History of the Field
of Human Ecology
The field of human ecology has evolved into a vital and dynamic profession that has greatly changed American society and opened up career opportunities for both women and men for over one hundred years. Although the past century has seen incredible swings in what we value as necessary and important, one basic truth is timeless: Human beings have needs that are neglected to our peril. The field of human ecology is concerned with these needs and how we as individuals, families and organizations meet those needs.
Human ecology, as we now call the field previously known as “women’s courses,” “domestic science” or “home economics,” has a somewhat uncertain origin, probably arising from the increase in literacy in the mid-1800’s and the emergence of publications on domestic management such as Treatise on Domestic Economy for the Use of Young Ladies at Home (1841). Cooking schools became extremely popular beginning in the 1870’s and women whose names are still familiar—such as Fannie Farmer—contributed to a growing public hunger for more instruction in domestic matters.
However, probably the most significant trigger in the development of human ecology as an academic field was the Morrill Act of 1862, which created the land-grant university system and helped open up higher education for farmers and those involved in agriculture and related fields. Eventually, leaders at land-grant institutions such as K-State realized that the wives and daughters of these better-educated farmers should enhance their education so they could more expertly oversee what was perceived to be their sphere, the management of the home. Science was brought to bear on traditional activities such as food preparation, nutrition, sewing, care of the sick and others. The end of the 19th century saw the establishment of several programs of “domestic science” across the country. In fact, K-State established one of the first two programs in the country and had the first home economics building in the world.
A second crucial catalyst to the evolution of the field were the Lake Placid Conferences, gatherings that began in 1899 (and usually held in Lake Placid, N.Y.) of educators and activists who sought to establish an identity and purpose for the emerging field of home economics. Leaders such as Ellen Richards (the first woman to earn a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Melvil Dewey (inventor of the Dewey Decimal System) worked successfully for many years to establish programs of home economics in secondary schools and institutions of higher education. Richards actually suggested the term human ecology at the beginning of the 20th century, based on the Greek word okologie, because it related to both the science of housekeeping and the relationship between people and their environment.
Home economics (later human ecology) was a natural fit with the emerging state-funded Cooperative Extension Service, administered by the land-grant institutions. CES helps fulfill the land-grant obligation to disseminate learning to the populace by providing life-enhancing knowledge and skills.
Over time, the field of human ecology has generally organized itself into disciplines that enhance the quality of human life such as nutrition, hotel and restaurant management, interior design, apparel and textiles, dietetics, the care of children and families, and many therapeutic disciplines such as marriage and family therapy and speech-language pathology, among many others.
Human ecology has moved with the times, in the early days providing women with career opportunities in the otherwise male-dominated work world, and later responding to changing perceptions of gender roles with even richer options. Because the issues and interests of human ecology are enduring and universal, the field itself will respond to human needs within whatever social structures and institutions people devise.
Sources:
- Albert R. Mann Library. 2006. Home Economics Archive: Research, Tradition and History (HEARTH). Ithaca, NY: Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell University. Available at http://hearth.library.cornell.edu (Version January 2005).
- Hoeflin, Ruth. 1988. History of a College: From Woman’s Course to Home Economics to Human Ecology. Manhattan, KS: Ag Press.
- Kellett, Carol. 06/07/2006. Personal communication.
- Paolucci, Beatrice. Winter, 1980. Evolution of human ecology. Human Ecology Forum, pp. 17-21.