ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Home Economics and Science Communication

• In Event: Plural Worlds of Science and Shifting Perspectives on Home Economics, 1870-1990

English Abstract

Chemist Ellen Swallow Richards (1842-1911) worked throughout the last two decades of her life to introduce a holistic view of science’s place in the home. Her many writings on science and the home serve as early examples of science communication. She spoke and wrote to a number of different audiences: students at all levels, housewives, business investors, and everyone in between. She communicated about science and the home in venues like fraternal organizations such as the Boot and Shoe Club to academic settings like the National Education Association. Richards deployed various modes of science communication, from pamphlets, books, speeches, textbooks, broadsides, and other public publications.

Richards’s work on science communication in home economics offers an early example of women’s work in convincing the public of the value of science. Using German zoologist Ernst Haeckel’s concept of oikology, Richards wrote often about ecology in her attempts to argue that the home (oikos) was the starting point of all human development just as science was the starting point for understanding about the natural world. Richards’s writings on the home fused science, and her writings for the general public positioned home economics and science as mutual disciplines. Overall, her work in science communication attempted to convince the public that a healthy and productive home could not be achieved without a basic understanding of chemistry, bacteriology, and physics. The paper will explain Richards’s approach to science communication while offering greater detail on the history of science communication and women’s role within.

Author

• Serenity S Sutherland, SUNY Oswego