Routine housekeeping tasks chart, 1950s. Louisan E. Mamer Rural Electrification Administration Papers, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.

Gender, Race & Class in the Comanche County Appliance School

Victoria Plutshack, Ashton Merck, Jonathon Free

As part of the educational campaigns of the Rural Electrification Administration in the 1930s and 1940s, home economists trained groups of farm women on the uses of electricity. We analyze one of these training schools in Comanche County, Texas, to understand how race, class, and gender influenced the REA’s educational campaigns.

Return to Gender