Project Description
The research project, supported by the SURF aims to create a comprehensive survey of a unique typology: practice homes built on American college campuses in the early 1900s by Home Economics departments. Throughout the early 1900s, following funding allocation from the Smith-Hughes Act, many colleges across the United States built a variety of model homes in which students would practice their home management skills in a kind of 1:1 laboratory. These buildings ranged from standalone single family homes, to apartments, to single interior rooms installed in existing campus buildings. Although few remain, there is documentation of this typology across the country, from Cornell to Iowa State to UIUC to the University of Washington—there was even a practice home, Sims Cottage, at Stevens Point Normal School (now UW Stevens Point). This project asks questions relating architecture, gender, and labor. Who designed these model homes? How was square footage, layout, and decor decided? How did the typology change depending on geography and socio-cultural ideals? The project will look towards university archives for history and documentation of these buildings to create a collection of architectural documents, investigating the formal and spatial conditions of the idealized American household in the 20th century.
Tasks and Responsibilites
Firstly, the student researchers will need to assemble a complete list of model homes built on college campuses in the 1900s by looking towards Home Economics departments that existed historically on a variety of campuses. Once we have solidified this list, students will be responsible for locating archival texts and architectural drawings of these buildings, analyzing said texts/drawings, and close readings of relevant legislation (notably the Morril Act of 1862, the Smith-Lever act of 1914, and Hughes act of 1917) to understand the socio-political and economic drivers of these buildings. After collecting a robust amount of textual and drawing documentation, students will be asked to re-draw and 3-dimensionally digitally model these buildings to create a cohesive, legible survey. This work will be formatted into booklets and will be foundational research for a future project that will expand upon this research in a series of essays and physical models to be completed from Fall 2024-Fall 2025.
Desired Qualifications
None Listed.