Euthenics, the science of controllable environment / A plea for better living conditions as a first step toward higher human efficiency

by Ellen H. Richards

As an economic factor, the influence of the housewife is of the greatest moment. Production on the farm is only one phase. The city and suburban dweller is a buyer, not a producer. In suburban and city life the housekeeper has more temptations to buy needless articles, food out of season, to go often to the shops, especially on bargain days. She thinks her taste is educated, when it is only aroused to notice what others like. She is led to strive after effects without knowing how to attain them. It has been estimated by advertising experts that ninety per cent of the purchases of the community are determined by women, not always according to their judgment, but by a suppression of it. Woman is made to think that she must buy certain lines of goods. The power of suggestion has been referred to in a preceding chapter.

When civilization, as it is called, persuaded woman to give up manufacture and to become a buyer, the first step in the disintegration of the home as a center of information, as well as of industry, was taken. The housewife and mother were made to look to the dealer, and thus to feel their helplessness. This sense of ignorance, this subconscious loss of power over things, only increased the effect of that fatalism which the control of machinery was leading man out from under.

It is barely fifty years since woman began to ask questions and insist upon knowing, to claim freedom of movement, a chance to breathe. The time between has been a time of plowed fields, often muddy, usually stony, but the furrows are turning green and the harvest will prove the wisdom of the plowing.

Woman had to struggle for right to private judgment and public action. Some pioneers had to enter the field of research, of investigation, in order that they might call to those below that the way was open. This vast company, which has been nearly untouched by the scientific spirit, was warned off the field of investigation, and society is paying the penalty of its own blindness.

In the very field where applied science can most serve human welfare, scarecrows have been set up most prominently. Not until society avails itself of those qualities of mind sorely needed in the field of sanitary science, patient attention to detail, strong, practical sense directed by a profound interest in the subject, will it begin to show what height it is capable of scaling.

The intrusting of so many great fortunes to women shows an increasing confidence in their judgment of social needs. It shows that woman’s education has passed the selfish stage, that it has given a wider vision of the whole horizon.

It may be said without fear of contradiction that the future well-being of society is largely in the hands of woman. What will she do with it? Responsibility is always sobering.

Let her once realize her position and woman will rise to the task. Instances are not wanting of groups attacking scientific and administrative problems in the true spirit, without sentimental charity, to which in the past women have been prone.

If civic authorities felt that women’s leagues were informed bodies of women whose suggestions they would make no error in adopting, more legislation could be effected. Too often city councils are approached by those who favor some whim or fad, and so ALL women’s demands are classed together. Much harm has been done to the cause by indiscreet, pushing women with only a glimmer of knowledge. The question is not WOMAN, but ability and women. It is better, as a rule, to work out ideas through existing organizations.

All the problems of environment which we have been considering would be solved in half the time, yes, in one-quarter, if all housewives would combine in carrying out the knowledge which some of them have and which all may have.