ABSTRACT
Home economics is an excellent example of a vocational program that held little interest for many students and parents but was strongly supported by educators and interest groups. With the help of Smith-Hughes funding, home economics educators built an elaborate curriculum structure and lobbied successfully for supervisory positions in state departments of education and local school districts. They became another fresh story in the bureaucratic ‘superstructure’ that Robert and Helen Lynd described in Middletown that consisted of differentiated programs administered by specialists. 1 In spite of the funds and human energy expended, elective home economics courses attracted a limited number of students and enthused few parents. The more permanent legacy was the requisite home economics course taken as part of the junior high school or middle school curriculum.
