Cooking and Cleaning 101
By Daily Bruin Staff
Feb. 3, 1999 9:00 p.m.
Thursday, February 4, 1999
Cooking and Cleaning 101
Back when college was cheap and women were expected to stay at
home, UCLA offered a degree in home economics
for women who wanted to be expert homemakers
By Nick Williams
Daily Bruin Contributor
The study of head-covering as part of apparel design is not
being offered this quarter.
In fact, Millinery 171A has not been offered as an undergraduate
course since 1950, back when home economics was actually offered as
a major.
Throughout the 65 years of its existence, the home economics
department fell under the jurisdiction of three different colleges,
saw a female department chair and fell victim to the sweeping
higher education reforms instated in 1960.
"The foundation of a lifelong efficiency and pleasurable work is
made for many women in the study of home economics," wrote Greta
Gray, chair of the home economics department in the 1940s, stating
the goal of the department to invite women to go to college.
Originally, home economics was called domestic sciences, which
began as a major at the Los Angeles State Normal School in
1900.
In 1919, the Normal School became the University of California,
Southern Branch and the home economics department was placed in the
Teachers’ College.
When the State Normal School became part of the University of
California, it required its teaching faculty to have doctorate
degrees. This meant that most of the teachers of home economics
were placed in lower, menial positions because of a lack of
doctorate degrees.
Gray, this university’s first female faculty member with a
doctorate, came to the university in 1928 and soon became the chair
of the home economics department.
Throughout her career, Gray made home economics a popular
women’s major by encouraging women to go to college so they could
learn how to be more efficient in the home.
When Gray came to the department, the classes available included
Home Economics 159: Food Problems; and 179: Clothing Problems. Both
were upper division courses open only to seniors.
Gray regularly wrote articles for the Los Angeles Times offering
advice to homemakers.
"An average California family can have an adequate diet for 25
cents per person per day," she wrote in a 1941 article about home
budgeting.
Women could officially obtain a bachelor’s degree in home
economics from the University of California in 1933, and six years
later, 96 students did. The same year, the department was
transferred to the College of Applied Art.
As World War II raged on overseas, Gray worried about the
shortage of dieticians in the U.S. Army and offered a two-year
graduation plan for new majors. In 1942, she used the L.A. Times as
a way of advertising her offer and notifying the public of the
problem.
In 1949, citing health problems, Gray retired. During that year,
available classes included Home Economics 15: Selection of House
Furnishings; and Millinery 171A: Head Coverings.
Dorothy Peterson, a graduate student in 1950, wrote the first
historical account of the department. In the chronological account,
she hypothesized that the department would be housed in its own
building by 1951.
Up to this time, the department had been housed in Campbell
Hall, and a home economics building was never constructed or
seriously considered.
The 1950s brought to the department two prolific home
economists: Eleanora Petersen, professor of textiles and Frances M.
Obst, popular radio, home economist.
"Education fails us if it doesn’t enable us to solve problems
more effectively," Petersen said in a 1956 Practical Magazine
article.
Petersen came to the university in 1952, the same year 214
students graduated from the home economics department.
In the late 1950s, CBS radio ran a weekly public service program
featuring Obst. She gave advice about home budgeting, stain
removal, decorating and other homemaking matters.
Despite the relative popularity that the major had been enjoying
though, its days were numbered.
In 1960, the California State government released its Master
Plan for Higher Education in California,which called for a
reduction on the broad range of majors offered at California
institutions.
One of the first majors targeted for extinction was home
economics because of the very narrow concentration of the major.
After the plan was released, the department was briefly transferred
to the newly formed fine arts department.
In the year that followed, university officials debated on the
future of the department. In a 1961 agreement between the college
of Letters and Sciences and Vice Chancellor Foster Sherwood, the
department was officially disbanded.
In order to accommodate freshmen that entered the major in 1961,
the university allowed home economics to exist as an
inter-departmental major in the college of Letters and Sciences.
The 1964-65 UCLA catalogue of classes was the last catalogue that
offered classes in home economics – Home Economics 176: Advanced
Dress Design; and 161: Decorative Textiles.
Home economics as a department took its last breath on June 16,
1961 in a memo from UC President Clark Kerr to Sherwood.
The memo stated that $162,301 from the home economics department
had been transferred to the School of Public Health.University
Archives
Former home economics student Rita Rvaankeimo sterilizes test
tubes for a nutrition experiment.
University Archives
Greta Gray was the chair of the home economics department at
UCLA.
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