It has lightened the work in the home to such an extent that one can manage the work without keeping help, which is very scarce and high priced, when it would be impossible to do so if the washing was included with our other duties.
And another writes,
This change gives me two days of recreation that I can call my own every week and also gives me more time in which to accomplish the household duties. [Footnote: "A Successful Rural Cooperative Laundry," in the Year Book, Department of Agriculture, 1915, pp. 189-194.]
GOVERNMENT SERVES THE HOME
A great deal of help is now being given to the home by the government, and this is especially true in the case of the rural home. The public schools, both in city and country, now consider home making and "home economics" as worthy of a place in the course of study as geography and mathematics (see Chapter XIX). State agricultural colleges are beginning to give as much attention to these subjects as they do to soils and fertilizers and stock-breeding. Moreover, the colleges conduct "extension courses," sending teachers trained in the art of home making to give instruction to women and girls in every part of the state. They assist in organizing clubs of girls and women to study various aspects of home making and housekeeping, and give demonstrations of the most successful methods of cooking, of canning, and of other activities connected with home life on the farm, as well as of labor-saving devices in the household. The state agricultural colleges have the cooperation of the Department of Agriculture of the national government in all this work.
WHAT ONE GIRL ACCOMPLISHED
In the Year Book of the Department of Agriculture for 1916 there is an account of results derived from home demonstration work in the Southern States. The following story of what Ruth Anderson accomplished is a good illustration of the possibilities of this work.
Ruth Anderson, of Etowah County, Alabama, in her second year of club work, had an excellent plot of one tenth of an acre of beans and tomatoes. She is the second girl in a family of eleven, and takes a great interest in her club work. The family home was small, dark, and crowded, and somewhat unattractive. One day a carpenter friend of her father saw her one tenth of an acre and said he wished he had time to plant a garden. She told him she would furnish vegetables in exchange for some of his time. … After a while a bargain was made by which the carpenter agreed to begin work on the remodeling of the house if Ruth would furnish him with fresh and canned vegetables for the season.
The other members of the family were soon interested in this undertaking and worked willingly to contribute their share to its success. When the house was partly finished Ruth won a canning- club prize given by a hardware merchant in Gadsden, the county seat. Silverware was offered her, but, intent upon completing the new house she asked the merchant how much a front door of glass would cost, and learned that she could get the door, side lights, and windows for the price of the silverware. In this way Ruth brought light and joy to her family with her windows and door. To- day they live in a pretty bungalow that she helped to build with her gardening and canning work. At the age of 14, in the second year of her work, Ruth put up 700 cans of tomatoes and 750 cans of beans. [Footnote: "Effect of Home Demonstration Work in the South," in 1916 Year Book of the Department of Agriculture, p. 254.]
Ruth's home before and after she began her work is shown in the accompanying illustrations.