Negative Space Embroidery. Credit:?

In reading other blogs (as one does), I’ve been paying attention to the individual posts that strike a chord with me, and much as I love the book reviews, I also like the personalized peek into my bloggie friends’ lives.

I really enjoy reading about how people spend their days (or at least the parts that they’re willing to share), and this makes sense as I’m a nosy parker interested in social history.

So I thought I’d let you into my life a little bit. (Don’t want to overwhelm you with my perfectly run life so I’ll give you small doses…)

Warning for Non-Domestic Readers -Domestic Details Follow for a Bit:

So – what I have done today? Hmm. Saturdays are usually Domestic Catch Up Days for me in our house: start/finish laundry (amazing how many clothes two people can wear especially when we’re both serious worker-outers!); Superhero handles groceries (what a HUGE gift as I can do it, naturellement, but god, it takes me ages as I go back and forth between the aisles and go waaaaay off the list if I’m hungry.)

End of Domestic Details Bit. Non-Domestic Details Resume Here.

At the moment, I am in a craze of wanting to attend some community-type one-time lectures or similar to learn something. I’m pretty open in what I’d like to learn – just anything that strikes my fancy, really – so I’ve been digging around and seeing what I can find.

Last weekend, I went to a local historical society presentation on the university’s Home Management School building that I hadn’t even known was there on campus where I’ve been the last twenty years or so. Wow. (It is very hidden away and unmarked so I do have those excuses.)

(I did happen to be the youngest person there and the only one in casual clothing (i.e. t-shirt and shorts), but I’m glad I attended as the other people were very friendly, the presentation was entertaining, and they had cake… :-))

In the early twentieth century, quite a few universities across the country participated in the government’s Home Management House program whereby qualified (white) women could attend university and yet still keep up their domestic skills. (Lucky them.) The program was open to (all? mostly?) women and once they had completed their courses and had the required living time at the campus’ house, they could graduate with a degree in Home Economics.

Students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison gather during “clothing class” in 1911. (Credit: Univ.Wis.Mad.)

Each university that participated in this program built a large house (called a practice cottage) on campus where a small number of young female undergraduates would live and all take part in living in and running the house, from cleaning the windowsills to cooking up a storm. (I think participants may have taken other classes but I’m not sure of that. I would think so…)

Texas Tech University did have its own Home Management House and this is where the talk occurred. The house fits snugly right into campus as it is built now, but at the time, would have been far from the other campus buildings. It was built in 1927, only four years after the university was founded and 18 years after the city was incorporated and the first railroad made its way across West Texas. So it was a pretty cutting-edge program for the time and the place, historically speaking, and was a non-threatening way that bright young women could go to university without unbalancing the status quo (of men getting a university degree).

A practice cottage at the University of Idaho. Not sure when this pic was taken, but the building stood between 1920-1966.

I had no idea that the U.S. had this Home Management House system in place but there doesn’t seem to be much on-line about it. There are lots of old photos of other university’s practice cottages (Idaho, Iowa, Arkansas et al.) but not much otherwise so I wonder if it’s an understudied area of history. It was pretty interesting learning about it as I had not heard of it before and had never noticed this building on campus. (It’s now very close to where the academic daycare facility is, so perhaps its original founding philosophy hasn’t strayed far from its roots.)

I also happened to go to an educational offering was at the university museum and covered historical embroidery. The publicity hand-out had mentioned eighteenth century pieces so I was curious how this university (out in the hinterlands of Texas) had received these pieces. Unfortunately, there were only two of those pieces, but that’s ok. Texas is not that old in the big scheme of things, so it was only to be expected that the majority of the museum’s holding would reflect that.

Still interesting, to be sure, and had lots of twentieth century examples of embroidery on domestic linens, clothing, bags and other samples. The museum holds Come and See events that invite local people to literally come to the event and see what’s in the holdings. It’s a pretty large academic museum and has limited exhibition space, so it’s pretty fun to see what the curators and museum historians have dug out of the basement and brought to light.

As it was a Come and See event, the historical information was pretty scarce and mostly covered who the donors’ families were, but we, as audience members, did get to handle some lovely pieces.  Plus, the presenter was very well informed so that was fun as well.

Plus – bonus: there was a lovely well curated exhibition of the Embroiderer’s Guild of America pieces which were colorful, innovative and opened the boundaries of how I had previously thought of embroidery. Here’s a good link to introduce you to textile art and some of contemporary artists who made some fabulous pieces.

So – who knows what’s up for community learning next weekend? …