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Catharine Beecher co-founds Hartford Female Seminary
Catharine Beecher co-founds the innovative Hartford Female Seminary, whose purpose was to train women to be mothers and teachers. -
Catharine Beecher Publishes "Suggestions Respecting Improvements in Education"
Catharine Beecher publishes an essay on the importance of women as teachers, "Suggestions Respecting Improvements in Education." In this essay, she promotes women as natural teachers, but also advocates for an expansion and development of teacher training programs, claiming that the work of a teacher is more important to society than that of a lawyer or doctor. -
Catharine Beecher Publishes A Treatise on Domestic Economy
Catharine Beecher publishes A Treatise on Domestic Economy, which complied domestic duties and emphasized the importance of women's labor. Beecher believed that femininity was innately suited to the responsibilities of both mothers and teachers and did not believe that women had to marry or have children, as she herself never did. She believed that women being teachers allowed them to share feminine virtues with society while preparing for their future role as a mother. -
Land Grant Universities Established Under the Morrill Act of 1862
A land-grant university is an institution that has been designated by its state legislature or Congress to receive funds through the Morrill Acts. These colleges focus on practical agriculture, science, military science, and engineering. Current land-grant colleges have agricultural experiment stations with a Cooperative Extension Service to share the information gathered from the experiment stations. -
Creation of the United States Department of Agriculture Paving the Way for Family and Consumer Science
Abraham Lincoln signs legislation establishing the United States Department of Agriculture, later calling it "The People's Department." The USDA provides leadership on food, agriculture, natural resources, rural development, nutrition, and related issues based on public policy, the best available science, and effective management. The USDA now consists of 29 FAC agencies. One agency is titled the National Institute of Food and Agriculture with a specific Family & Consumer Science Division. -
Morrill Act of 1862 and 1890
Morrill Act of 1862 set aside federal lands to create colleges to benefit the agricultural and mechanical arts. The land was granted to the states to sell and then use the proceeds to fund the college. The second Morrill Act of 1890 initiated regular appropriations to support land-grant colleges, which came to include 17 predominantly African American colleges and 30 American Indian colleges. -
Ellen Richards is First Woman to Earn BS in Chemistry
Ellen Richards begins Vassar College in 1968 and graduates in 1870 becoming the first woman awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry. She continued her education at MIT as a special student to determine women’s aptitude for science. However, MIT refused to award her degree even though she completed the requirements. So, Vassar College awarded her master's instead. -
University of Arkansas is Founded as a Land-Grant College and State University
Founded as a land-grant college and state university in 1871 and began classes on January 22, 1872. Under the Morrill Land-Grant College Act of 1862, federal land sales provided funds for the new university, originally called Arkansas Industrial University, which was charged with teaching agricultural and mechanic arts, scientific and classical studies, and military tactics. The first year of classes began with only eight students and three faculty members. -
MIT Women's Science Laboratory
Ellen Richards establishes the MIT Women's Laboratory offering a curriculum that covered chemical analysis, industrial chemistry, mineralogy, and applied biology. -
Chemistry of Cooking and Cleaning: A Manual for Housekeepers
Ellen Richards published The Chemistry of Cooking and Cleaning: A Manual for Housekeepers. The book presents applied science in a simple manner, by focusing on good nutrition, pure foods, proper clothing, physical fitness, sanitation, and efficient practices that would allow women more time for pursuits other than cooking and cleaning. -
Branch Normal College (University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff) Becomes a Land Grant Institution
The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff began as Branch Normal College in 1873. With the passage of the Second Morrill Act of 1890, Branch Normal College became a land-grant institution and its curriculum was expanded to include instruction in agriculture and the mechanical arts and associated trades. UAPB is the second oldest public university in Arkansas and one of only nineteen 1890 land-grant institutions in the country. -
Rumford Kitchen Exhibit
Rumford Kitchen was presented by Ellen Richards as a scientific and educational exhibit at the Chicago Exposition. The exhibit served nutritional meals at a low cost while providing education about nutrition and proper food preparation. Richard's idea of nutritional meals at a low cost continued, and she began the first school lunch program in the Boston public schools for 10 cents a meal. -
Liberty Hyde Bailey is Instrumental in Starting Agricultural Extension Services
In 1900, Liberty Hyde Bailey invited Martha Van Rensselaer to organize a cooperative extension education program for women in New York State's rural areas. Under the direction of Van Rensselaer, the program enrolled over 20,000 women in under five years. The curriculum sought to translate advancements in agriculture to farm life . This was the beginning of the Cooperative Extension Service Programs. Bailey is also known as the “Father of Modern Horticulture.” -
Ellen Richards Founds the American Home Economics Association
Ellen Richards founds the American Home Economics Association (now AAFCS). Ms. Richards was an activist for consumer education, nutrition, child protection, industrial safety, public health, career education, women's rights; purity of air, food, and water, and the application of scientific and management principles to the family. Her professional experience and foresight led to the formalization of the family and consumer sciences profession. -
American Association of Family & Consumer Sciences (AAFCS) is Created
Ellen Richards and a small group of women and men meet in Lake Placid, NY, creating the American Home Economics Association and develop a mission statement. The mission is to enable families, both as individual units and generally as a social institution, to build and maintain systems of action which lead to maturing in individual self-formation and to enlightened, cooperative participation in the critique and formulation of social goals and means for accomplishing them. -
Marie Cromer Seigler
Marie Cromer Seigler formed one of the nation’s first Girls’ Tomato Clubs. She was one of the first female county home demonstration agents in South Carolina and said “I made up my mind I was going to do something for country girls.” She did so with gusto. She worked with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop national programs to help farm families preserve food safely and profitably. Her ideas became a model for the national 4-H Clubs and Extension Service educational demonstrations. -
Annie Peters Hunter, First Federally Appointed Black Home Demonstration Agent
Annie Peters Hunter is the first federally appointed black home demonstration. She covered a 50-mile radius in Oklahoma to help educate women and girls on conservation, food safety, and earning income. She is remembered for her Extension work and her canning procedures. She designed a large setup for hot water canning which remained in use until the 1940s. Her design was efficient and enabled the community to process 500 quarts a day. -
Smith-Hughes Act
President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the Smith-Hughes Vocational Education Act. The legislation provided federal aid to the states for the purpose of promoting vocational education in agricultural and industrial trades and in home economics to our youth. -
Arkansas Home Economics Association is Formed
Arkansas Home Economics Association is formed and begins by giving scholarship funds to help girls who want to prepare themselves to teach home economics, a membership campaign with a newsletter, and organizing home economics clubs in all schools offering home economics. Later, in 1995, the name is changed to the Arkansas Association of Family and Consumer Sciences. -
President Dwight D. Eisenhower Honors Marie Seigler as a Founder of 4-H
Marie Seigler contribution to Family Consumer Science was honored by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953 for her role as a founder of 4-H Clubs. -
Vocational Education Act of 1963
The Vocational Education Act was enacted by congress to provide grants to states to maintain, improve, and develop vocational-technical education programs for people of all ages. The funds were earmarked for occupations in demand. This Act helped to strengthen and improve the quality of vocational education by providing facilities, faculty, materials, and funding to implement the learning. -
Vocational Education Amendments of 1968
President Richard Nixon signs the bill authorizing funds to aid states and localities in establishing vocational education programs in local high schools. It expands the new course of federal aid for vocational education set by a 1963 law, which redirected federal programs from training in selected occupational categories to a much broader concern for preparing all groups of the community for the fast-changing U.S. job market. -
Vocational Amendment 1976
Amendments were made to the Higher Education Act of 1965 and the Vocational Education Act of 1963. The amendments made changes in vocational education: planning, data and information, evaluation, elimination of sex bias and sex stereotyping, special groups (disadvantaged, handicapped, English deficient), and program improvement (research and curriculum). -
The National Coalition of Black Development in Family and Consumer Sciences
The National Coalition for Black Development in Family and Consumer Science (NCBDFCS) was founded to enhance and strengthen the presence of family and consumer sciences programs in traditionally black institutions, to coalesce with other organizations to ensure the continued advancement of the profession, to provide support and career development for the next generation of black professionals, and to recognize and record the contributions of professional of African descent. -
Carl Perkins Act
Carl D. Perkins Act provides states with funding for grants in vocational education assistance in consumer and homemaking education, adult training, retraining, and employment development, with a reservation of specified amounts for programs for single parents or homemakers, career guidance and counseling, industry-education partnerships for training in high-technology occupations,State councils on vocational education, and bilingual vocational training programs.