Home Economics: White culture for the masses

Home economics started in the late nineteenth century for a number of complex reasons, one of which was to elevate care of homes and families to scientific housekeeping.  It was a white middle-class phenomenon and carried with it moral imperatives to teach right living according to a pre-established set of imperialistic values.

This site compiled by
Mary-Leah DeZwart
Curriculum Studies Department
University of British Columbia

mldz@interchange.ubc.ca

Miss Home Economics 1939

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