An Uncomplicated History of the Professionalisation of Nutrition and Dietetics

‘Home economics developed as one of the earliest forms of modern feminism’ writes Mary Leah De Zwart in the boldly titled Never Say Die. The title is derived from the favoured slogan of the book’s subject, Alice Ravenhill, of whom De Zwart is the biographer. 

You’ve probably never heard the name Alice Ravenhill before, but I can guarantee that her legacy has touched your life in one way or another. She has, unbeknownst to me until a couple of weeks ago, had an outsized role in shaping, not just my career, but the careers of hundreds and thousands of nutritionists and dietitians across the UK. You see, Ravenhill is responsible for bringing ‘home economics’ to the UK. She was also an ardent supporter of higher education for women, particularly in the sciences. It is through the professionalisation and scientification of house work that the modern practices of nutrition and dietetics evolved. What follows is a retelling of that story; one in which women like Ravenhill and her contemporaries fought, not just for women’s scientific education to be taken seriously, but for the transformation of 'women's work’ itself into a subject that could be rigorously and methodically studied for the betterment of society. The story of nutrition and dietetics’ humble beginnings being forged in the flames of ‘domestic sciences’ is one that is familiar to me. It is a story of female empowerment, industry, liberation, and tenacity. As De Zwart claims: an early form of feminism. But as long-term readers will be unsurprised to learn, this is only one (sanitised and palatable) side of the story. Next week we’ll consider the parts of the story that get glossed over, minimised, and disregarded. For now though, I submit: an uncomplicated history of the professionalisation of nutrition and dietetics.

Alice Ravenhill (1859-1954) was a ‘well-to-do’ woman from a cloth-manufacturing and marine-engineering family, notes Ann Oakley in The Science of Housework. Ravenhill was passionate about pursuing her higher education at a time when women were only just being granted access to tertiary education. She experienced opposition from her family, who objected to her studying to become a nurse or attending cookery school. At the time, middle and upper class women were not routinely employed, but there was growing interest in professions associated with ‘social reform’, such as nursing, teaching, and social work. Ravenhill eventually persuaded her family to allow her to complete a newly created diploma offered by the National Health Society, which at the time was the only public health course available for women. This led her to a career lecturing in ‘sanitary law’ where she instructed village women in Bedfordshire and Lincolnshire to adopt more scientific methods of running their homes. 

The idea of an ‘applied science of the household’ as a serious academic and scientific endeavour was imported from the American Midwest. ‘The (Morrill) 'Land Grant' Act of 1862 and its supplement in 1890 provided federal funding for each state or territory to maintain or develop a college of agriculture and mechanical arts as a means of supporting rural life’, writes Nancy Blakestad in Nutrition in Britain. ‘‘Land Grant’ universities and colleges introduced ‘home economics’ courses, but only for women, with the aim of increasing housewives’ efficiency through practical lessons in baking, canning, and pickling. However, towards the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, these subjects began to shift towards scientific study of domestic-related topics, like sanitation, water purity, and food adulteration, partly in response to the number of female scientists studying these topics’. While domestic sciences did provide a route for women to enter higher education, historians have argued that they were considered to be ‘appropriate’ subjects for women to study. Many female scientists were forced to work in home economics departments, rather than in male dominated ‘hard’ sciences; domestic science was, perhaps, a concession made to women to keep them in their ‘rightful’ place; the home.