The College of Human Ecology and the Roosevelt Connection Exhibit created in January 2016 Please see double spread in next few pages
Cornell’s College of Human Ecology
Cornell’s College of Human Ecology offers an environment where leading researchers collaborate across disciplines to address the most pressing challenges facing our society today. Basic and applied scientists work together to better understand how humans relate to the natural, social and built environments and develop solutions that improve the lives of people. Students can participate in the faculty research through lab internships and outreach opportunities. Reflecting on the College’s history shapes the way we view the present and provides a vision for our future.
By 1929, the College, formerly known as the New York State College of Home Economics, had grown significantly and its facilities were no longer adequate for the growing institution. That year the College requested one million dollars in funding for construction of a new building; however, the state only gave four hundred and seventy five thousand dollars. As a result Martha Van Rensselaer and Flora Rose, codirectors of the College and first fulltime women professors at Cornell, turned to Eleanor Roosevelt, who used her connections to obtain additional funding for the school. Eleanor Roosevelt and Flora Rose, 1938.
Martha Van Rensselaer Hall
1933
2015
Flora Rose wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt soon after the dedication of Marth Van Rensselaer Hall in 1933 about the “big and important” role home economics played in women’s education. She added...
“No person whom I have known has appreciated this more than you. I never come into this great new Martha Van Rensselaer Hall without a feeling that it is the product of the interests and genius of two women, Eleanor Roosevelt and Martha Van Rensselaer. I know it would not have come into existence without your interest.”
The College of Human Ecology At the dawn of the 20th century the work had begun and it was only a matter of time before a woman’s reading course was introduced, curricula developed, departments formed, and a school of home economics created that 115 years later would be called the New York State College of Human Ecology. Home economics was a progressive field, multidisciplinary, with an emphasis on science applied to the real world of the home, families and communities.
It provided a critical path education for American leadership positions in p the academy, governmen As wife of the governor 1928-1932) and then as F 1933-1945), Eleanor Roo national attention to the movement and in turn g support for home econo and increased publicity State College of Home E She helped lobby for stat construct a building at C
and the Roosevelt Connection
hway into higher women, and public education, nt and industry. of New York (from First Lady (from osevelt brought e home economics greater financial omics programs y for the New York Economics. te money to Cornell.
From 1928 to 1940, she journeyed to Ithaca annually for Farm and Home Week, a campus event where thousands of New Yorkers gathered for faculty advice on agricultural and domestic matters. Through her work for the College of Home Economics, Eleanor became good friends with co-directors Martha Van Rensselaer and Flora Rose. Together their shared passion for using the home economics movement as a vehicle for social reform for women resulted in the formation of the New York State College of Human Ecology.
In 1920, Carrie Chapman Catt founded the League of Women Voters, six months before the ratification of the 19th amendment. Martha Van Rensselaer (second from the left) attended a 1920s meeting at Eleanor Roosevelt’s home in Hyde Park. In 1923 the League named Van Rensselaer as one of America’s 12 most influential women.
During her 1937 visit to Cornell’s Farm and Home Week, Eleanor Roosevelt models the gown which she wore at President Roosevelt’s second inaugural ball. The gown remains in Cornell’s Costume and Textile Collection.
Beth Garrett, Cornell University’s President, Alan Mathios, Dean of the College of Human Ecology, and Barbara Lifton, New York State Assemblywoman, view the partner’s desk commissioned by Martha Van Rensselaer and Flora Rose and designed and built by Val-Kill Industries, a furniture factory in Hyde Park, New York. With support from Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eleanor and two friends launched the enterprise in the 1920s, selling handcrafted colonial-style furniture.
In 1934 while on campus Eleanor Roosevelt remarked “I feel I have a right to take pride and particular interest in the College of Home Economics. To me, it is the most important part of the university, for it concerns the homes of the people of this country.”
Flora Rose, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Cornell’s President Edmund Ezra Day at 1940 Farm and Home Week.
Eleanor Roosevelt’s enthusiastic support ensured that the field of home economics would hold an enduring place in the academy and embody scientific research in child-rearing, nutrition, product design, consumer economics, clothing and textiles and other key aspects of American life.
Home Economics began as part of the Extension Service in 1900 with the arrival of Martha Van Rensselaer and the establishment of the Farmers’ Wives Reading Course. Van Rensselaer is seated in the backseat of the first extension car in 1913. Home economics extension trips started like this before the home bureaus were organized.