Easy A: The SuperRad Story of Home Economics

Gastropod

Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley

Science, Arts, History, Food

4.7 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 13 April 2021

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If you grew up in the U.S., you might remember home economics class as the source of deflated muffins and horrifically distorted sewing projects. You might, like Jonah Hill’s character in Superbad, have thought of home ec as “a joke” that everyone takes “to get an A.” But it wasn’t always so—and, in fact, the field of home economics began as a surprisingly radical endeavor. This episode, we talk with Danielle Dreilinger, author of the new book The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live. How did women a century ago use home economics as a backdoor to build careers as scientists? How did home ec trailblazers electrify rural towns, design the modern kitchen, and create the first nutritional guidelines? And what does Sputnik have to do with the field's decline? Can today's home ec once again meet the lofty goals set by its founders? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:45.0	So I did take home, I took home in middle school,
0:48.3	alternating with shop, which was the rule in New York State
0:52.8	at the time this was the early 90s.
0:55.0	And I actually just found my report card recently.
0:59.5	And I got an A slash A-.
1:02.1	I too got an A in home economics, although not in Needlework,
1:06.0	which was a separate class in my school.
1:07.9	My homemade, elasticated waste culots were not a triumph.
	...

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