I took “home ec” at least 3 times throughout my formal education experience. I learned how to sew, both by hand and with a sewing machine, and I learned how to cook a few basic dishes, but not once was I taught anything that I would describe as “economics.” The word was never even mentioned a single time.
Did I have crappy teachers, or a bad curriculum? Or am I just misunderstanding the term?
Data point:
I’m in my early 40s, and had what I imagine was a “traditional” home-ec experience in middle school. I think I recall a small check book balancing section, but most of it was cooking, sewing, and other practical crafts of the home.
I understood the term to refer to the “economy” of the home (and how to manage it). I can see how this might include some financial skills like balancing a checkbook, but like you I never learned anything like that in “home ec.” I did learn that in my economics class, though.
I guess they mean economics as the management of resources and in the home specifically.
Semi-related: the high school I graduated from had a “personal finance” class. I think we spent a week or two on things like budgets, didn’t get anything on dealing with tax returns, spent most of the class on the stock market.
I recall my cousins talking about their early 1970’s Home Economics classses. I was taking Industrial Arts (shop) at the same time.
Sewing repairs and cooking were certainly taught. I remember helping them with math that was needed for household budgeting and handling a checkbook.
I remember the math problems got tricky. They had to break down the costs of meals by portions. There were weekly household budgets for food, clothing,entertainment, gas etc.
Back then it was still common to have three or four kids. It took experience to budget meals around a single income. Mom’s casseroles and soups were ways to use up leftovers and stretch the food budget.
There is always unexpected expenses Billy needs track shoes and Carolyn is on the basketball team. The youngest needs school supplies for a science project.
I often wonder how my great aunts & grandmothers did it. They always found ways to make do with the money available.
Some teachers added in some “economic” sections in some old classes, like how to calculate cost per serving (mostly replaced by unit pricing at the stores), and how to maximize the number of pieces you could cut out of a given piece of cloth, but the major focus was how to cook, sew, etc.
There was an episode of Roseanne where she showed a home ec class how to stretch a food budget by pouring generic cereal into name-brand boxes.
Short answer: the term “home economics”, like “economics” more broadly, originated in Greek οἰκονόμος, from οἰκο- “house” and -νόμος “rule, law”). The word literally means “management of the household”, which is pretty much in line with the content of Home Ec classes.
Longer answer: The “home economics” concept seems to have spun off from earlier names like “household arts” and “domestic science” under the influence of formal “disciplinization”:
Richards described the origin of the term in a 1911 article:
Interesting. Thank you!
I highly recommend The Secret History of Home Economics. It’s a fascinating read and I learned alot about the subject. For example I never realized that there was such a thing as business home economists or that some women were able to sneak into corporate America through “the kitchen door”.
Arguably, the “home” in “home economics” is redundant. All that stuff about the home is the original definition.
I worked with a woman who was a manager in HR who started with the company doing cooking demonstrations with “all electric” appliances. Guess what kind of company.
That’s how Mary Berry (one of the judges on The Great British Bake-Off) got started.
In the mid-60s when I took it, Home Ec and Food shop were basically equivalent,. except Home Ec had a small living room type area near the kitchens. Both boys and girls took it. There was a separate Sewing shop (girls only) and Woodworking and Metalworking, boys only.
I don’t remember anything taught except cooking.
We had Industrial Arts, and Home Economics, and boys and girls often took both.
When I was in grade nine, boys were not allowed to take home economics, and girls were not allowed to take auto shop. Sexist idiocy… don’t boys need to know how to cook & run a household, and don’t girls need to know how to change a tire etc?
What @Sunspace said. When I was in middle school, boys took shop (wood and metal), and girls took home economics (according to my sister, it was sewing and cooking).
Since then, I’ve never had to do oxy-acetylene welding, or shape a table leg on a lathe, or use the blacksmithing skills I learned in shop class. I do, however, have to cook for myself a lot, and sewing would have been a useful skill in a few situations.
Same here. Middle school in the mid 1980s, I took home ec and did a bit of sewing and cooking, and also took industrial arts. I think they were a semester each, meaning they were so brief that they couldn’t really teach you very much that was of use. Instead, I think it was more about just getting your feet wet, making these things seem not so alien/out of reach, and maybe seeing if it sparked your interest to learn more on your own.
In line with the OP’s question, I don’t remember learning much in school about how to manage household finances. I learned the really important stuff from my parents.
Of course not—that’s what they’ll have wives for.
Of course not—that’s what they’ll have husbands for.
Yeah, I was in school in the Dark Ages, and this was the same segregation we had. But it was starting to change. My younger sister (two grades below me) had two boys in her cooking class, and she said it made the class a lot of fun. Both boys had absolutely no clue about how to cook anything and didn’t know things the girls felt they knew instinctively because they’d been helping mom for years. It’s not instinctive!
But I wish I could have taken some of the boys’ shop classes – wood, metal, automotive – even if it just provided the basics, it’s better than nothing. When I was growing up, girls learned things from their moms, and boys learned things from their dads, and never the twain shall meet. Such a shame. Such a waste.