Ambassador with a Cookbook: Flemmie Kittrell and the International Politics of Home Economics

Since the emergence of Women’s History half a century ago, the field of Home Economics has not fared well in most academic studies. Described in racialized terms as a “ghetto” for women in higher education, Home Economics has mostly been portrayed as a gendered track for subservience. This paper charts an alternate history for the discipline through the career of Dr. Flemmie P. Kittrell (1904-1980). Kittrell is not unknown in histories of women and science, but she is typically only remembered for her distinction of being the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in Home Economics. Kittrell's relative obscurity has stemmed, in part, from the fact that her work was in the fields of family study and nutrition. Over the course of her career, however, Kittrell completed surveys on home life and nutrition throughout the U.S. and in more than a dozen nations. As Kittrell worked to articulate what she called “the art and science of living,” she became a prominent political voice, and was involved with “domestic” projects such as Head Start and international initiatives including Point Four. Instead of portraying Kittrell as anomalous, this paper will position her within a largely forgotten cohort of experts who used the discipline of Home Economics as a means of academic advancement and a way of engaging state-based  projects. By bringing Kittrell’s story to the fore, this paper will show how home economists pushed the boundaries typically dividing the arts and the sciences and brought practical problems into academic work.