Chuck

They multiplied that by three and they came up with the federal poverty line that's still in use today.

That's right.

And then one of the other things that struck me, too, that I didn't realize is that a lot of those recipes that you find on like a food label, one of the more famous ones is Campbell's cream of mushroom soup labels have a green bean casserole recipe.

And that was created by a home economist who worked for Campbell's, Dorcas Riley.

And she's a good example of what was happening at this time, starting in the 20s, 30s, 40s, and continuing on.

These companies like General Mills and Campbell's were setting up home economics departments.

And one of the things that these home economists were being paid to do was to figure out new uses for the products themselves.

made by the companies they worked for so that people would buy more of that stuff.

And then they put those recipes on the label.

Did your family make Chex Mix around the holidays?

It must be so high-o then because my family did as well.

But that's a good example of how, like, these companies farmed out the task of coming up with stuff.

Because home ec had become so widespread, the average homemaker out there could do the same thing in a lot of ways that some of the home ec workers working for the company could do, too.

I think that's pretty neat.

For sure.

And that was the point, remember, of home ec is saving time, being more efficient.

And then as food companies were concerned, making tons of money off of this stuff, too.

So that's kind of going on in the corporate world, the government world.

Simultaneously, there's that whole thread of home ec being taught in high school and middle school.

And there was a time in the 20th century, up into the 80s and 90s, and I'm sure beyond.