Overview
Home economics at Cornell had its beginnings in a historic 1899 meeting in Lake Placid, New York. It was here that a new field of education emerged, dedicated to improving the quality of life in the American home through the application of modern science and management. Melvil Dewey, inventor of the Dewey Decimal System, and his wife Annie were central figures at the conference. Ellen Swallow Richards, a sanitary engineer from M.I.T., and Wilbur O. Atwater, Director of the first United States Agricultural Experiment Station and a pioneer in human nutrition research, also attended.
Liberty Hyde Bailey, professor of horticulture and later dean of the College of Agriculture, brought home economics to Cornell University. On the suggestion of Anna Botsford Comstock he invited Martha Van Rensselaer to Cornell to develop the Farmers' Wives Reading Course, similar to one already in place for farmers. In 1901, the first issue of the bulletin Saving Steps attracted considerable attention. Enrollment in the reading course quickly grew to over six thousand, launching home economics as a field.
At Cornell, home economics grew as a collegiate field of study. In 1903-1904, Van Rensselaer, Bailey and Comstock offered three courses relating to home and family life within the College of Agriculture. In 1906, the first winter course was given in home economics. A year later, Bailey created a Department of Home Economics headed by Martha Van Rensselaer and Flora Rose, who in 1911 were appointed to professorships, the first for women at Cornell. In 1925, Cornell's College of Home Economics became the first state-chartered school of its type in the country, and Van Rensselaer and Rose were named co-directors. Four years later, the New York State Legislature appropriated $985,000 for the erection of a new building for the college. Martha Van Rensselaer Hall opened in 1933, and the college took its permanent place at Cornell. It became the New York State College of Human Ecology in 1969.
Wilbur Olin Atwater
Wilbur Olin Atwater (1844 -1907), a professor of chemisty at Wesleyan College in Connecticut, established the first agricultural experiment station in the United States. A great proponent of the early work done in the home economics movement, he often hired home economists to help him conduct studies on human nutrition, exercise metabolism, and human energy balance. In 1923 his daughter, Helen Woodard Atwater, became the first full-time editor of the Journal of Home Economics.
Martha Van Rensselaer and Flora Rose
Martha Van Rensselaer and Flora Rose at a meeting of the League of Women Voters in the 1920s. The meeting was held at the home of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt in Hyde Park.
Winter Institute, 1906
Guests and lecturers at the first Winter Institute, 1906. The distinguished visitors included:
Front row, left to right: Annie Dewey, Helen Kinne, Caroline Hunt, Ellen Swallow Richards, Alice Ravenhill, Mary Hinman Abel, Isabel Bevier. Back row, left to right: Adelaide Nutting, Abby Marlatt, unidentified, Miss Spring
Anna Botsford Comstock
Anna Botsford Comstock was a naturalist, a scientific illustrator, and a leader in the nature study movement. In 1923, she (along with Martha Van Rensselaer) was nominated by the National League of Women Voters as one of the twelve greatest women in the country. In a letter to Martha in May of 1923, Anna shared her excitement.
Dear Martha,
Hurray for us
Hurray for Cattaraugus!
Hurray for the elect twelve!
If you were as surprised at your selection as I was at mine you know just how it feels to sit down comfortably on a seat in the park and have it suddenly turn into an aeroplane.
When I was first told of the honor -- I laughed and said it was some other Comstock lady. I didn't for a moment believe it was I that had been chosen.
Dear me! -- how empty such honors seem without the dear ones who would have cared so much! -- If only your father and mother and my father and mother could know! -- If only Uncle John Spencer could know! -- Well -- maybe they do!
Can't you come over to dinner some night so we can talk over our sudden rise in the air -- and hold hands and have a good time and get over being dizzy.
Any night will do.
Lovingly -- your
co-elevated, devoted
Anna
Commemorative Plate
This plate commemorates the historic conferences at Lake Placid, New York, which sparked interest in the field of home economics in higher education and launched the development of the American Home Economics Association.
Liberty Hyde Bailey
Liberty Hyde Bailey, seated at right, believed that the field of home economics was the way to meet the demands of women in the country for help with the problems of home and family life.
Saving Steps
By January 1901, Martha Van Rensselaer had published the first Cornell Reading Course for Farmers' Wives bulletin, Saving Steps. Only ten months later the second edition was issued.