The first work to improve the home situation for women in Maryland was initiated by William Lee Amos, who, in 1896, was elected director of the Farmer’s Institute.  As director of the Institute, Mr. Amos was keenly aware of the problems that beset rural people.  The first institute to include a program for women was held in 1896 in Upper Marlboro.  The lecture was given by Mrs. Alice C. Robinson of Mt. Washington and was entitled, Our County Homes.

 

Although Mr. Amos attempted to start home economics in several different ways, his original plan of obtaining a competent woman to carry out the work of the Institute was accomplished when he met Miss Emma S. Jacobs, Director of Domestic Science of the Public Schools of Washington, DC.

 

Miss Jacobs became a “circuit” riding home economist on weekends and holidays; instructing farm women in food selection and preparation.  Traveling throughout the state, Miss Jacobs carried an 18 x 12 x 12 inch leather bag specially fitted with pots and pans, an alcohol cooker, aprons, hot holder, etc., for the cooking demonstrations with the rural homemakers.  Later her nesting pans were put inside a small oven that was shipped ahead and allowed her to add baked gods to her demonstrations.

 

In 1908 the “circuit rider” approach was expanded to include a railway car equipped as a lecture hall which traveled from one railroad station to another to present programs for assembled farmers and their wives.

 

Mr. Amos was replaced as Director of the Institute by Dr. Richard Hall in 1910.  At this time, women’s work in Maryland was halted with the exception of interest shown by Mrs. Elizabeth Patterson, wife of the Director of the Maryland Experiment Station. Her work included that addition of a home department to the official National Magazine, Grange Organization, and the establishment of a Committee on Home Economics as a standing body of the National Grange.  The work of the Grange provided support in the Maryland General Assembly that later established instruction in home economics for vocational training in the classroom.

 

The work started by Mrs. Patterson, the Farmer’s Institute, and the Grange later developed in both Extension work and into domestic science classes in the schools.

 

Maryland’s first home demonstration agent was appointed on May 1, 1915, following the passage of the Smith-Lever Act in 1914.  The first year work was limited to girls’ clubs, but by 1917 forty women were doing home demonstration work.

 

During World War I, the need for instruction of food preservation and production brought home demonstrations into demand.  Eighteen Maryland counties had home demonstration workers, providing the first short course for 247 rural women at the University of Maryland in 1923.

 

By 1921, home economics in Baltimore City was a require subject from the 5^th through the 10^th grades and an elective at the 11^th and 12^th grade levels.  In 1924, 83 schools in Maryland offered home economics classes enrolling nearly 70 percent of the girls in these schools.

 

In 1914, formal instruction in domestic science reached the colleges in summer school for teachers.  In 1917, with the passage of the Smith-Hughes Act, a School of Home Economics was established in the School of Education.  In 1921, the University of Maryland in Baltimore, and the Maryland State College in College Park merged to become the present University of Maryland.  The School of Home Economics developed with the three departments: Foods and Nutrition; Textiles, Clothing and Art; and Home and Institutional Management.  Formal instruction in domestic science gradually expanded to most state colleges throughout Maryland by 1931.

 

An article in The Frederick News on April 30, 1917 reported on the first meeting of the Maryland State Home Economics Association (MHEA), the first organization of its kind in Maryland.  The MHEA was founded with the object “to eliminate all waste and extravagance to which American people are addicted.”

 

Four different counties in the State met at Hood College on Saturday, April 28, 1917.  Edith Thomas, who was the Dean of Home Economics at Hood College, was the founder of the Association and became its first president.  Other officers elected at the first meeting were:  vice president, Grace Reeves; secretary, Mabel S. Stephenson; and treasurer, Susan Heyser.

 

During the winter of 1933, MHEA sponsored a series of radio programs on home economics.  Pamphlets on low cost menus were also prepared and distributed.

 

At the 1939 meeting of the MHEA, the Association united with the Maryland Guidance Association, which was a “first” according to some of the records.  Moving pictures, especially “talkies” were used to motivate a group of high school students in the study of family and human relationships.  In the president’s message in 1939, MHEA was referred to as a growing family—at that time there were about 125 members.

 

During the 1940s a college degree in home economics was made a requirement for member in the American Home Economics Association (AHEA) which also made it a requirement for membership in the MHEA.

 

The first Mary Faulkner Scholarship was awarded in 1951 in honor of Mary Faulkner who had served as the Association’s president in 1926-1927.  The scholarship was financed by selling copies of the MHEA cookbook. 

 

Haite P. Carter, a teacher at Morgan State, insisted that all her students belong to MHEA although the Association, like the AHEA, was not racially integrated until 1963.  By the mid 1960s, home economists from around the State from all racial and ethnic backgrounds and areas of professional foci were meeting as one MHEA family.

 

Significant changes occurred in college-level offerings of home economics courses in 1980s and 1990s in Maryland.  These changes paralleled those which occurred nationwide at that time.  Of the many universities who once offered classes in this area in the State, only three continue to do so in 2008:  the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore; the University of Maryland, College Park; and Morgan State University.

 

Following a meeting held in Scottsdale, Arizona with the theme of Positioning the Profession for the 21^st Century, the profession’s name was changed nationwide from home economics to family and consumer sciences in 1993.  The AHEA became the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences in 1994.  The MHEA became the Maryland Association of Family and Consumer Sciences (MAFCS) shortly thereafter.

 

In 1976 the MHEA had approximately 1000 members.  Today the MAFCS has approximately 110 members.  The Mary Faulkner Scholarship continues to be awarded.  Other awards given by the Association honors a Teacher of the Year and an Extension Educator of the year.  Although fewer in membership numbers than in the past, the Association begins its second century dedicated to the support and improvement of individual, family and community life for all irrespective of their gender, or racial or ethnic heritage .

 

Adapted by Lorna Browne from notes obtained from Grace Halifax in April 2008 from a 1968 slide presentation given by LaNece Lemonte at a MHEA Convention with contributions from Ida Collick on October 16, 2008.