[piano plays softly] (Donna (McCabe) Lewis) I think what I remember most of anything, it was kind of like playing house.

(Janet (Christopher) Well) When my family is home, I drag out good dishes and show them this is the way the silverware goes, and this is how you serve it.

(Karen (Lynnes) Kruse) We learned to do everything the right way.

We could even serve dignitaries and even the president of the United States.

Yes, if I had to!

(Linda (Bredwick) Narum) It's a gateway to the professional world.

(man) Funding for "The women of Alba Bales House" is provided in part by NDSU Libraries, NDSU College of Human Sciences and Education.

and by the members of Prairie Public.

[piano plays in bright rhythm] (Donna (McCabe) Lewis) It was kind of like preplanning for marriage and family life and so forth.

Learning to put into play all these things we'd been learning for the last 3 years, and put it into action.

(Dr. Margaret Fitzgerald) It's kind of a hidden gem.

A lot of people walk by the house or drive by the house and maybe don't even notice it or know what it's used for, what its history is, so there's this charm of a bygone era.

Over time it's been called the Home Management House, the Home Demonstration House, and was eventually named for Alba Bales who was the Dean of Home Economics, (Susan Curtis) This house represents a huge part of North Dakota State University's history.

The Home Demonstration House when it was opened in 1923 was the very first home demonstration house built on an American campus.

So we have that important part of not only North Dakota history but of national history, and a big part of the educational history happened right here.

(Dr. Margaret Fitzgerald) At the time that the home management houses were built at NDSU and other land-grant institutions around the country, there weren't a lot of opportunities for women.

They would learn how to manage a home and family with the thought they may be going back to their rural communities when they came to school.

But what they learned when they lived on campus and lived in the Home Management House is that they did have other opportunities.

Many went on for careers in teaching and in extension work at that time, and then over time as the major evolved and the experiences involved went on to many other type of skilled and leadership positions.

It was a major for women when it very first started because the men were in the fields or in the work site some were doing manual labor and somebody needed to be in the home because the home took a lot of work.

Home economics was originally part of North Dakota Agricultural college.

It's been here since the very beginning It's always been an integral part of NDSU both with preparing teachers as well as preparing people for extension.

(Susan Curtis) Efforts to keep the principles of homemaking actually began in the mid 1800s in the United States.

But it wasn't until the development of the land-grant universities that women had the greatest opportunity to come to college and learn those skills and study home economics.

And the activities that they learned-- cooking and sewing, housecleaning, caring for the sick, doing laundry-- all of those activities were modernized and transformed through the practice and the teaching of the scientific methods and techniques that they learned here.

It's certainly a good 4-year career, and if you want to use it as a business career, you can spin off.

If you want to use it just as a family life one, it's definitely a benefit.

That's the benefit of education, I think it's becoming a whole person.

There were really very few acceptable career options for women our age, graduating in the early '60s, late '50s, early '60s.

It was nursing, it was something in education-- those were probably the 2 main ones if you're going to go to college.

My mother was a home economist so it seemed like a likely major.

Home economics opened the doors for many of us.

This program had developed from many years back with the Smith-Hughes Act for the schools that would provide this certain training.

And then they did get certain government funds.

The schools wanting these programs had to apply, and most schools, especially the girls schools found this is a great asset.

The Smith-Hughes Act provided the impetus for careers in home economics and opportunities for women at land-grant universities.

Alba Bales was the leader who made it happen and had this vision of what the Home Demonstration House should be.

She grew up in Indiana.

Both her bachelor's and her master's degrees are from Columbia University.

And she taught in several states-- in Kansas, in Montana, in Idaho, and there are lots of newspaper reports of talks that she gave.

She was a very dynamic speaker.

Alba Bales came to NDSU in 1920 as head of the School of Home Economics.

For colleges to access federal funds, they had to provide an opportunity for students to have practical experience in a demonstration setting.

In 1917 NDSU did not have that available on the campus.

She immediately began advocating to build a home demonstration house.

She was very persuasive with the legislature.

It was through her efforts that the funds were appropriated for this house.

Ground was broken in October of 1922, and the first class of students lived here in the fall quarter of 1923.

Alba Bales oversaw the construction of the house.

She saw that it was fitted out with the most modern and up-to-date equipment to meet the needs of the home economics curriculum.

During her tenure here as Dean, Alba Bales championed home economics research, and she incorporated classes into the curriculum that focused on improving the health of children and running an efficient household.

She retired in 1942, and in 1954 the house was rededicated from the Home Demonstration House to the Alba Bales House to honor her leadership in getting this house built and the opportunities that this house provided to the students.

[bass & harp play softly] It was like the real-life experience of some of the classes that we had taken, especially in management, planning, organizational skills, nutrition, because we cooked all our meals.

So a lot of it was to make sure that we scheduled things well, that we were organized, that we learned how to manage, work together probably as a team lots of times, So it was sort of that real-life experience of the classes we had taken up to that point.

I think it was a good lesson for me in adaptability because we weren't on semesters then, we were in kind of in the last years they were doing quarters.

So I had just gotten done student teaching in Bottineau, dropped off a bunch of stuff at my parents, came here to live, and then went back to my parents and got more to come back here for summer school.

It really taught me how do you pack for what you are going to have to do when you are here and how not to be frazzled by it.

(Susan Curtis) 5 to 8 students lived here at a time during one academic quarter in their senior year.

So it was during this time they were able to put into practice the theory and principles they were learning the classroom.

But those weeks were really regimented.

In addition to their regular classes, each student was required to assume a role in the running of the household.

They were responsible for the cooking, for the cleaning, budgeting, grocery shopping, laundry, hosting dinners, and entertaining guests.

They also provided demonstrations to Fargo homemakers and other students.

So for many of them, this could be a really stressful experience.

This was the first time they had done a lot of this.

But it also provided amazing opportunities for them to develop their skills in public speaking, preparing research, and for many of them, it was their first exposure to other cultures and to wider social issues These were girls that I had classes with that I knew, and we enjoyed each other.

We laughed at our inadequacies and struggled through many things.

We learned how to iron the tablecloths.

But then to fold them, you would open the tablecloth, bring the side hems up to the center, and then you would crease the side hems, then when you would put this on the table, all 3 of the creases would face up.

(Susan Curtis) There was a faculty member who lived in the house with the girls who enforced the rules, and also all of the activities the women did in this house as students, they were graded on.

Eleanor Vergin was her name, and she lived in the apartment up on the third floor, and she was known as very strict, but she liked our group, I think, really well because we seem to get along very well with her, and we had quite a time.

The most pressure was when we were the cooks or the manager, when we had to manage everybody else, and when we had to cook the meals, and we had to plan the meals, and we had to have a budget that we had to work with.

We planned 3 meals a day.

That was the most pressure.

I learned a lot, and was really in awe of Ms. Vergin.

[laughs] I mean, I wouldn't have crossed her for anything.

[laughs] Once you got in the house, oh, nerves kind of started to come out because there were all these expectations, and then you were concerned about doing the right thing and, of course, getting a good grade.

Many of us came from farm families, and things were a little bit loose-knit maybe because the households were busy, and life was very busy working with outside and inside and gardening, and this was a little different situation.

We had classwork too that we had to get our homework done and our reports done as well as the house management.

There were some things that were so detailed and not really what you'd think you'd deal with every day in your home.

Some girls had a really difficult time, and I think it was the mix of people that gave that feeling.

And then we had Ms. Vergin as a supervisor.

And she had very strict regulations.

Everything was organized very well to make the whole program work.

But sometimes it seemed like it was a little overdone.

We were here for 6 weeks, and we were just glad when we were done, then that was the end of our college days.

We student taught in the spring, the first part of the semester, and then we came here, and then we were done.

You had your job, so you rotated jobs.

We did what we were supposed to do-- we cleaned, we learned how to vacuum, we set beautiful tables, we always had to have a nicely set table for dinner at night.

It was intense-- intense.

I can remember exactly scrubbing the bricks on the fireplace and the tile down below.

And if you would not use a clean washcloth in the right way, and you ended up with, say a gray from the fireplace, all of a sudden there was a little bit of gray on that clean washcloth, you had to start all over with a toothbrush!

Not only was it that the walls had to be perfectly clean, and the windows-- oh my goodness, there couldn't be a streak!

If there was a streak, then you had to go back, start all over.

And always Dr. Hassoun would come in, and she wore white gloves.

She'd take her white gloves, and she'd go across by the windows or the fireplace and see if there was any dirt that went on those white gloves.

(Donna Lewis) I do remember coming over here and having to compare vacuum like cleaners.

We had to literally measure out X number of ounces of sand and grit it into a rug with our feet, then vacuum up that, then take out the bag and measure how much of that had come in in the vacuum cleaner.

The blinds, that was the beginning of my awareness of how the blinds should be in a house.

They had to be at the exact line, and that always stuck with me, and since then I've always made sure that the appearance of the house from the outside looks nice.

And that's easy to do in today's world.

There was also a time frame where you actually cooked the food.

You just hope that everybody would like it because it was the ones that lived with you that ate except for the last meal you prepared, and then you invited in teachers who then would judge if you served from the left or served from the right and whether you picked up the fork at the right time, etc.

And those things stood me in wonderful standing.

We needed to do things well.

We needed to be organized no matter if it was an afternoon coffee or if we had brunch or a meal, it needed to be done well no matter what our role was in that.

One thing about home economics, they did teach you how to become well organized.

I really enjoyed entertaining through the years, and I felt that I had to do the preparation ahead of time so that I could be with my guests.

That has worked out well.

I remember giving a buffet for 30 people, and I enjoyed the party as much as the other people did.

(Pat Berglund) So now I am very careful about how I set the table.

I have company, and I do-- it's not just you throw a potluck on.

I do a really formal job of that.

It has to be in good stead.

[piano plays softly] (Susan Curtis) As more professions opened up to women, the house became redundant, and those skills that women needed to become professional women, to become home economists, to become extension agents to work in fields like housing and social work, this house no longer served those needs.

I have told some of my students about this, about the Alba Bales House and that people used to have to live there.

Some of them think it sounds kind of fun, but I think that they would see a lot of the things that they needed to do as being outdated.

I don't think that people would do it now.

I don't think that they would even consider a commitment of 6 weeks in a home doing the tasks that we had to do.

I think the time for the home management house is done.

I don't know that it's appropriate for a lot of young people today as it would need to be a different way of setting up that 6 weeks.

(Donna Lewis) I don't know if they could even fathom that we did this.

But you still do have to provide for your family, not only cook for them but to guide them, to teach them, and I hope they find that someplace.

It was very important at the time, and it built up through the '20s and the '30s when all this government extension work was going on.

And the people in the rural areas welcomed it.

They learned a lot.

And I don't know how important it would be today.

Things are so different now, and any degree in home economics, or whatever they want to call it now is so specialized.

When I went to school, it was a more general education in all areas.

I was basically a foods major, but I also had classes in education, in clothing, and so that I used other things that have served me as well.

I have got to say, the home ec education I got here has let me work in so many areas.

It was so broad, and it was just so useful.

I guess I didn't think it was antiquated, I thought of it more in what will this qualify me possibly to do in the future?

[piano plays softly] This house is very special to me, and when I walk in, I can feel the history, I can feel the spirit of the women who came here, who learned here, who moved on to bigger and better things that they did with their lives.

A lot of the women who spent a quarter in this house have made donations to the Emily Reynolds Historic Costume collection.

And so for me, it's even a more visceral reminder when I pull out the clothes that they wore when they were in this house of what they accomplished and what they were given the opportunity to do.

One of the biggest other careers is working in extension, being an extension professional.

We've also had some of our graduates who have become youth workers working with church youth groups.

We have one who is working with youth girls down in the southern states.

Basically anything that is kind of a people oriented career.

I remember it was a wonderful ending if someone's 4 years gave them a job working for General Mills or some connection with some fashion house in New York.

(Pat Berglund) It paved the way for a lot of women to make their way professionally, and it's great to see the opportunities that young women have now.

[orchestra plays softly] In 1996 I became director of the Northern Cross Institute.

I came back to Fargo, and I worked at St. Luke's hospital then as a clinical dietitian.

I graduated then in 1973, and accepted my first teaching job in Finley North Dakota.

I taught in Barnesville, and I taught in Perham, Minnesota.

I taught one year in California.

When I graduated in 1952, I moved to Minneapolis.

I became a home economist at Northern States Power.

(Dr. Margaret Fitzgerald) It's been wonderful getting to know the women who lived in the house and to hear their stories and their adventures.

They are all very accomplished and have gone on to set their own course, and many of them have become leaders in their careers, in their communities, in their school systems.

They definitely have an impact on a larger society.

[orchestra plays softly] (Dr. Sharon Anderson) Three years ago I was named the Agribusiness Award for Harvest Bowl which is a big event here at NDSU.

The first woman, and that was made kind of a big deal about it, and where I come from, and my career and how I got there.

I have a 10-year-old granddaughter, and last fall she was to make a poster about a hero.

And most of her friends chose movie stars or somebody that they read about in the news.

She called me one day and she said, do you know who my hero is?

I said "no."

She said, "It's you grandma."

So I know through all of that time of college what was formulating inside of me really were the skills from the whole management house.

How to teach people to take a stand for what they believe in and believe is right.

[piano plays softly] I always in my lifetime thought the best insurance policy I had in my life with a family was my education.

(Karen Kruse) I taught junior and senior high school at Carrington, North Dakota.

Then I went to work for the JC Penney Company in the tailoring division and the alterations department.

I talked to someone not too long ago-- I don't know if I should tell the story or not.

"Home ec at NDSU?"

"You just take some cooking courses, then you made a good housewife?"

"Really?

Did you get a job?"

You bet I did!

[piano plays softly] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (man) Funding for "The Women of Alba Bales House" is provided in part by NDSU Libraries NDSU College of Human Sciences and Education, and by the members of Prairie Public.

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