Keeping the Nation's House
Domestic Management and the Making of Modern China
- Publisher
- UBC Press
- Initial publish date
- Feb 2011
- Category
- China, Women's Studies, Gender Studies, Social History, History
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9780774819978
- Publish Date
- Feb 2011
- List Price
- $95.00
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780774819985
- Publish Date
- Mar 2012
- List Price
- $34.95
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9780774819992
- Publish Date
- Mar 2011
- List Price
- $125.00
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Description
The term home economics often conjures images of sterile classrooms where girls learn to cook dinner and swaddle dolls, far removed from the seats of power. Helen Schneider unsettles this assumption by revealing how Chinese women helped to build a nation, one family at a time. From the 1920s to the early 1950s, home economists transformed the most fundamental of political spaces – the home – by teaching women to nurture ideal families and manage projects of social reform. Although their discipline came undone after 1949, it created a legacy of gendered professionalism and reinforced the idea that leaders should shape domestic rituals of the people.
About the author
Helen M. Schneider is an assistant professor at Virginia Tech and a research associate at the University of Oxford.