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The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live Hardcover – May 4, 2021

by Danielle Dreilinger (Author)

4.5 409 ratings

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An NPR Favorite History Book of 2021

The surprising, often fiercely feminist, always fascinating, yet barely known, history of home economics.

The term “home economics” may conjure traumatic memories of lopsided hand-sewn pillows or sunken muffins. But common conception obscures the story of the revolutionary science of better living. The field exploded opportunities for women in the twentieth century by reducing domestic work and providing jobs as professors, engineers, chemists, and businesspeople. And it has something to teach us today.

In the surprising, often fiercely feminist and always fascinating The Secret History of Home Economics, Danielle Dreilinger traces the field’s history from Black colleges to Eleanor Roosevelt to Okinawa, from a Betty Crocker brigade to DIY techies. These women―and they were mostly women―became chemists and marketers, studied nutrition, health, and exercise, tested parachutes, created astronaut food, and took bold steps in childhood development and education.

Home economics followed the currents of American culture even as it shaped them. Dreilinger brings forward the racism within the movement along with the strides taken by women of color who were influential leaders and innovators. She also looks at the personal lives of home economics’ women, as they chose to be single, share lives with other women, or try for egalitarian marriages.

This groundbreaking and engaging history restores a denigrated subject to its rightful importance, as it reminds us that everyone should learn how to cook a meal, balance their account, and fight for a better world.

16 pages of illustrations

Print length

368 pages
Language

English
Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date

May 4, 2021
Dimensions

6.3 x 1.3 x 9.4 inches
ISBN-10

1324004495
ISBN-13

978-1324004493
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From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[A] captivating debut…Dreilinger charmed me with her account of home ec's fascinating past."
― Barbara Spindel, Wall Street Journal

"Dreilinger's lively account offers a thorough look at a profession that allowed women to participate in public life even as they were barred from most jobs and areas of study…We can thank home economics for a number of taken-for-granted features of contemporary life."
― Rachel Newcomb, The Washington Post

"A fascinating history of the field and of the contributions of some very determined women…[S]timulating."
― Katherine Powers, Minnesota Star Tribune

"Deeply researched and crisply written."
― Margaret Talbot, The New Yorker

"There's one important thing you'll fully understand after you've read The Secret History of Home Economics: our foremothers were not to be trifled with…Readers of women's history will love this book, as will general historians, feminists, and anyone with an interest in domestic arts."
― Terri Schlichenmeyer, Washington Informer

"Home economics turns out to be relevant, important, in some ways revolutionary. Dreilinger tells all in this entertaining journey that shows us that almost all of what we thought we knew on the subject is wrong. Stimulating and fun!"
― Mark Bittman, author of Animal, Vegetable, Junk

"A pathbreaking book that unearths and presents part of the 'hidden' history of economics, in this case as practiced largely by women, and often black women at that. Think of it as the science and craft of Beckerian household production but with a managerial emphasis. If you like books on paths not taken, this one is for you."
― Tyler Cowen

"Home ec…may conjure up lessons in baking blueberry muffins and sewing dresses, but in her detail-filled and fascinating book, Danielle Dreilinger dynamites that cliché with glee."
― Air Mail

"[An] eye-opening history…[A] great reminder of the value of the field, and the importance of these skills for anyone at any age."
― Matthew Wheeland, Civil Eats

"I grew up in the 1960s when Home Economics was required for all ninth-grade girls and meant two things: cooking and sewing. We baked cookies and served them on silver trays to the boys in Wood Shop. We sewed wraparound skirts. Some of us complained, a lot. Danielle Dreilinger’s The Secret History of Home Economics is a revelation. That secret history is rich with gender and race issues, and opened the eyes of this former home ec student. It will open yours too."
― Ann Hood, author of The Knitting Circle

"A fascinating work of history, extensively researched, on a subject long ignored: how home economics helped shaped American life. Full of delicious anecdotes, The Secret History of Home Economics makes the case that home ec, often maligned and misunderstood, always provided students regardless of gender with skills that make life better, and should be revived."
― Nancy Jo Sales, author of American Girls

"This book tells the unexpected story of how home economics began as an intellectual haven for smart women―Black as well as white―who were otherwise blocked from studying science, but ended up as a field less rigorous and more conforming. Black women were at the forefront of this history, and their role is a revelation. Dreilinger makes a convincing case for bringing back the skills that home economics alone could teach."
― Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health, emerita, at NYU and author of Let’s Ask Marion

"I took home economics by choice in seventh grade, and I always assumed it was an outdated way to train budding Stepford housewives. This book made me realize that everything I thought I knew about home economics was wrong. It’s a career that provided vital scientific and economic inroads for women, and a history that is so relevant today."
― Marisa Meltzer, author of This Is Big

"This is an extremely interesting and engaging page-turner book…It will stimulate important dialogue among those within and outside the profession about our past and present, and what the future of the profession, education, and society should be."
― Virginia Vincenti, professor emerita and co-editor of Rethinking Home Economics

"By reading Danielle Dreilinger's biography of this long overlooked and deeply influential field, we come to understand not only the secret history of home economics but the secret history of American feminism. Dreilinger's case for continuing to reinvent this too-oft maligned discipline for the 21st century provides a thoughtful―and spot on―road map for how and why schools can teach children not only to manage homes efficiently but to become lifelong advocates for racial, gender and social equality."
― Sarah Carr, education editor at the Boston Globe and author of Hope Against Hope

"In an important new work revealing a surprising history, Danielle Dreilinger has rescued women home-economists from the past. Her well-written history gives us a new group of women to admire and learn from. She ends The Secret History of Home Economics with a timely call to bring back home-economics courses as a mandatory part of education. Her book will convince you that this field of study should be restored to its proper place in STEAM education for all."
― Katherine Sharp Landdeck, author of The Women with Silver Wings

"Finally, someone has written a social history of American home economists that is neither patronizing nor hostile. Generations of remarkable women created and sustained a scientific profession in the face of what was, until very recently, unremitting gender bias. Kudos to Danielle Dreilinger for this very readable and very sophisticated account of the women who had such an enormous impact on American society and culture."
― Ruth S. Cowan, More Work for Mother

About the Author

Danielle Dreilinger was a New Orleans Times-Picayune education reporter post-Katrina and a Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellow. Previously, she wrote for the Boston Globe and worked at the Boston NPR station WGBH. She lives in North Carolina.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; First Edition (May 4, 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1324004495
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1324004493
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.3 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.3 x 1.3 x 9.4 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #438,102 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #775 in History of Education
- #1,182 in Women in History
- #4,553 in Women's Biographies

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4.5 409 ratings

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Danielle Dreilinger

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Journalist Danielle Dreilinger is the author of The Secret History of Home Economics, forthcoming from W. W. Norton. She was a 2018 Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellow at the University of Michigan, was named best features writer by the Louisiana Press Association and has received grants or fellowships from the Robert B. Silvers Foundation, the Education Writers Association and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. She spent five years covering New Orleans’ nationally contentious education revolution for the Times-Picayune. Before that she produced WGBH’s local news website and wrote for the Boston Globe, most notably as the Somerville correspondent focused on gentrification, diversity, politics and city life. She began her career covering the arts for several outlets, including WBUR, where she was part of the team that won the station’s first Online Journalism Award. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Hechinger Report, USA Today, Ploughshares, Nashville Scene and No Depression, among (many) other publications. She holds a bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, from Columbia University.

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4.5 out of 5

409 global ratings

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As a former Becky Homecky.....

Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2021

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Wow! A great read and eye-opening to read the history of my undergraduate degree. It really records the beginnings of feminism as it pertains to higher education. I purchased the book after reading a very good review in The New Yorker and can't possibly come close to writing a review as great as theirs. I can write that I think it would be a great choice for a book club since it informs so much about women, academics and HBCs. The dynamics of the misogyny that both white and women of color have had to deal with in the pursuit of an education and how men have used home economics to keep women "in their place" with their own misguided definition of the subject. It's truly something that should be mandatory for all genders as it informs science, math, engineering and finance. A wonderful read that was highly enlightening. Would make an outstanding movie much in the same vein as Hidden Figures, or a series about women on the order of Mad Men...Mad Women....are you listening Matthew Weiner?

27 people found this helpful

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Paula Berman

Brilliant

Reviewed in the United States on May 16, 2022

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I did know about Lilian Moller Gilbert’s, but not about the rest of the subversive history of Home Ec, and how it went from a way to change the world and get women into industry through the back door into something that supported the patriarchy… and maybe back again.

Very much a book of its time - I’m pretty sure that anyone reading this in fifty years will be able to tell when it was written, as we now can with history books from the 50s or the 70s. That’s not a criticism: it ,rams that we can see how issues of concern right now stem from or were foreshadowed by historical events.

5 people found this helpful

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ARC

Amazing story of women changing society!

Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2021

Verified Purchase

This is one of the best non-fiction books I’ve read in a long time. Like many women growing up in the 1950’s and ‘60’s, “Home Ec” was a required high school class for all female students, while only boys took shop. I did learn to sew, and loved that; cooking - not so much; and I can still make a bed with “hospital corners!”
I never knew about the history of home economics as a movement to improve women’s lives and to open up educational and professional opportunities for us. The author has provided an entertaining and very important account of the struggles and triumphs for women’s rights that are still ongoing in American society.

13 people found this helpful

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B

I wanted to like it, but …

Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2022

Verified Purchase

The key phrase in the title is “secret history”. I started this book excited to break out of my usual interests and try something new. Instead, imagine a journalist writing a story about the latest bank robbery only to focus on the dirty windows at the bank. Is it true? Yes. Is it the most important point? No.

The author tries very hard to make every turn of the story about racism, feminism, or sexism. And while these are important topics, I felt so put off by the intense desire to uncover “secret history” that the author failed to communicate history.

The title of the preface is “everything you know about home economics is wrong”. And then she proceeds to spend 300 pages (not 400) trying to blow up any notion of a traditional nuclear (white) family. I wanted to like this, but felt too distracted with an agenda that I couldn’t actually enjoy learning about home economics.

27 people found this helpful

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Jeanajoan

Hindsight is 20/20

Reviewed in the United States on October 23, 2021

Verified Purchase

It is a well-documented history that deserves to be explored. Unfortunately, the author exhibits the very same degree of high-handed judgment towards people in the past, especially 1950’s-60’s homemakers, that she condemns in them. Also, a fair amount of cherry-picking was present in the quoted material; I have prior knowledge of some of the original docs, having been an adult in that time period. Just presenting the facts and letting the readers draw their own conclusions must be outdated, but I really miss it.

42 people found this helpful

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LesleyKazoo

WOW! Must read and share!

Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2021

Verified Purchase

As a graduate in Human Ecology in 1988, I am awed and further inspired by the work accomplished by many of my peers and predecessors. This book showcases how many woman reached through the stigma of Home Economics to tackle big issues in the daily lives of us all. Thank you for sharing the importance of this trail blazing profession.

9 people found this helpful

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dawnster

History you never knew

Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2022

Verified Purchase

This book has some great unknown history about Home Economics. I loved taking classes in cooking and sewing while in school and find the skills important to my adult life. I thought this book was interesting and learned so many things I didn't know.

2 people found this helpful

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Wendy

Great book on Home Economics

Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2022

Verified Purchase

Loved this book ! Love this subject that I taught for 44 years!!! They need to keep it in the schools! Hands on learning! Applied Academis! Great book ! Great subject of Life Skills!!!

3 people found this helpful

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Labecque

The Fascinating History of Home Ec

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 1, 2021

Verified Purchase

Having gone to high school in the 50s and 60s I was required to learning cooking and sewing in Home Ec. The history is a real roller-coaster with science, consumerism and feminism all playing their parts. Want to know who Betty Crocker is? You'll get the answer here.

One person found this helpful

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