Home Economics Archive: Research, Tradition and History (HEARTH)
The history of childhood depends, to some extent, on
understanding the history of home- and family-life, the primary
context in which childhood occurs. In the U.S., the rise of the
field known as "home economics" had an enormous impact on
popular conceptions of children and what kind of care they
require. The impressive HEARTH website offers the most
comprehensive online collection of primary sources in the field
of home economics from 1850 through 1950; a few sources, such as
full-text articles from the Journal of Home Economics, are
inclusive through 1980. Introductory material addresses the
importance of home economics to women's history and children's
history as well as its broad impact on American culture.
Materials are arranged into 11 broadly-defined topics; each is
introduced with a short essay, an image, and a substantial
bibliography of influential texts on that topic, in PDF format.
The history of home economics is a relatively young