The Establishment of the Department (1895-1908)

In 1895, at the invitation of economics professor Richard T. Ely, Helen Campbell, author, reformer and home economist, presented a series of lectures at the University that was published in 1897 as Household Economics: A Course of Lectures in the School of Economics of the University of Wisconsin. In subsequent years, the women's clubs throughout the state, the University Board of Regents, and the governor's wife, Belle Case La Follette, all promoted the establishment of a department of home economics, which the state legislature funded in the spring of 1903.

Caroline Hunt

Caroline Hunt was appointed the first Professor of Home Economics on 16 June 1903. She ardently defended home economics as a rigorous scientific education for women. Hunt insisted that students complete at least one year of college chemistry before their admission to the program and at least 47 credits of science courses for graduation. Classes in home economics began in January 1904 in South Hall.

Disenchantment with the program and the work of Hunt led to a reorganization of home economics at the University in 1908. Hunt was fired and the program was transferred from the College of Letters and Science to the College of Agriculture, where it was typically housed in other land-grant universities of the period.

One of the earliest photographs of the Home Economics Department, probably taken during Hunt's tenure