In this exhibit you can explore the different phases of Solitude’s history. We begin during the period when this place was indigenous land, and go on to explore its history as a slave plantation in the nineteenth century.
A SPACE FOR OPPORTUNITY—HOME ECONOMICS AT VIRGINIA TECH
Home economics was added to the curriculum of the School of Agriculture in 1921-1922. It was seen as the first curriculum to address the interests of women. It became a four-year program by 1925-1926. While none of the “first five” majored in home economics, the field was popular among co-eds. Until 1965, more than half of the female students to enroll at Virginia Tech majored in home economics.
Women with a home economics degree were prepared for a number of careers including teacher, home demonstration agent, researcher and journalist. Promotional materials from the 1960s touted that the field prepared women for the worlds of both home and work.
Promotional materials for Home Economics at VT, 1960s
Home economics courses prepared women for the worlds of both home and work
Women working on a sewing project at a home demonstration club meeting in the early 1950s. My grandmother, Mildred Richardson (back center), was an active member of this club.
Early on, women with a home economics degree often became home demonstration or home economist agents. Through the Cooperative Extension Services, home demonstration agents helped rural women modernize their domestic and agricultural practices. Agents brought women information about new technology and methods to improve their methods of cooking, sewing, gardening and canning.
Home demonstration agents helped rural women develop leadership abilities, taught women how to manage their resources and educated famlies about health and nutrition. However, materials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, describe the main objective of the home demonstration agent as:
To give to rural people, in a form in which they
can use it at a time when they need it, information
that will enable them to become better citizens in a
democracy.
Mary Moore Davis (center) was among the first female faculty members at Virginia Tech. She taught in the Home Economics department when it first formed in the early 1920s. Ella Agnew (left) and Maude Wallace (right) worked for the Virginia Cooperative Extension as home demonstration agents. Agnew was the first woman to have a building named in her honor on the Blacksburg campus. The Home Economics Building was renamed Agnew Hall in 1949. Wallace Hall, built in 1966, recognizes the contributions of Maude Wallace as both a home demonstration agent and head of the Home Economics department.
Ella Agnew was the first home demonstration or home economist agent in the United States. After 1916, she worked from the Blacksburg campus.
