LSU Training and Home Demonstrations
Dorothy Howell
Dorothy Howell
Dorothy Howell: You were taught home furnishings, different periods of furniture, how you could judge when a piece of furniture was a good piece or not. We were taught how to read blueprints and we even had to make a blueprint because it was assumed that you would build your house someday, and so you had to be able to work with the architect. We had a course in home nursing because, as a mother, you would have to take care of your children. We had a course in clothing construction and food preparation, the main things you did. And so you could either teach these things as a home ec teacher or you could do them at home. That's close to all the opportunities there were in home economics. And then out of that grew a lot of experimental kitchens and a real time in the United States when it was really a big deal to . . . [flipping pages] Here's some pictures of a Betty Crocker home economics kitchen with the home economist in it. And see, you could be trained to do these consumer services, too. So you were trained in how to give demonstrations. We were the Julia Childs of the day and made all the demonstrations.