Schooling of Women in the first part of the 20th Century: Memorizing Female Agency

In this paper, we address the development of home economics schooling in the first half of the 20th century as memorized by the women entrepreneurs in the field. Schooling in home economics developed in this period and like any kind of education aimed at the socialization of citizens into particular social roles. It was forming the female body into specific practices that also formed the foundation for the universal welfare state, of which health, education and care constituted the pivotal points (Esping-Andersen, 1990) that are also conceptualized as biopolitics (Foucault, 2008). In the history of education and in memoires of women pioneers of the time, such education contributed to the empowerment and emancipation of women while they neglected more contradictory themes. The fact that the schooling of women in the area of home economics also meant socializing them into specific roles in society was put to the background.