By the winter of 1919, as the nation was emerging from its brief but formative participation in World War I, Cambridge was already looking ahead to what the next decade would bring its residents. Included in that group were housewives, many of whom had been affected by the economic challenges of the war to household management. The U.S. Department of Agriculture had just established a series of bureaus in cities and towns across the country “to assist the housewife in solving her home problems particularly those which are an outgrowth of the war, with its high prices and necessity for eliminating waste of all kinds, and the accompanying dangers to the children of this generation.”
Over the past two decades, the field of home economics had emerged as the result of applying methods from the material and social sciences to the work women performed within the home; in 1908, the American Home Economics Association was created as a national network to share new ideas and methodologies. During the second half of the 1910s, much of these efforts were focused on the unique challenges of wartime and the necessity for wives and mothers to fulfill their household duties in an efficient, cost-effective manner.
The Department of Agriculture’s center at City Hall was introduced in a January 1919 article in the Cambridge Chronicle that declared it “ready to furnish instruction for classes in household management, budget making, household accounts, buying and preparing food, making and using labor saving devices, and on feeding the family with special emphasis on children’s diets.”
Even after the war and its immediate aftermath, however, the desire for Cambridge women to streamline their household efforts continued. In 1926, the Chronicle announced the creation of the Cambridge Home Information Center as a city-run office with the same mission: to information on home economics and child-rearing using the latest scientific information. From its home on Brattle Street in Harvard Square, the center would operate for almost half a century, offering lectures, classes and material support to women in the home. The first clinic, in November 1926, focused on “the effect of modern trade practices on living costs, particularly on butter and flour. Come and give us your problems and perhaps we can find the specialist who will solve them.”
The idea of “specialists” trained to view household challenges in the same way as larger economic, political and social problems was a hallmark of the 1920s. But not all Cambridge women could – or chose to – take advantage of the offerings of the center. Upper-class women had servants to do the essential work in their households, and so had no need for these classes themselves, although some did send their domestic workers to help streamline their labor. Those on the lower end of the economic ladder often worked for wages outside the home as well as inside; for these women, many of whom were newly arrived immigrants, the center’s lectures and meetings were inaccessible because they were in the middle of the day when they would be working elsewhere. In addition, these women were putting in long hours at strenuous jobs and felt lucky to get through the day with their homes intact and their children fed. To them, the latest “science” of home economics was so far removed from their daily existence as to be unrelatable.
It was, therefore, the middle-class, mostly native-born white women of Cambridge who made up the bulk of the center’s membership and were able to take advantage of its offerings. During the 1920s and 1930s, the center offered classes on healthy cooking, household budgeting and the latest thinking on various issues in child-rearing. Attendees learned how to do everything from growing and arranging flowers to selecting the best educational toys for children. They combined forces with other women’s groups, including the various settlement houses in the city and the League of Women Voters, often sharing the stage at lectures and other events. During World War II, the center’s focus again became more practical, as home economists and other specialists offered lessons on cooking nutritious meals with government-issued food rations, mending clothing and other household items to save money, and canning and preserving fruit and vegetables. The center continued to work closely with other organizations, in particular the Red Cross.
After World War II, the center’s agenda shifted largely to one more social in nature. Postwar technological advancements had increased the efficiency and decreased the labor needed to run a household, and the economic and social optimism of the period shifted the center’s perspective on what modern housewives needed. The center began to offer Cambridge women opportunities to broaden their cultural and recreational horizons through day trips to local museums, historical sites and places of leisure instead of formal classes or instruction. The lectures by home economists and other specialists continued, but most were presented as social events at members’ homes, accompanied by refreshments and designed as a way for middle-class housewives in the city to connect with one another and create community.
As the women’s rights movement of the previous decade continued to evolve and as more and more Cambridge women of all classes were engaged in paid labor outside the home, leaders at the center made the decision in 1975 to disband. Although the center and its programs did not – and were not designed to – meet the needs of all of the city’s housewives, those who did participate gained a sense of ownership over their role as household managers and a connection to other local women engaging in the same work (and facing the same obstacles). For nearly 50 years, the Cambridge Home Information Center provided a framework for information and community for many of the city’s women and helped shape the conversation around domestic labor and familial responsibilities.
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