Housewifery - Home Demonstration Club

Do you remember the Home Demonstration Club that used to meet here? I do, with very fond feelings. I miss it, and therefore I thought I would write a column about it.

Home Demonstration began in Texas in 1912. Edna Westbrook Trigg accepted a job to work with the Girls’ Tomato Club in Milam County. She had been hired by the United States Department of Agriculture.

The purpose of the work was to organize girls in rural areas and to teach them homemaking and social skills, the program being modeled after a federal program begun in 1903 demonstrating modern ways of farming across the state.

In 1914 the Smith-Lever Act was passed, providing a legal base and financial support for demonstration work. The act mandated that each state establish an extension service through its universities. This was done in Texas through the Agriculture Department at Texas A&M.

Following this, female county agents were appointed to work with farm girls, and clubs were organized, and topics for demonstration ranged from vegetable gardening and poultry and livestock raising to canning and bread making.

By 1917 rural women, as well as girls, had joined in the demonstration work in Texas. Leaders at this time were Bernice Carter and Maggie Barry, and because food production and preservation were the initial focus of home demonstration, the program was used in the food-conservation programs of World War I.

In the 1920’s staff increased and specialists were added, and in 1924 county home demonstration councils were established in a statewide network. Two years later the Texas Home Demonstration Association was formed, and it became active in providing scholarships for girls in Four-H Clubs. Also, at this time, radio broadcasts were used to tell of new domestic techniques.

Membership grew from 1,725 women in 152 clubs in 1917 to 48,712 women in 2,268 clubs in 1934. Home demonstration reached its all-time high in the 1940’s when women were enlisted in patriotic food-related causes such as victory gardens and victory canning, the agents demonstrated efficiency, comfort, beauty, and cleanliness, as well as preservation of food.

Home demonstration work changed in the 1950s when more women went to work outside the home and fewer families lived in rural areas. Club membership was still over 40,000 in 1951 but dwindled to about 12,000 in 1990.

In 1960 Texas home demonstration clubs were represented at the White House Conference on Children and Youth, and in 1970 the Texas Home Demonstration Association donated $3,000 to assist in building the Texas four-H Center at Brownwood. In 1972 the national Home Demonstration organization met in Dallas.

In 1979 the program’s name changed to Texas Extension Homemakers Association and the local clubs were called Extension Homemaker clubs, and in that year the state president went to the White House Conference on Families.

In the 1980s the program focused on how policies and legislation affected families, and in 1984 two adult career scholarships were initiated to help members who were seeking further education. At that point membership was 28,686. The group also supported the “War on Drugs”, and family community leadership programs were initiated to train women to assume leadership roles and then to teach other women.

In 1994 the group again changed its name, this time to the Texas Association for Family and Community Education with its mission being “to work with the Texas Agricultural Extension Service to strengthen and enrich families through educational programs, leadership development, and community service.”

While I did not always live in a rural area, I tried to be associated with the extension service as it helped me learn more and better ways of housewifery.

Now here’s a recipe, not ancient by my standards, but it is from the 1970s. It’s Quiche Lorraine, a blender recipe.

9 inch pastry pie crust
6 crisply cooked bacon strips
1/2 cup shredded or diced Swiss cheese
1 1/2 cups light cream
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
dash white pepper
1/2 cup diced ham
4 eggs
1 thin onion

Make your piecrust. Sprinkle bacon and cheese on bottom of crust. Put remaining ingredients in blender. Cover. Press button 11 for 10 seconds. Flash blend if onion needs more blending. Do not over-blend. Pour into piecrust over bacon and cheese. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 for 30 minutes or until top is golden brown and mixture is set. Serve warm. Vary this delicious dish by substituting a 7-ounce can of flaked and drained crab meat for the bacon and have a crab quiche. Hot garlic bread and a crisp green salad complete your meal.