American Agriculturist, June 9,1923 
495 
<• 
Bureau Not Used for Storing Clothes 
Another Talk About Women and Their Business 
W ELL I got away with it! I wrote 
an article for American Agricul¬ 
turist in the April 14th issue 
in which I made some rather em¬ 
phatic statements about women and the 
American home. I am still alive, which is 
probably due to the fact that I did not sign 
my name to the article. If you did not read 
it, look up your April 14th issue and read the 
article on the second page entitled, "Is the 
American Home Slipping?” and you will un¬ 
derstand the risk that I took. I understand 
from the editor of American Agriculturist 
that his household editor has been, going 
around with a gun looking for me ever since, 
but although I am only a mere man, I am a^ 
brave one at that, so I am now taking both* 
my life and my pen in hand to talk about 
the women some more. 
The truth that I tried to bring out in the 
first article is that something is needed to 
dignify homemaking the world’s most im¬ 
portant profession. ' I believe that the women 
themselves have started a movement to add 
such dignity to homemaking, and that move- * 
ment is known as the home bureau. I am 
Sony to say that although the home bureau 
has been active in doing a great work now 
for a number of years, there are thousands 
of women who do not know what it is. They 
are in much the same situation as was the 
farmer whom a county farm bureau man 
visited some years ago when.the farm bureau 
was new. After visiting with the farmer a 
few moments the farm bureau manager 
asked him if he ever used the farm bureau. 
The farmer shifted his tobacco to the other 
side of his mouth, and said that he would 
would never have one of those darned new 
fan’-dangled machines on his farm! 
I don’t know just how the women them¬ 
selves define the home bureau, but I w'ould 
say it is an organized movement of women 
to help themselves improve and dignify 
homemaking, the greatest and most im¬ 
portant profession in the world. 
There is grave need for such a movement. 
Once, making the home was the only trade 
of women; now it is only one out of hundreds 
of trades or professions in which women en¬ 
gage, and in the minds of a large number of 
young women, it ranks least in importance. 
I think that too many modern women think 
of homemaking as a task of drudgery in- 
By A MERE MAN 
volving only the washing of dishes, scrubbing 
of floors, and the cooking of food for mere 
man to eat. 
I am not one of the many narrow-minded 
male specimens, however, who are constantly 
harping on the scheme that woman’s ortly 
place is in the home-. A lot more of them 
would gladly be there if there were more 
young men of gumption and courage enough 
to be willing to support a home and to offer 
a nice girl the partnership job in establish¬ 
ing this fundamental unit of society. But 
as long as the men hold off from marriage, 
thousands of girls must live, and to live many 
of them must work at business trades and 
professions. As a result, we fear that 
thousands of our women have come to re¬ 
gard-homemaking as old-fashioned, and un¬ 
worthy of consideration as a real life work. 
If a majority of women reach such a con¬ 
clusion and keep it permanently, then indeed 
is our house of civilization built upon the 
sands and the winds of adversity will surely 
destroy us, for it goes almost without say¬ 
ing that successful homes are absolutely 
necessary to any nation and to any civiliza¬ 
tion. So this is where the home bureaus 
come in—to bring back to women, knowledge 
and confidence in their biggest job. 
The home bureau organization is similar 
to that of the farm bureau. A woman agent, 
usually called a home demonstration agent, 
is established in the county. She is required 
to have a long course of training in the many 
diverse matters that touch the home. The 
home bureau in the county is financed by na¬ 
tional and state funds administered through 
the state colleges of agriculture, by local 
funds appropriated by the county and by 
some subscriptions of the women members 
who belong to the local organization. 
State colleges, through their home eco¬ 
nomics, schools or departments, largely direct 
the work of the home bureau agent, but she 
is also much influenced by the advice and 
counsel of the women of her county, organ¬ 
ized in the county association. 
The home bureau county associations 
are organized with an executive committee, 
president and secretary. The county as¬ 
sociations are federated in many States into 
State home bureau federations and now 
the American Farm Bureau Federation has 
made arrangements to bring all of these 
State home bureau federations together 
nationally as a part of the American Farm 
Bureau. 
In New York State the college end of the 
home .bureau work is directed by Miss 
Martha Van Rensselaer and Miss Flora Rose, 
heads of the home economics department of, the 
New York State College of Agriculture, who 
are assisted by able assistant State leaders 
of home demonstration agents. Miss Van 
Rensselaer has done such notable work that 
she was recently chosen by a committee of 
the National League of Women Voters as 
one of the twelve most famous women in the 
United States. Miss Rose is equally well 
known; and Mrs. A. E. Brigden, president 
of the State Federation, has been a power 
for good in placing the organized women 
back of movements for the improvement of 
country life and homes. 
New York State has a home bureau in 
each of 34 counties and in 3 cities, with an 
active membership of more than 30,000 
women in over 900 communities. Eleven 
specialists in nutrition, foods, clothing, home 
management, home hygiene and household 
furnishings are engaged in active work with 
home demonstration agents and the county 
home bureaus in carrying on projects and 
home demonstrations in different phases of 
these subjects. 
For example, the nutrition work aims to 
assist the homemaker in planning three 
well-balanced meals a day. with the special 
object of promoting vigorous growth and de¬ 
velopment of children. These projects show 
how such common ailments as underweight, 
overweight, indigestion, headaches and colds 
may be relieved through proper diet. They 
also aim to establish good food habits and 
other health practices among children, 
through cooperation with the schools. 
Of course there are women who will say, 
"I don’t need any of these new notions to 
tell me how to boil water without burning 
it.” There may be those who do not need 
to talk over and study their business, but I 
would just as soon be excused from eating 
regularly at the table of women who think 
they are so good that there is nothing more 
to be learned. 
{Continued on page 499) 
More and more women are finding problems of home and community worthy of organized thought and action 
