




































Higher Education for Rural Homemakers 

Mary Margaret Wilson 

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto 

 

Abstract  

 This article explores the curriculum of a 

one-year college diploma course in Homemaking 

for rural Ontario, Canada women from its 

founding in 1903 through the first two decades of 

its existence.  This post-secondary program at the 

Macdonald Institute of Domestic Science 

emerged as an educational response to pressing 

social concerns about the future prospects for 

traditions of rural home-life.   

 

At the turn of the twentieth century, there 

was a considerable degree of reticence among 

rural Ontarians to embrace the women‟s 

movement and throw open the doors of higher 

education to women, but post-secondary 

programs in Domestic Science satisfied the 

burgeoning demand for continuing the education 

of the nations‟ daughters without threatening to 

usurp the places of the nations‟ sons in 

traditionally male-dominated disciplines.  The 

field of Domestic Science offered a vital 

alternative to providing women with unfettered 

equality of access to all programs of higher 

education, and educating women to preserve the 

traditions of home life, particularly rural home 

life, held appeal as a likely antidote to the 

perceived growth of social ills.   

The educational offerings of the 

Macdonald Institute of Domestic Science (Mac), 

founded as a branch of the Ontario Agricultural 

College (OAC) in 1903 in Guelph, Ontario, were 

accepted without great objection by Ontarians so 

long as “the existence of gender differences was 

not challenged. Women‟s sphere was domestic, 

and women were the nurturers, the preservers of 

family harmony and social welfare. The question 

of equality was tackled by giving equal 

importance to the knowledge necessary for those 

complex tasks” (Gaskell, McLaren and 

Novogrodsky 1989, 34). The complicity of the 

Institute‟s curriculum with traditional ideas about 

the nature of an appropriate education for women 

provided it with a unique opportunity for 

autonomous development. Because it was 

moderate and innocuous enough not to arouse the 

dismay or attention of either conservative 

patriarchs or liberal feminists, the Institute 

enjoyed a protected haven in which to nurture a 

post-secondary curriculum designed largely by 

women for women. The Institute provided 

systematic, formal training in Domestic Sciences 

and Arts touted to be based on cutting-edge 

practices, the highest moral standards, and the 

most scientific and modern knowledge. It 

attracted primarily young, single, English-

speaking women of European descent from 

surrounding rural communities and middle-class 

urban homes to its programs.   

Through programs that elevated 

Homemaking to a field of post-secondary study, 

the women of the Macdonald Institute worked to 

redefine themselves and their places in society. 

They distanced themselves from generations of 

women who had only the benefit of whatever 

lessons they could learn from their elder female 

family members in raising a family, caring for a 

home and serving a community and moved 

toward an institutionally defined understanding of 

their roles. Formal study in Domestic Science and 

Art allowed Macdonald Institute women to lay 

claim to authoritative knowledge of the best ways 

to perform domestic tasks. As they gained 

confidence in their knowledge and abilities, Mac 

women began to stretch beyond the traditional 

boundaries of the private sphere to extend their 



143 

 

influence in the public sphere in all matters 

connected to the health and well-being of the 

Canadian home and family. They leveraged their 

Mac credentials and put their knowledge and 

experience to use in community health and 

community service. Where they met with success, 

the Institute succeeded, and where they met with 

failure, many of the women who felt a strong 

sense of allegiance to the Institute, brought their 

hard-learned lessons back to the Institute for the 

benefit of future generations of graduates. 

In the tradition of American land grant 

institutions (Murray 1989, 6), the Ontario 

Agricultural College, which reported to the 

provincial Ministry of Agriculture rather than 

Ministry of Education, was established in the 

rural, southwestern Ontario town of Guelph in 

1874 by the Ontario Legislature.  What began as 

the School of Agriculture and Experimental Farm, 

became the Ontario Agricultural College by an 

act of incorporation in 1880.  OAC offered its 

own agricultural diploma programs and a three-

year associate degree granted by the provincial 

university, the University of Toronto.  A further 

parallel with the land grant college system in the 

United States is evident in the creation of a 

Domestic Science programs for rural women, 

which became a part of the offerings provided by 

the land grant colleges such as Iowa State, Kansas 

State and Illinois Industrial University (Vincente 

1997, 321-22).   

Domestic Science higher education at the 

Macdonald Institute was created as a response to 

urgent social concerns, but as social changes 

occurred both outside of the Institute and within 

its walls, those concerns for rural life, family life 

and traditional roles for women also changed. The 

impetus for the founding of the discipline was no 

longer a compelling reason for formal educational 

programming, and a result, the early organizing 

principle of Domestic Science as a legitimate 

discipline has gone. But during the first two 

decades of its existence, the Macdonald Institute 

thrived under the direction of its venerable Lady 

Principal, Mary Urie-Watson and a case-based 

analysis of its early curriculum is well-suited to 

an examination of the transformative nature of 

Institute‟s early programs for women and the 

society in which they lived.   

In addition to professional programs in 

Institutional Housekeeping and Domestic Science 

Teacher‟s Education, the Macdonald Institute of 

Domestic Science offered a range of non-

professional programs in Homemaking including 

a two-year Associate Course in Home Economics, 

three-month short course certificate programs in 

Domestic Science and Sewing, and a one-year 

diploma in Homemaking under the guidance of its 

first Lady Principal. The one-year diploma in 

Homemaking is particularly interesting because it 

so clearly emerged as a deliberate educational 

response to concerns of rural Ontarians for the 

future of family farming and rural living.  In early 

1900‟s Ontario, perceived threats to healthy home 

life took many forms – increased opportunities for 

women beyond the private sphere, 

impoverishment, immigration, rural decline, 

urban industrialization, irregular preparation for 

running a home or raising children, ignorance of 

basic principles of food preparation and nutrition, 

lack of awareness of hygiene and sanitation, to 

name but a few. As Linda Kealey has noted, at 

the turn of the century, “women, as well as men, 

were disturbed by a series of transformations in 

Canadian society.  The abuses of industrial 

capitalism, the congestion and disorder of the 

cities, the influx of new immigrant groups and 

declining fertility among the Anglo-Saxon 

elements of the population worried middle-class 

reform groups, who envisioned wholesale social 

degeneration” (1979, 3-4).  The rural reformers 

and maternal feminists who lobbied for the 



144 

 

establishment of the Macdonald Institute hoped 

that by raising the profile and respectability of the 

domestic sphere through the provision of a 

tailored form of higher education, women would 

be more satisfied with pursuing the role of wife 

and mother or of other work related to the private 

sphere (teaching, nursing and the Domestic 

Sciences fell within this category), rather than 

working in a factory or in the public sphere 

professions ruled by men. The proposals of 

reform groups who touted maternal feminist 

ideals were widely accepted because they offered 

a compromise to the more radical proposal of full, 

unmitigated access to higher education. They also 

offered the potential ancillary benefit of 

stemming the tide of women leaving the home or 

the farm to work in urban factories. Maternal 

feminism in Canada, like Republican Motherhood 

in the United States (Howe 1984; Kerber 1987, 

37-48; McKillop 1994; Palmieri 1987, 49-64; 

Selles-Roney 1996), provided a foot in the door 

of higher education for women. The success of 

the arguments employed were influential in 

creating opportunities for women to study 

conservative, domestic sphere programs of higher 

education in the closing years of the nineteenth 

century that eased the expansion of room for 

women in the halls of academia.  In its first two 

decades, these educational opportunities at the 

Macdonald Institute consisted of  non-

professional one to two-year diploma courses and 

three-month certificate courses in Homemaking. 

The Macdonald Institute‟s one-year 

diploma course in Homemaking began as a two-

year Housekeeping certificate course offered by 

the Institute in 1903.  It was, much to the surprise 

of the Institute‟s Lady Principal, Mary Urie-

Watson, poorly received and short-lived. In her 

1905 annual report to the President of the Ontario 

Agricultural College, Urie-Watson expressed the 

opinion “… that a woman‟s best field of work is 

in her own home,” (8)
 
and was confident that at 

least two years of study was required to develop a 

thorough enough understanding of women‟s work 

to lead to improvements in rural homes and 

communities. However, prospective students did 

not initially agree that such a long course was 

necessary, or could not manage to set aside two 

years‟ time and money, and enrolment was well 

below expectations. This lack of response resulted 

in a dramatic and immediate curriculum change. 

The two-year non-professional housekeeping 

course was quickly dropped after its first year 

and, for those seeking a more in-depth, non-

professional course at the Institute; only the one-

year homemaking course was offered in the 1904 

calendar.  

The one-year Homemaker‟s diploma 

course began in September 1904 with sixteen 

students and proved popular during Urie-

Watson‟s tenure at the Institute, often recruiting 

classes of thirty to forty students from 1903 to 

1917. By 1910, in the interest of preserving its 

allegiance to the objectives of its two founding 

institutions, the Department of Agriculture and 

the Ontario College of Agriculture (OAC), offers 

of admission to this program were made only to 

applicants from rural areas until sixty days prior 

to the start of classes. The program filled quickly 

and tardy applicants from both rural and urban 

centres were frequently turned away. In her 

submission to the 1911 Annual Report of the 

Ontario Agricultural College, Lady Principal 

Mary Urie-Watson lamented that “now even the 

farmer‟s daughter must get her application filed 

three months ahead or take chances of refusal” 

(24) and added this program to her grounds for 

lobbying the OAC administration for increased 

teaching and residential space to meet demand. In 

spite of its popularity, this one-year non-

professional program caused problems for the 

Macdonald Institute because of its high attrition 



145 

 

rates. The Institute made efforts to forewarn 

applicants and their families about the workload, 

and attempted to manage enrolment and the 

occupation of residence rooms by opening the 

class each term to accommodate the need for rural 

girls to help with farm operations in the spring 

and summer. But for the students, a perceived 

pointlessness of the non-professional program, as 

well as a common lack of academic and social 

preparation, contributed to a consistently high 

dropout rate. Typically, 30-50% of the class failed 

to graduate with the worst year of this first phase 

of the Institute occurring in 1916 when only nine 

out of twenty-eight students, or 32%, finished the 

year successfully (Macdonald Institute, Director‟s 

file, Watson, 1903-1920).  

The Homemaker course blended 

classroom instruction in the art and science of 

homemaking with hands-on experience and, as 

noted in the 1903 Annual Report of the Ontario 

Agricultural College and Experimental Farm, 

retained “the practical work of the old course 

[two-year Housekeeping certificate program], 

including the Apartment housekeeping” (Urie-

Watson 149).  The intent of the one-year program 

was to train young women in the art and science 

of running a healthy and happy home. The very 

existence of this program spoke to concerns that 

Canadian society, particularly rural society, was 

doing an inadequate job of recruiting and training 

young women as homemakers. William Algie, 

who enrolled both of his daughters in the one-

year course in 1905, typified the impetus of many 

parents for sending their daughters to the Institute 

for this course. As he wrote to the Lady Principal 

on February 2
nd

, 1905, both of his girls were 

“engaged to estimable young men” and he wished 

them “to qualify for „Home Builders‟ before they 

take upon their shoulders the responsibilities of 

married life” (Macdonald Institute Papers, 

Director file, Watson, 1903-1920).  The creation 

of the program was motivated by the fear perhaps 

best expressed by Homemaker student Minnie 

Gallop in a 1905 edition of the OAC Review that 

“home life is losing its influence” (86) and the 

hope that “the time has come when woman‟s 

work is no longer thought to be mere drudgery of 

housekeeping, but is recognized as an art, and 

handwork is no longer considered menial and 

despised” (84). The supposition that women were 

instinctively inclined to domestic duties by virtue 

of their gender was widely held and evident in the 

Institute‟s Domestic Art instructor Grace 

Roberts‟, comment in the February 1905 OAC 

Review that “to learn to sew seems a natural 

instinct of almost every girl” (319).   But instinct 

was believed to be an inadequate basis for 

decision-making and work in the home. Women 

and their families were led to believe that females 

needed “thorough and systematic training, step by 

step” to open their minds to “the laws and 

principles that underlie and govern household 

arts, and to show their application; but a greater 

object still is to produce a habit of mind and of 

action such as a proper study of science can give” 

(Gallop 86). Minnie Gallop and many of her 

classmates learned to work with “real things and 

materials, with the actual processes of their 

construction and manipulation, with knowledge 

of their social necessities and uses” (86).  Such 

applied learning was considered to be the best 

method of preparation and formed a cornerstone 

of the curriculum. Through applied practice, 

preferred ways of doing and thinking became 

more deeply embedded and the students gained an 

increased sense of comfort and competency in the 

simulated household environment. Each student 

in this program was required to keep the Institute 

apartment for a week. During this week, the 

student had no other work.  As Urie-Watson 

described the student experience in the 1906 

Annual Report of the Agricultural College: “she 



146 

 

enters and works with her predecessor one whole 

day before assuming full responsibility. She is 

given money and expected to do the marketing, to 

cook and serve the meals for the two members of 

the staff who live there, to wash the dishes, keep 

the rooms clean, and finally to render account of 

the expenditure” (214).  

This began as an experiment, but within 

short order, the administration had decided that it 

“gives the girls such valuable training and 

satisfactory practice in household administration 

that it has become a permanent feature of their 

work” (Urie-Watson 1905, 243). The practical 

work done in the apartment was not without 

controversy or dissent, but the administration 

chose to thwart resistance to this applied portion 

of the curriculum. As Urie-Watson admitted: 

“when this work was started in the first year, 

considerable opposition was made to it because of 

the feeling that it was „janitor‟s work‟. This has 

died away, and the warm approval of this practice 

expressed in many quarters is helping to develop 

the more sensible attitude that „it is well for a 

woman to know how the work of a house should 

be done‟” (1906, 214).
 

 In the 1905 Annual 

Report, the reasoning for the program‟s mix of 

instruction and practice was explained: 

 

From the very nature of the work, the 

homemaker is thrown largely upon her 

own resources, and should be capable of 

dealing intelligently with difficulties as 

they arise. One short year will not 

transform the girl just out of her teens 

into an expert housekeeper, or develop 

abnormal wisdom, but the earnest girls 

certainly benefit greatly. Older students 

also find the systematic study of familiar 

things very profitable. We try to give the 

girls by means of many lessons and 

much individual practice work, a good 

elementary knowledge of the different 

branches of ordinary household work; to 

develop their interest in some of the 

housekeeper‟s administrative problems; 

and above all to induce them to think 

about the greater questions of sound 

bodies, wholesome dwellings and real 

homes. The average student in this class 

is inexperienced in the ordinary work of 

a household. We therefore try to teach 

them the best methods and processes of 

elementary sewing, laundry, cookery, 

housework, etc., and each student is 

required to do a great deal of practical 

work (Urie-Watson 1905, 242). 

 

Graduates of the one-year Homemaker‟s course 

were expected to be self-sufficient in their homes 

– able to prepare meals, care for the health and 

well-being of their family, and clothe them, or at 

least mend clothes and manufacture simple 

undergarments and derivations of the basic shirt-

waist pattern. The focus of the curriculum 

emphasized the pre-eminent importance of the 

tasks, methods and values emphasized. The 

development of specific, valued skills was closely 

monitored through course work, but more 

intensively, through observations of practice. The 

aim was to train the hands and the mind 

harmoniously. 

 Six periods of house practice were 

scheduled for the students each week. The 

Homemakers were given some lectures in house 

practice on topics such as the importance of 

natural light, the necessity of eradicating dust, and 

methods of ridding the home of waste matter and 

methods of purifying household air, water and 

surfaces.  The Homemakers were also taught how 

to determine the best site for septic systems 

during the building process and they received a 

basic orientation to household plumbing. They 

were likely to have been motivated to learn this 

content well, because “if a wife and mother was 

solely responsible for major design decisions (like 

setting up a house) that were thought to affect the 



147 

 

health of the family, it followed that any defects 

or illness that subsequently emerged were 

essentially her fault.  In addition, it meant that a 

woman‟s poor health was regarded as a result of 

her own actions” (Adams 1996, 83-84).
 
 With 

increased knowledge and skill, came increased 

culpability. 

The focus of the house practice 

curriculum was on the completion of practical, 

assigned work. The women were given practice 

cards to fill out and hand in for grading. As seen 

in figure 1 (Macdonald Institute Papers, Students 

File: Class Pictures), each card required the 

student to note the title of the assignment, 

apparatus used, procedure and any observations 

made during the completion of the task.  

 

 
Figure 1. House Practice Card. 

 

House practice tasks included: black-leading a 

kitchen stove, brushing walls, cleaning aluminum, 

cleaning dirty granite wear, cleaning a fireplace, 

cleaning windows, daily bathroom work, 

dishwashing, flushing a sink trap, waxing floors 

and cleaning window shades. Each task had a 

preferred method of approach and was graded on 

quality of completion. Initially, Urie-Watson 

oversaw the house-practice inspections, but her 

administrative duties occupied an increasing 

proportion of her time. In 1906, she handed the 

inspections over to the laundry teacher to ensure 

that the observations were completed with care 

and attention. Urie-Watson wrote in the 1906 

Ontario Agricultural College Annual Report: 

“The house-practice was organized and up to 

September conducted by myself, but the work is 

individual, and its rapid development made 

adequate inspection impossible. Miss Bigelow‟s 

employment makes possible the careful oversight 

which is so necessary, her time is very fully 

occupied, and the work is in a much more 

satisfactory condition”
 
 (219).  The time spent in 

preparation, guidance and evaluation of practical 

work was considerable, and the financial 

implications of practical work were enormous. 

Raw materials such as fabric, cleaning supplies, 

and groceries were required, as well as items such 

as household appliances, equipment and 

furnishings, fabricated models for physiology and 

nursing, illustrative materials to explain the 

structure of cloth and specialized work tables and 

drawers for the creation and storage of student 

work. It was a resource and time-intensive aspect 

of this program and likely contributed to the 

difficulty that the Institute had in expanding its 

enrolment.  It also limited the faculty‟s time for 

participating in research and community service.  

Classroom instruction was a 

complementary method of curriculum delivery in 

the one-year Homemaker‟s course. Each week, 



148 

 

students enrolled in this program took classes in 

household management for one period; one 

period of physiology and hygiene; one period of 

foods; one period of plain sewing and one period 

of machine sewing; four periods of instruction in 

making shirt-waists; and six periods of cooking. 

Lessons in dietetics, sanitation and hygiene, home 

furnishing, home nursing and emergencies, 

laundry and marketing, were offered once per 

term. Some work in child study, ethics and 

aesthetics was also available to the students.  

The classes in management of the house 

included a comparison of various methods of 

table service such as Russian, English and 

combined methods, as well as methods of folding 

linens. But the Homemakers took very few notes 

from their lessons in management of the home – 

either because they were engaged in practice and 

did not have time, or the content was not 

sufficiently difficult or foreign to warrant note-

taking. Similarly, few archival records of notes 

recorded by Homemakers in sewing and home-

furnishing exist – just a few brief notes on cutting 

patterns for shirt-waists, and the advantage of 

ease of cleaning for wooden furnishings such as 

those found in a collection of memorabilia 

belonging to Homemaker student, Corea 

Cleghorn (1914-1915).
 
 

Physiology, as is evident from the 

phonetic spelling “Physciology” in the class notes 

of Dorothy Anderson, a Homemaking student in 

the class of 1916, was a novel field of study for 

many of the Homemakers, but critical to the 

development of an awareness of how the body 

processes nutrients and eliminates wastes. It is 

apparent from student lecture notes that Dr. Annie 

Ross, a graduate of medical school and the 

instructor in the course, chose to employ 

feminized metaphors in instruction in an effort to 

couch the lessons in a discursive field that fell 

within familiar territory for the women and 

perhaps compensate for perceived intellectual 

weaknesses: 

 

The body is like a house, the entrance is 

the lips. The telephone is the ears. The 

muscles are the servants which are over 

600. The master of the house are the 

nerves with the head office in the brain. 

That part which looks after the food and 

drink is the receiving room. The stomach 

is the kitchen. The dining room is where 

the food is absorbed in the small 

intestine. The garbage or the waste food 

which is the large intestine. The fresh air 

comes to wash out all stagnant impure 

air, which is called the laundry. The 

framework of this house is the skeleton 

or the bones (Anderson 1915-1916).  

 

The analogy was carried throughout the course 

and was used to instruct the women in the 

purpose, features, description, growth, and 

structure of bones, blood, skin, muscles, joints, 

glands and major organs. For example, the 

women were taught that “the upper story is like a 

strong box and we call that the skull, sometimes 

cranium. This box holds the brain” (Anderson 

1915-1916). The spine was described like a pillar 

which supports the upper body and vertebrae 

were described as a series of spools, sweat glands 

were part of the plumbing system and the liver 

was a storehouse (Anderson 1915-1916). This 

characterization of the body as a house was not 

unique to Dr. Ross.  Annmarie Adams has noted 

that another female doctor, American Mary 

Wood-Allen, used this metaphor in her book The 

Man Wonderful in the House Beautiful.  “She 

used the metaphor of the house-body to warn of 

the dangers of „guests,‟ such as alcoholic 

stimulants.  And she began her popular textbook 

of physiology, The Marvels of Our Bodily 

Dwelling, by stating: „Let us study the body as a 

house in which we dwell here on earth, a house 



149 

 

created by a divine Architect, fitted up with every 

comfort, divided into many rooms, each with its 

own appropriate furniture and adapted to its own 

especial use‟” (65-67).
 

 These two books by 

Wood-Allen were not found in the Macdonald 

Institute archival collection, but The Man 

Wonderful in the House Beautiful, The Marvels of 

Our Bodily Dwelling, and a sex education book 

written by Wood-Allen in 1905, What a Young 

Girl Ought to Know, were on Urie-Watson‟s list 

of recommended texts for high school domestic 

science programs which appeared in a March 25, 

1905 letter to John Seath, Ontario‟s 

Superintendent of Education (Macdonald Institute 

Papers Director File: Watson, 1903-1920).
 
 So, it 

is likely that Ross was also acquainted with the 

author and saw fit to pull her use of the house-

body metaphor into her own instruction. 

Dr. Ross‟ physiology curriculum was 

fairly exhaustive, covering such details as the 

types of muscles and the action of lactic acid on 

the muscles; types of joints and corresponding 

cartilage and ligaments; the path of food through 

the system, including the action of involuntary 

muscle systems, the stomach and intestines down 

to the details of the manufacture of bile and urea. 

The women also dissected rabbits in physiology 

lab. The faculty must have been concerned about 

requiring women to conduct such an indelicate 

task because they provided each woman with oil 

of cloves in case of sudden faintness – an act 

which may have suggested to some students that 

fainting was a natural and appropriate response 

for ladies placed in such a situation. But, surely 

some of these women had killed and dressed 

game in their own homes and at least one student 

found the practice of providing the women with 

oil of cloves for the rabbit dissection lab insulting 

or demeaning. The “Macdonald Notes” section of 

the March 1904 OAC Review included the 

following tongue-in-cheek question from an 

unnamed author: “Why are not the girls of the 

chicken-drawing class treated likewise?”
 

The 

incident exemplifies the tensions and negotiations 

that existed over conflicting constructions of 

appropriate images of women. In one laboratory, 

women were expected to be delicate and sensitive 

creatures easily overcome by such gritty 

procedures as dissections, and yet, in another lab, 

were expected to be capable of slaughtering, 

cleaning, and preparing fowl for a family meal 

without the slightest perturbation. Such 

contradictions did not go unnoticed by some of 

the women and having the opportunity to both 

experience and reflect on the clash in subject 

positions provided opportunities for conscious 

ideological affiliation with preferential 

characterizations of femininity. Powerful 

discourses and ideologies are often rationalized 

by curriculum, but curriculum can also serve to 

make discourses and ideologies seem absurd. 

Following the comment in the OAC Review, no 

further mention could be found about the 

dispensing of restoratives during dissection labs 

for those with fragile constitutions.  

It is unclear how most of the students 

responded to the lessons in physiology, but they 

must have been either overwhelming or overly 

tedious for Dorothy Anderson, who wrote 

sideways to a classmate on the margin of her 

lecture notes about the intestines: “What time do 

we get to move on?” (1915-1916)
 
 Structuring the 

Physiology curriculum around the features of the 

home may have been intended to make the 

content more accessible and less intimidating for 

the female students, but it was also based on an 

assumption that this elaborate simile was the best 

way to make the concepts meaningful and 

interesting. It served as a powerful way to anchor 

the women to their prescribed sphere of 

knowledge, remind them of their comfort there, 



150 

 

and it functioned to naturalize and reinforce the 

connection.  

During their one period of Foods each 

week, the Homemaker students learned about the 

composition, characteristics, and structures of the 

various food groups such as fruits, vegetables, 

cereals, dairy, and meats, much as did the short 

course students; however, the Homemaker 

students went into far greater detail and depth of 

analysis. They were taught how to conduct food 

value tests using four methods of testing: 

chemical testing to determine the proportion of 

nutrients; physical testing to determine the 

amount of heat and energy supplied; 

physiological testing for ease of digestion and 

absorption; and finally, economic analysis to 

weigh the relative cost of the food. The 

Homemaker students worked on comparative 

charts for the percent composition of water, 

protein, carbohydrate, fat and mineral in food 

substances, and they learned about the function of 

vitamins and minerals. They received instruction 

in the molecular structure of fruits, vegetables, 

cereals, milk, fat, eggs and meat and considered 

these structures in terms of the relative ease of 

digestibility. Through this process of examination 

of the value of foods, students developed critical 

thinking and evaluation skills. After completing 

food value testing, Dorothy Anderson came to the 

conclusion that, although beans were not easily 

digestible, “because of their cheapness beans 

should occupy an important place in diet, where 

economy is observed” (1915-1916).
 

She also 

recorded in her notes information about foods that 

contributed to tissue building such as cereals, 

those which aided in digestion such as barley, and 

those that were best suited to the dietary needs of 

vegetarians and the ill, elderly, or very young. An 

awareness of the need for a balanced diet was 

reflected in student‟s notes. Dorothy Anderson 

recorded that rice was cheap and easy to prepare, 

but noted the caution that the consumption of too 

much polished rice could lead to a disorder and 

that because rice was high in carbohydrates, but 

low in proteins and fats, it was best eaten in 

combination with foods that satisfied those 

categories. Evidence of the start of a dietetics and 

nutritional sciences curriculum is apparent in 

these early class notes. 

Principles of the economics and marketing 

of food goods were part of the Foods curriculum 

for the Homemaker‟s and were reinforced through 

separate lectures on the topic of marketing, with 

marketing, in this case, referring to the act of 

purchasing goods at market, rather than the 

current connotation of promotion for sales. In an 

effort to level out social inequities, the Institute 

emphasized the charms of simplicity and 

positioned the ability to live with thrift as a highly 

desirable skill to attain. Women were given a 

leading role to play in raising the standards of 

living across the nation by modifying 

expectations and values. It was argued by an 

unnamed author of an article entitled “Economy 

and the Woman‟s Influence on it” which appeared 

in the April 1914 edition of the OAC Review that 

“if the women would remember that they can be a 

big factor in reducing the high cost of living by 

household economy, there would be happier 

homes throughout the Dominion” (360). 

There were two underlying suppositions 

circulating in such discourse: first, that it fell to 

women to overcome poverty through thrift and 

careful housekeeping; and secondly, that women 

from impoverished lower-class and rural settings 

were incapable of budgeting prudently and 

needed training as a remedy. They were instructed 

on how to make the best use of what resources 

they had and how to spend funds judiciously. 

Ingenuity and industry in the face of uncertain or 

limited resources were afforded greater esteem 

than the ability to live lavishly and effortlessly 



151 

 

with an abundance of readily available resources. 

The First World War intensified the importance 

of this lesson when conservation of food 

resources became critical to the war effort. The 

Mac girls were told by an unnamed classmate in 

the May 1918 edition of the OAC Review that “if 

Macdonald students are to use their influence in 

this cause and act as conservation propagandists, 

they must be able to meet antagonism with 

irrefutable statements”
 

 (438).  The Institute 

taught the women how to judge the best sources 

for purchasing fruits and vegetables and methods 

for determining the quality of goods. The best 

seasons for various foods were identified and 

patterns of pricing were discussed. The potential 

health effects of preservative chemicals, such as 

copper sulphate which was used to turn 

vegetables from a grey-green to a vibrant green, 

were discussed. Similarly, the women had 

lectures on the potential health effects of faulty 

canning methods and were instructed on how to 

identify signs of problems such as unlevel cans, 

no detectable sound of liquid, or a metallic or 

acidic taste. In 1884, the Canadian Department of 

National Health and Welfare passed the nation‟s 

first food adulteration act, ten years after the first 

such act in the world was passed (Cameron 2007),
 

and the heightened awareness of quality control 

measures found its way into the curriculum at 

Mac. The manner in which contaminants enter 

into milk – the likely source of the illness which 

took the life of  Domestic Science Education 

Crusader Adelaide Hoodless‟ son – were 

discussed at length, and the women were told that 

it was the responsibility of the homemaker to “get 

milk from a good source, and in covered bottles. 

[Milk] should be kept in hygienic surroundings, 

in a cool place, not in hot temp” (Anderson 1915-

1916).
 
This section of the curriculum aimed to 

produce savvy and responsible consumers, but it 

was also based on the presumption that the 

students had little or no knowledge of how to be 

hygienic or thrifty – a presumption that was likely 

ill-conceived in the case of students who grew up 

in homes where vigilance for food contaminants 

and economy was an absolute necessity.  Most 

likely, this ignorance reflected the curriculum 

authors‟ privileged class background.  

The home nursing and emergencies 

curriculum was not dissimilar from that provided 

for the Short Course women, but more conditions 

and cases were discussed. Like the Short Course 

students, the Homemakers learned how to take 

and chart vital statistics such as pulse rate, 

temperature, respiration, elimination, and 

patient‟s state of mind. However, the 

Homemakers were also given instruction in how 

to make and maintain their own mercury 

thermometers and they learned temperature 

patterns associated with particular health concerns 

such as pneumonia, typhoid, measles and chicken 

pox. They learned how to mix, use and store their 

own disinfectants such as bichloride of mercury, 

boracic acid, carbolic acid, hydrogen peroxide, 

formaldehyde and sulpher dioxide. They were 

taught how to dress wounds, apply poultices, give 

footbaths and administer enemas.  

Their first aid instruction considered not 

only burns, stings, sprains and cuts, but also 

poisonings, drownings, choking, gunshot wounds, 

snake bites, fainting, hysteria, strokes, and 

internal and external haemorrhaging. The 

Homemakers were taught the difference between 

metallic, vegetable, alcohol, strong acid and 

strong base poisonings, and they learned which 

types of poisonings required emetics and types 

which called for dilutants as treatment. Hysteria 

was distinguished from convulsions and fits and, 

as a student recorded in her lecture notes, thought 

to be “caused sometimes by uncontrolled crying, 

laughing or rage, etc.”  It was presented as poor 

behaviour and a tactic to gain attention rather than 



152 

 

a serious health concern. The women were told to 

“leave the patient positively alone. It can be 

prevented by detracting the attention” (Ahrens 

1914-1915).
 
 

Their consideration of illnesses included 

communicable diseases such as tuberculosis and 

the women were made to understand that 

homemakers play a crucial role in stopping the 

spread of disease as well as in easing the pain of 

sufferers. OAC Professor William Muldrew 

expressed this contention in a January 1907 OAC 

Review article when he wrote, “It rests with the 

women of Canada to stamp [tuberculosis] out, 

and if all women could have the right amount of 

education in this matter, and were willing to it 

into effect, this plague would be stamped out in 

one generation” (201).  The women were 

encouraged to contribute to public efforts to stop 

the spread of tuberculosis including the 

eradication of public spitting, communal drinking 

cups and towels, and long walking skirts. They 

were also encouraged to lobby for better 

inspection of beef and dairy cattle, better 

pasteurization of milk, protected display of food 

goods for sale, and the building of sanatoriums. 

They were urged to volunteer to distribute 

educational literature and participate in public 

awareness campaigns. The causes, symptoms, 

treatment and dangers of droplet infection in 

cases of pneumonia also took up several lectures. 

The curriculum was fairly comprehensive and 

was intended to equip women to provide effective 

first aid and continuing care. Clear parameters 

were established between the limits of women in 

the home and the much greater capability of 

doctors to treat the ill. The women were 

frequently instructed on when to call in outside 

help and reminded that they were not to assume 

that they could usurp the role of medical 

professionals. They were, rather, to take care of 

their family member‟s immediate and simple 

health concerns and lobby for improvements to 

public health.  

The laundry curriculum was far more 

detailed than that provided to the non-

professional students at the Institute enrolled in 

three month short course in Domestic Science.  

The Homemakers were taught how to apply the 

lessons of chemistry to the task of cleaning fabric. 

As is evident in figure 2 (Macdonald Institute 

Papers, Students File: Class Pictures), to reinforce 

this lesson, the laundry classroom looked less like 

a Laundromat than a laboratory.  Stations were set 

up around the room and the students worked on 

set laundry tasks by following precise methods. 

The course began with a discussion of the 

differences between hard and soft water and the 

effects of both on the action of detergents and the 

durability of fabric. Students learned about 

 
Figure 2.  Laundry classroom at the 

Macdonald Institute 

 

common alkalis and acids and their uses. They 

made their own detergents and their own starches. 

Ironing and folding techniques were practiced as 

were some simple dry cleaning techniques such as 

the use of gasoline as a solvent. Students were 

required to bring a selection of clothing items 

such as flannel pajamas, cotton shirts and 

undergarments, as well as linen handkerchiefs, 



153 

 

with them to the Institute as practice garments, 

but there is no evidence that they did the 

Institute‟s laundry as a part of the course work. 

Students were also responsible for reading 

sections of The Science of Laundry Work (Rankin 

1904).
 
 Margaret Cuthbert Rankin wrote a total of 

six books on laundry work for teachers and 

students. The first volume was assigned to the 

Mac students and included examination of the 

composition, states, properties, manufacture, use 

and storage of water, soap, sodium bicarbonate, 

alkalis, starch, blueing solutions, and a range of 

chemicals for use as bleaches, disinfectants, and 

solvents. Rankin also detailed the structures and 

properties of common fabrics and discusses the 

preferred methods for cleaning and maintaining 

the fabrics. The author believed that hygiene was 

inextricably linked to quality of character, and her 

writing (Rankin 1904, 9) reinforced a lesson that 

the Institute valued highly for its aspiring 

Domestic Science teachers: 

 

There is nothing more likely to aid in the 

development of character in children 

than the thorough inculcation of this 

science of cleanliness, and the teacher 

who is earnest and enthusiastic in the 

work will appreciate the importance of 

the relation between cleanliness and 

perfect health. While guiding the pupils 

into methodical ways of working, she 

will embrace the opportunity of instilling 

hygienic principles of cleanliness, 

tidiness, carefullness (sic) and order. 

 

Additionally, Rankin‟s textbook series made 

recommendations on equipping and configuring 

laundry classrooms and guided teachers on the 

importance of preparation, presentation, 

association, generalization and application in 

successful learning. The Institute‟s faculty 

required students to read or purchase very few 

books, but this text was one of the few required 

books and was intended to serve as a useful 

reference guide in the future.  

In 1906, the decision was made to 

increase the academic rigour of the program by 

adding lessons in English and household 

accounting. OAC English Professor J.B. 

Reynolds taught the English classes and Urie-

Watson provided instruction in household 

accounting. It is not clear if this curriculum 

change stemmed from Urie-Watson‟s efforts to 

lay the groundwork for a planned associate‟s 

course. It may also have resulted in part from 

faculty, student or alumni demands for improved 

literacy and numeracy skills in preparation for 

continued studies, but both subjects were 

perceived to be “sadly needed by the average 

student of the class” (Urie-Watson 1906).
 
 The 

readings for the English course equipped the 

women with adequate critical reading skills for 

engaged parlour discussions, but were also 

carefully selected to allow for direction and 

reflection into how the women should best shape 

their lives. In the first term, students read Jane 

Austen‟s Pride and Prejudice, which focuses on 

the theme of marriage and examines the relative 

happiness and success of those who marry for 

status, convenience, impulse, and love. Austen‟s 

book provided fodder for discussions on the 

centrality of parenting and family influence over 

the development of a kind, intelligent and moral 

individuals. The women also read from 

Alexander‟s Anthology of English Poetry, and 

were required to complete a short biography of 

Lord Tennyson who wrote largely on sentimental 

themes. They were also assigned the task of 

completing an exposition of the theologian and 

poet, Joseph Blanco White‟s, poem “Tonight” 

about the devastating cost of sin evident in the 

expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of 

Eden. In addition to the examination of literary 

themes on venerated social values, the women 



154 

 

were also given instruction in the genteel art of 

writing letters and invitations. In the second term, 

the Homemakers read a selection of Canadian 

authors with the idea that, as Corea Cleghorn 

recorded in her notes, “a national literature 

commences only when the genius of the people 

expresses itself through native authors, upon 

topics of permanent interest” (1914-1915).
 
 The 

class considered the difficulties of building a 

national literature in Canada because of the size, 

diversity and political dependence of the nation. 

Silas Marner was the novel study for the second 

term and the students wrote on the role of faith 

and ethics in the social regeneration of George 

Eliot‟s main character. Morality, femininity and 

faithful allegiance to home and country were the 

overriding themes of the English instruction 

provided to the women.  

The Accounting course, which was 

intended to teach practical lessons in budgeting 

and simple, applied math relevant to the women‟s 

likely future roles as home-makers, was not well-

loved by the students. Efforts to tie the math to 

authentic problems did not help to ease the 

discomfort with the subject. The aversion to the 

content is apparent in this sarcastic notice printed 

in the April 1904 OAC Review, “We have to 

announce that after this the subject, „Business 

Methods‟ or „Practical Arithmetic,‟ will be 

dropped. The new girls will not have to try to find 

out, that, if in one minute one cat would catch one 

rat, how many rats in how many minutes would 

three cats catch? It might be added here, that, 

owing to the discovery of an instantaneous rat 

poison in the shape of home-made pie-crust this 

advanced system of feline mathematics can be 

dispensed with at the Macdonald Institute” (61).
 
 

Whether it stemmed from anxieties about learning 

challenging mathematical concepts or a lack of 

confidence that accounting skills were necessary 

for success in the home, it is clear that there was 

some degree of aversion to the subject matter. It 

is not clear what affect this aversion had on the 

assimilation, retention and ultimate application of 

the lessons. 

A year after the courses in English and 

Accounting were added, a course in colour-

harmony was devised in an “effort to lead the 

girls to apply the laws of colour and form to 

clothing and home decoration” (Urie-Watson 

1907, 246).
 
 Taught by a male teacher, Mr. Evans, 

from the Institute‟s Manual Training Department, 

this course: 

 

began with a study of the primary 

secondary and tertiary colors with a 

watercolor box as a basis, for standards 

in their combination later. Thence they 

passed to a brief study of color-balance, 

which is the proper proportion of 

different colors in one combination. 

They took up a little elementary work in 

design, and immediately worked out 

simple designs suitable for cushions, 

curtains, etc. Some of these were carried 

out in cloth and color. Following this 

they carried out practical demonstrations 

of color combinations in dress using 

actual cloth, hats, etc. A small room was 

given over to their use and the girls 

worked in sections. Each group worked 

out a different color combination and 

decorated one corner, which was 

criticized and discussed before the next 

group had its turn. We have been trying 

to develop work along this line since the 

Institute‟s opening year, but this attempt 

is the first that has proved at all 

satisfactory. This kind of work, like 

other practical work, takes a great deal 

of time, but we believe it to be of great 

value to the girls. 

 

According to Helen Staebler‟s January 1910 

article in the OAC Review, the color harmony 

course, as part of the “whole scheme of handicraft 



155 

 

education” at the Institute, developed the lofty 

objective of instilling “enlightenment in the study 

of objective beauty” (229).
 

 Similar 

aggrandizement of home skills became evident in 

the subjects that made up the curriculum of the 

one-year Homemaker‟s course, which 

increasingly focused on the “science or reasons at 

the bottom of practical operations” (Urie-Watson 

1909, 234)
 
as the first two decades of the Institute 

ended. 

One of the pillars of the Domestic Science 

education movement noted in the March 1907 

“Macdonald” section of the OAC Review was the 

belief that “the home is the social workshop for 

the making of men”
 
(299), and women must be 

well equipped and trained to rear children, 

particularly male children, with care and 

intelligence so that they may become productive 

citizens who would contribute to the advancement 

of the nation. By 1914, lessons on mothercraft, as 

it was called, had debuted as part of the 

curriculum for the Homemakers. As Katherine 

Arnup (1990)
 
and Cynthia Commachio (1993)

 

have noted in their works on educating women 

for motherhood, at this time, the medical 

establishment and the state began to take on a 

much greater role in counselling women in 

modern motherhood techniques than it previously 

had.  The curriculum developed at Mac was in 

keeping with this growing belief that women 

needed instruction rather than instinct and 

tradition to raise their children properly.  Ross 

provided instruction on care of the infant – 

clothes to prepare, schedules of feeding and 

elimination, bathing techniques, and comforting a 

crying, colicky or teething baby – became part of 

the Home Nursing and Emergencies course. 

Lectures on Child Psychology were also offered 

to allow Homemakers like F. Ahrens to “study the 

mind of the child” and “to find the child‟s place 

in the social world” (1914-1915).
 

 The 

introduction of this content points to the rising 

influence of social sciences and the growing 

interest in the relative effects of nature and 

nurture in human development. The inclusion of 

child development theory in the curriculum 

emerged from the developing belief that children 

were sufficiently different from adults to merit 

separate study, and that, as “environment has a 

great deal to do with growth” (Ahrens 1914-

1915),
 
Homemaker students would benefit from a 

guided consideration of how to create spaces in 

which children could flourish. Through the 

lectures, the Homemakers were exposed to 

knowledge regarding the physical and psycho-

social development of children. The influence of 

G. Stanley Hall, Educational Psychologist and 

President of Clark University, is evident in the 

emphasis placed on the importance of imaginative 

play and imitation in skill development. The 

women were taught that play was instinctive for 

children and could be directed toward the 

development of mind, body and soul. The 

injection of expert, predominantly male-

generated, social science discourse into the 

curriculum was indicative of a heightened 

concern that women‟s work outside of the home, 

in concert with poor training in child-rearing 

practices, was creating a social problem. The 

introduction of a formal curriculum in 

mothercraft was also revealing of an undercurrent 

of concern that ill-behaved or unhealthy children 

were the result of ignorant, careless mothers 

(Dyhouse 1978, 303).
 
 

Homemakers were meant to graduate with 

thorough training in establishing and running a 

family home. The curriculum was designed to 

unveil the theoretical and scientific underpinnings 

of their daily work and provide them with a rich 

understanding of importance and intricacy of their 

work thereby increasing their satisfaction with 

home life. Whether the Institute‟s curriculum 



156 

 

succeeded in achieving these ends is not entirely 

clear. Some graduates may have taken their 

experience at the Institute and dedicated their 

lives to the application of its lessons, secure in the 

belief that their roles were difficult and valuable. 

Other graduates may have had difficulty in 

holding on to the vision of laundry, cleaning, food 

preparation and parenting as scientifically 

informed practices rather than drudgery. It is 

possible that for some, the exposure to theory and 

experimental method gained at the Institute lit a 

spark and generated a hunger for more of the 

same outside of the home rather than within it.  

The non-professional programs offered by 

the Macdonald Institute from 1903-1920 were 

designed to teach practices, values and beliefs 

informed by the intersecting interests that defined 

the social reform groups behind the establishment 

of the Macdonald Institute. The young women 

who attended the Institute were taught that 

women were uniquely responsible for and 

uniquely capable of building a healthy, productive 

and prosperous nation one home and one 

community at a time. This responsibility was 

promoted as a privilege – something to take care 

and pride in – rather than as an encumbrance to 

the progress of women. Within the culture of the 

Institute, sheltered somewhat from contradictory 

ideas posited by liberal feminists or conservative 

traditionalists, a community of women formed 

and nurtured an idealized vision of the pre-

eminent importance of women to take a 

leadership role in establishing ever higher 

standards for the quality of family and 

community. 

 

References 

Adams, A. 1996.  Architecture in the Family 

Way:  Doctors, Houses and Women, 1870-

1900. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-

Queen‟s University Press. 

Ahrens, F. 1914-1915.  Class Notes Belonging to 

F. Ahrens, Homemakers 1914-1915, RE1 

MAC A0162, Students file, Macdonald 

Institute, (UGA). 

Anderson, D. 1915-1916. Students file, 

Macdonald Institute, RE1 MAC A0162, 

Archival and Special Collections, University 

of Guelph Library (UGA). 

Anonymous.  1914. “Economy and Woman‟s 

Influence on it.” OAC Review, (April): 360. 

__________.  1904.  “Macdonald.” OAC Review, 

(April): 61. 

__________.  1907.  “Macdonald,” OAC Review, 

(March): 299. 

__________.  1918.  “Macdonald.” OAC Review, 

(May): 438. 

Arnup, K. 1994.  Advice for Mothers in 

Twentieth-Century Canada.  Toronto: 

University of Toronto Press. 

Cameron, G.D.W. “The Department of National 

Health and Welfare,” Department of National 

Health and Welfare, Government of Canada. 

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/branch-

dirgen/ocvc-bcgdwc/gdw_article_e.html 

(accessed July 1, 2007). 

Cleghorn, C. 1914-1915.  Students file, 

Macdonald Institute, RE1 MAC A0146, 

Archival and Special Collections, University 

of Guelph Library (UGA). 

Commachio, C. 1993.  Nations are Built of 

Babies: Saving Ontario’s Mothers and 

Children, 1900-1940. Montreal and Kingston: 

McGill-Queen‟s University Press. 

Dyhouse, C. 1978. “Towards a „Feminine‟ 

Curriculum for English Schoolgirls: The 

Demands of Ideology, 1870-1963.” Women’s 

Studies International Quarterly I: 297-311. 

Gallop, M. 1905.  “Macdonald.” OAC Review, 

(November): 84-86. 

Gaskell, J., A. McLaren, and M. Novogrodsky, 

1989. “What is Worth Knowing? Defining the 

Feminist Curriculum,” in Claiming an 

Education: Feminism and Canadian Schools.  

Toronto: Our Schools / Our Selves Education 

Foundation. 

Howe, F. 1984.  “Why Educate Women? The 

Responses of Wellesley and Stanford.” In 

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/branch-dirgen/ocvc-bcgdwc/gdw_article_e.html
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/branch-dirgen/ocvc-bcgdwc/gdw_article_e.html


157 

 

Myths of Coeducation. Bloomington: Indiana 

University Press. 

Kealey, L., ed.  A Not Unreasonable Claim: 

Women and Reform in Canada, 1880s – 

1920s.  Toronto: Women‟s Educational Press, 

1979. 

Kerber, L. 1987.  “„Nothing Absurd or 

Fantastical‟: The Education of Women in the 

Early Republic.” In Educating Men and 

Women Together: Coeducation in a Changing 

World, edited by C. Lasser, 37-48. Urbana: 

University of Illinois Press. 

Macdonald Institute Papers, Director File: 

Watson, 1903-1920, RE1 MAC A0014, 

Archival and Special Collections, University 

of Guelph Library (UGA). 

Macdonald Institute Papers, Students File: Class 

Pictures, RE1 MAC A0058, Archival and 

Special Collections, University of Guelph 

Library (UGA). 

McKillop, A.B. 1994.  “The Arrival of Women.” 

Chap. 6 in Matters of the Mind: The 

University in Ontario 1791-1951. Toronto: 

University of Toronto Press. 

Muldrew, J. 1907.  “How Much Shall I Get Out 

of My Life?” OAC Review, (January): 201. 

Murray, D. 1989.  Hatching the Cowbird’s Egg: 

The Creation of the University of Guelph. 

Guelph: University of Guelph. 

Palmieri, P. 1987.  “From Republican 

Motherhood to Race Suicide: Arguments on 

the Higher Education of Women in the United 

States, 1820-1920.” In Educating Men and 

Women Together: Coeducation in a Changing 

World, edited by C. Lasser, 49-64. Urbana: 

University of Illinois Press. 

Rankin, M. C. 1904.  The Science of Laundry 

Work.  London: Blackie and Sons. 

Roberts, G. 1905.  “Domestic Art.” OAC Review, 

(February): 318-319. 

Selles-Roney, J. 1996.  Methodists and Women’s 

Education in Ontario, 1836-1925. Montréal: 

McGill-Queen‟s University Press. 

Staebler, H. 1910.  “Benefits and Advantages of 

Macdonald Institute Courses,” OAC Review, 

(January): 229. 

Urie-Watson, M. 1903.  Ontario Agricultural 

College, Annual Report of the Ontario 

Agricultural College and Experimental Farm, 

1875-1961, President file, Ontario 

Agricultural College Papers, RE1 OAC 

A0090, Archival and Special Collections, 

University of Guelph Library (UGA). 

__________.  1905. Ontario Agricultural College, 

Annual Report of the Ontario Agricultural 

College and Experimental Farm, 1875-1961, 

President file, Ontario Agricultural College 

Papers, RE1 OAC A0090, Archival and 

Special Collections, University of Guelph 

Library (UGA). 

__________.  1906. Ontario Agricultural College, 

Annual Report of the Ontario Agricultural 

College and Experimental Farm, 1875-1961, 

President file, Ontario Agricultural College 

Papers, RE1 OAC A0090, Archival and 

Special Collections, University of Guelph 

Library (UGA). 

__________.  1907.  Ontario Agricultural 

College, Annual Report of the Ontario 

Agricultural College and Experimental Farm, 

1875-1961, President file, Ontario 

Agricultural College Papers, RE1 OAC 

A0090, (UGA). 

__________.  1909.  Mary Urie-Watson, Ontario 

Agricultural College, Annual Report of the 

Ontario Agricultural College and 

Experimental Farm, 1875-1961, President 

file, Ontario Agricultural College Papers, RE1 

OAC A0090, (UGA). 

__________.  1911. Ontario Agricultural College, 

Annual Report of the Ontario Agricultural 

College and Experimental Farm, 1875-1961, 

24, President file, Ontario Agricultural 

College Papers, RE1 OAC A0090, Archival 

and Special Collections, University of Guelph 

Library (UGA). 

Vincente, V. B. 1997.  “Chronology of Events 

and Movements Which Have Defined and 

Shaped Home Economics.” In Rethinking 

Home Economics: Women and the History of 

a Profession, edited by S. Stage and V. B. 

Vincente, 321-22. Ithaca: Cornell University 

Press. 


