Recipes for Household Science Classes

Saskatchewan Department of Education - 1923

This provincial curriculum book, issued by the Saskatchewan government, was renamed Recipes for Home Economics Classes by 1926, anticipating the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Household Science’s similar change to the College of Home Economics in 1952 (“History of Household”). With the scientific aspect already well established, “Home Economics” may have suggested a more business-like approach to domestic life and an expansion beyond nutritional facts to include social information as well. The inscription indicates that the book belonged to Agnes Janzen, probably a Saskatchewan high school student. This textbook also reflects the well-established partnership of cookery and sewing in home economics classes: students are instructed in making an appropriate uniform for their class, including a towel, potholder, and floppy chef’s hat. The recipes take a clearly pedagogical approach, beginning with simple beverages and advancing to more complex dishes. In keeping with late-nineteenth– and early twentieth-century household science’s advances in deconstructing work patterns, this book breaks cooking and dishwashing, for example, into a list of instructions to be followed.