Dark and dirty kitchens, mean and filthy dress, ignorant and vulgar associates, inconvenient arrangements, poor utensils, hard and dirty work and ignorant and unreasonable housekeepers…

Thus begins a paragraph written in 1864 by the educator and reformer Catherine Beecher to describe working conditions for the American housewife. At this time, as the economy was changing from an agricultural to an industrial one, much of the traditional domestic production work done by women, such as spinning,

weaving, candle and soap making, butchering and curing meat, drying and pickling vegetables and making butter, was moving outside the home. As women’s traditional home-based productive activities became less and less relevant to a burgeoning industrial economy, the sentimental value of home expanded proportionately. It was Beecher’s aim to elevate the status of these Victorian household angels through domestic education “and thus to render each department of woman’s profession as much desired and respected as are the most honored professions of men.” A properly managed home would enable a woman to benevolently mold the character of her family, thus improving the whole moral and intellectual configuration of American society.

An additional effect of industrialization was that science and technology gained an aura of divinity. Adopting scientific principles and technological innovations from the successes of the masculine world lent dignity, importance and a sense of modernity to otherwise humble lives and proceedings. It did not take long for women to apply new discoveries in the emerging fields of nutrition, sanitation and disease control to all aspects of housekeeping. As an article from a women’s magazine of 1886 states: "…progressive women have perceived with a growing sense of freedom, how that which has seemed such endless drudgery can, by a clear understanding of underlying principles and the application of scientific methods, be changed into a beautiful harmony of law and order." Domestic science was on its way.

Science Enters the Kitchen

While all aspects of managing a household fell within the scope of the domestic science movement, it was cooking—often referred to as scientific cookery—that attracted the most attention. With food as a shared basic human need, as a source of pleasure and cultural identity, scientific cookery was seen as an approach that could improve lives on many levels. When scientists began to separate foods into protein, carbohydrates, fat, and water, concluding that each nutrient had a specific function, educators began to change the way that Americans viewed their food. Rather than thinking of food as simply a load of fuel or something that merely tasted good, the public was now urged to select their food on the basis of its chemical composition. In other words, we began to think of eating what was good for us.

Improving Living Standards

Scientific cookery began as a reform movement. Its earliest proponents saw it as a way to feed the poor with economical, yet nutritious meals. Later, young women, as well as matrons, flocked to cooking schools established in major Eastern cities, eager to learn methods of scientific cookery that could be applied at home or in the growing number of job opportunities for dieticians and for domestic science teachers in public schools. Finally, spurred on by advertisers hired by the growing food industry, housewives of all levels embraced another contribution of science and technology—processed food.

One of the basic ideas of scientific cookery was to encourage women to think of the kitchen as a home laboratory for food production. Among other things, this concept has brought about an appreciation of the nutritional value of food and its connection to good health, standardized recipe measurements and the role of kitchen hygiene and food purity in disease prevention. Paradoxically, adopting the principles of scientific cookery in its most developed sense—factory food production— has led to a benevolent attitude toward nutritionally inferior processed foods and an acceptance of cans and boxes from our grocer’s shelves with a surprising number of mysterious chemicals listed as ingredients. For better or worse, the ripples caused by scientific cookery can be felt today.