Catharine Beecher and the Education of American Women

Early History and Evolution of Nutrition Science in the United States of America

“…College‐educated women were the first to be employed to teach young women the principles of home economics. Given that caring for the sick and cooking were traditionally carried out by women in the home during the 19th century (a pattern that continues today), these topics were the first of the newly developed courses offered to women entering college (Burstyn, 1974). Set within the cooking and caring for the sick curricula were nutrition education modules; lessons that were sourced from the laboratory findings of Atwater and others.…”

Education Historians as Mythmakers

“…For a few-historians of women, children, and families come to mind-ideological rather than institutional transformations were regarded as equally important (Aries, 1962;Burstyn, 1975;Conway, 1974;deMause, 1974). …”

“…Indeed, the capacity of women to transform discrimination-laden educational experience into visions of new social, moral, and intellectual possibilities for themselves and others became a major theme of historians exploring the evolution of education in a multiplicity of educational institutions. Whether they explored Republican girls' academies in the late 18th century (Burstyn, 1975;Jensen, 1984;Kerber, 1987;Schwager, 1987), single-sex liberal arts colleges and coeducational colleges and universities in the 19th and 20th centuries (Clifford, 1983;Lasser, 1987;Solomon, 1985;Tyack & Hansot, 1982), or normal schools, teacher training colleges, and university education faculties serving middle-class, immigrant, and minority women (Brenzel, 1983;Clifford, 1983Clifford, , 1989Finkelstein, 1985Finkelstein, , 1988Finkelstein, , 1989bHoffman, 1981;Jones, 1980;Kaufman, 1984;Tyack & Hansot, 1990), historians have concluded that institutions of higher education could be subversive. They had functioned as sources of feminism and intellectual cultivation, incubators of a new stage of female personality, and crucibles for political activism.…”