The Home Management House (or “Cottage”) provided Home Economics majors at Radford to live together in a house situation and actively practice skills such as home budget planning, cleaning, cooking, meal planning, housekeeping, and other tasks. Living in the Home Management Cottage carried credit, and was listed as “Home Economics 46: Home Management Cottage” in the 1934 Radford State Teachers College Bulletin as described below.
From the 1934 Bulletin: “Home Economics 46: Home Management Cottage. This unit of work is an experiment in co-operative living, giving ample opportunity for each student to put into practice the knowledge gained previously and to develop responsibility. Each of the housekeeping activities – cooking, table setting and serving, cleaning, acting as hostess and manager, budget-making and buying – is done in the home atmosphere rather than in a laboratory. Here classroom theory and laboratory experimentation are converted into real home-making knowledge. Emphasis is placed on development of appreciations, ideals and standards rather than skill. Required of all seniors one quarter. Credit, one session hour.”
Our archival collection includes handwritten diaries kept by the students who lived in the Home Management Cottage from 1932-1937, a guest book, and a paper written by M’Ledge Moffett that describes the diaries and the purpose of the Cottage. In the paper, Dr. Moffett explains that the Cottage program was started in the Fall of 1927 and that it was closely associated with the foods laboratory and was housed in the Madame Russell dormitory until Spring of 1932. There was a small cottage on campus that was not being used, and it was decided to move the program to this building and out of the dormitory. One year later, 1933, the college acquired the Norwood home from Miss Picket Heth. This acquisition included a white log cabin which was built between 1885-90 and needed renovations to modernize it.
June 19, 1934 the newly renovated cabin became the home of the Home Management House, otherwise known as the Cottage. Our collection of Home Economics House Diaries are in the process of being transcribed from their original cursive, to type to assure they will be useable by future generations. We have digitized some of these diaries, as well as a few other items pertaining to the Home Economics Department- https://monk.radford.edu/records/?&refine[Categories][]=Radford%20University%20Archives$$$Home%20Economics%20Collection
The finding aid for our diary collection- https://mozart.radford.edu/archives/findingaids/moffett-home-management.html
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