Ecology Fellowship in the History of Home Economics.She is currently the Crawford Fellow in Ethical Inquiry at the Pennsylvania State University, where she is finishing her dual PhD in History and Women’s Studies.

2011-03-03T00:00:00Z Flaming, Anna http://hdl.handle.net/1813/15148 2010-07-02T18:54:47Z 2010-03-02T00:00:00Z

Title: The Homemaker and the Home Economist: Definitions and Identities in the Second Half of the 20th Century Authors: Flaming, Anna Abstract: Anna Flaming describes how home economists proposed a positive and diverse definition of the American homemaker. Through secondary and collegiate education and organized outreach to homemakers, home economists became important arbiters of American understandings of housewifery. Simultaneously, many home economists worked to defy stereotypes that equated home economics with housewifery and attempted to update the image of the discipline by eliminating its association with such domestic tasks as "cooking and sewing."

2010-03-02T00:00:00Z