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History in FACS

  • Benjamin Thompson is Born

    Benjamin Thompson is Born

    Thompson was the first to label nutrition as a science in the late 1800s. Invented the first range with temperature controls, and had a major interest in thermodynamics.
  • Catharine Beecher is Born

    Wrote “A treatise on Domestic Economy” in 1841- the first FACS book recognized by the department of education. She wrote 33 books and wanted to inform people of domestic duties.
  • Ellen Swallow Richards is Born

    Ellen Swallow Richards is Born

    Richards had an interest in Chemistry and graduated from Vassar College and then earned a second Bachelor's degree from MIT. She was the first woman in America to enter a science-specific school.
    Richards was the founder of the Home Economics movement and helped apply her chemistry knowledge to school nutrition.
  • Wilbur O Atwater is Born

    Wilbur O Atwater is Born

    Atwater was known for being the "Father of Nutrition." He was specifically interested in the metabolic processes that occurred in the human body. Atwater invented the Bomb Calorimeter.
  • Morrill Act of 1862

    Morrill Act of 1862

    This act provided land grants of over 30,000 acres for each member in their congressional district. This land was used to fund public colleges that focused on agriculture and the arts.
    This land grant helped fund 69 colleges. A land grant university receives benefits from this act.
    The University of Arkansas and Arkansas at Pine Bluff are land grant universities.
  • Martha Van Rensselaer

    Martha Van Rensselaer

    Rensselaer was the co-director of the College of Home Economics. She was a professor at Cornell University where she developed cooperative extension service programs.
    She was specifically interested in improving the quality of life at home.
  • Charles Ford Langworthy is Born

    Langworthy wrote many books for his experimental stations. He was the co-editor of the Journal of Home Economics. He was specifically interested in conducting metabolic tests and studying chemical compositions of food.
  • Carolyn Hunt is Born

    Hunt earned a degree in chemistry from Northwestern, research on immigrant and ethnic populations, collected dietary histories, social and economic information which was then published by governmental departments
  • Lulu C. Graves is Born

    Lulu C. Graves is Born

    Graves earned a degree in home economics at the University of Chicago in 1909. She was the first president of the American Dietetic Association. Graves was editor of the Dietetics and Institutional Food Service department of Modern Hospital magazine.
  • The Hatch Act of 1887

    The Hatch Act of 1887

    Provided federal funds to state land grant colleges in order to help with agriculture experiment stations.
  • Morrill Act of 1890

    This act led to the establishment of land grant institutions for African Americans. The result was 19 public black colleges.
  • Lake Placid Conference 1899

    "Home Economics" was adopted as the name for the new field of study.
  • American Home Economics Association

    American Home Economics Association

    The AHEA was founded. This was founded through Ellen Richards with the intention to improve the quality of family life through education, research, and public education.
    This occurred in Lake Placid, NY
  • Smith-Lever Act 1914

    Smith-Lever Act 1914

    This act created the Cooperative Extension Service including FACS. It helped to inform people about current developments in agriculture, home economics, public policy/government, and leadership.
  • American Dietetics Association

    American Dietetics Association

    ADA is founded in 1917. It was dedicated to helping the government conserve food and improve the public's health and nutrition during World War I.
  • Smith- Hughes Act 1917

    Smith- Hughes Act 1917

    Established FACS as part of Vocational Education (CTE). It provided federal aid to the states for the purpose of promoting precollegiate vocational education in agricultural and industrial trades and in home economics.
  • Vocational Education Act of 1963

    this Act provided grants to states to maintain, improve, and develop vocational-technical education programs
  • Vocational Amendments of 1968 and 1973

    Federal control over vocational programs was eliminated. Funding was increased as well as extended vocational education services to disadvantaged and disabled citizens. It created work-study programs to provide students with financial support.
  • Vocational Amendment of 1976

    This act helped improve and maintain programs, overcome sex discrimination/bias, and develop new programs
  • AHEA to FACS

    American Home Economics Association voted to change the name of the profession to Family and Consumer Sciences. UCA changed to a new name in August 1994.
  • Carl Perkins Act 0f 2006

    Carl Perkins Act 0f 2006

    This act increased vocational education and increase academic and technical standards.