The Home Management House, 1940-1960s

The Home Management House

Thanks to the efforts of Mr. G. W. Van Derzee, an electrical engineering graduate of 1908 whose daughter Karen was enrolled in home economics, the Wisconsin Utilities Association offered $20,000 to fund a new home economics practice house in 1940. The new home was furnished with modern gas and electric appliances, including a washing machine, dishwasher, mangle, and electric dryer. For nearly three decades, groups of senior home economics students would live in the home management house (even married women were required to enroll in this class) for periods of two weeks, learning to manage a household on a limited budget. Foods and nutrition experiments were moved into the laboratories in the main Home Economics Building.

Students in the doorway of the Home Management House, 1949

The students rotated through various home management roles such as bookkeeper and dishwasher. For example, each student would serve as food manager at some time during her stay in the house. In this capacity, she was required to plan the meals for her day on a limited budget of one dollar per person per day. There were also two “lower-cost food days,” for which the food manager had to plan meals that cost 80-90 cents per person per day. The funds saved from these days could be used for entertaining friends, both female and male, at a more elaborate meal. Though some alumnae have unhappy memories of their time in the home management house, others remember their two weeks with pleasure, even relating stories of impressing their future husbands with the skills they displayed during dinners at the house.