Facs

FACS Profession Timeline

  • Benjamin Thompson (1753 - 1814)

    first to experiment with household issues
  • 1841

    Catherine Beechor adds to the domestic science development by thinking of her Treatise on Domestic Economy.
    Known to be influential when it came to promoting equal education for women
    Catherine and her sister founded the Hartford Female Seminary
  • 1862

    The First Morrill Act is passed, providing federal lands to the states to be sold to support colleges of agriculture and mechanical arts.
  • 1873

    Ellen Richards is the first woman to be granted the Bachelor of Science at MIT. Vassar awards her a Master's degree based on her scientific thesis. She is the first woman to earn an advance science degree
    Kansas State begins its domestic economy curriculum.
  • 1882

    Ellen Richards publishes The Chemistry for Cooking and Cleaning: A Manual for Housekeepers
  • 1885

    Domestic Sciences courses are introduced into the public school system in Boston.
  • 1887

    The Hatch Act is passed, providing $15,000 a year for state established agricultural experiments stations.
    Ellen Richards conduces the Great Sanitary Survey that modernized municipal sewage treatment and develops the first water purity tables and water quality standards.
  • 1890

    The Second Morrill Act passed, providing further funding for black student colleges.
  • 1893

    The World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the Rumford Kitchen of "science of nutrition"
  • 1894

    First nutritional lunch school program in Boston by Ellen Richards.
  • 1899

    Childcare and an emphasis on promoting a more enduring type of family life becomes a focus in home economics
    The first Lake Placid conference that began the creation of the American Home Economics Association
  • 1901

    State backed support grows for practical education beyond the 8th grade. Secondary education expands to include vocational education.
  • 1909

    the first girl's Tomato Club (4-H) organized by Marie Cromer a teacher through Agricultural Extension.
  • 1911

    American Home Economics Association established
    Death of Ellen Richards
  • 1914

    The Smith-Lever Act is passed, specifying the creation of the Agriculture Extension Service to provide farm women with education in home economics and men with education in agriculture.
  • 1917

    The Smith Hughes Act is passed, establishing federal support for vocational education.
  • 1918

    AHEA sets goals to establish and maintain instruction in elements of home management for elementary and high school girls and appropriate home economics instruction for boys.
  • 1920

    Parenting classes for men and women are encouraged.
    The Home Economic section is added to the American Association of Land-Grant Colleges
  • 1925

    Childcare is recognized as a key element in the home economics curriculum.
  • 1926

    Food corporations begin employing home economists to create recipes and nutritional information for other home economists in the classroom.
  • 1931

    Home Economists in the state become accepted by the public as experts in human nutrition.
  • 1941

    Agnes Faye Morgan, chair of the Department of Home Economics at University of California at Berkley, is appointed to serve on President Roosevelt's First Nutrition Congress.
  • 1943

    The USDA Bureau of Home Economics becomes the Bureau of Human Nutrition and Home Economics
  • 1960

    Specialized programs emerge
    Feminists criticize scientific experts in home economics for fostering restrictive roles for women.
    Integration of Blacks and Whites
  • 1961

    Accreditation of undergraduate programs in home economics begins
  • 1962

    Racial tension acknowledged within the organization, Florence Low sets out to eliminate it.
  • 1968

    Vocation Education Act amended to include handicapped and disadvantaged students.
  • 1973

    The 11th Lake Placid Conference is held to develop consensus among its members.
  • 1976

    The economists begin to gear its work seriously towards males - Vocational Education Act
  • 1991

    Cornell University sponsors a conference entitled "Rethinking Women & Hoe Economics in the 20th Century"
  • 1989

    AHEA launched Project 2000 - enhancing programs to meet diversity needs.
  • 1993

    Scottsdale meeting recommends name change
  • 1994

    Name changes from Home Economics to Family and Consumer Sciences
  • 1998

    Association membership begins to decrease and the FCS program struggles to stay in public schools.

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