School of Family And Consumer Sciences

The School of Family and Consumer Sciences at the University of Idaho was originally named the Department of Domestic Science. In 1902, the department was created and aligned with the College of Letters and Science. In 1905, the name had been changed to the Department of Domestic Economy. By 1911, the name changed to the Department of Home Economics. From 1915 to 1919, a School of Household Arts and School of Homemaking in the College of Agriculture was set up for rural people and extension workers. In 1974, the Department of Home Economics became the School of Home Economics. By 1993 the School of Home Economics became the School of Family and Consumer Sciences.

Mary Hall Niccolls and Margaret Ritchie were two of the most instrumental figures in the evolution of the School of Family and Consumer Sciences. Hall was a student at Idaho from 1901-1908, and contributed a large endowment to the school in 1963 that established the Mary Hall Niccolls Scholarship Fund. That same year, the university named the Mary Hall Niccolls Home Economics Building in her honor. Ritchie was a professor and head of the Department of Home Economics from 1938-1959, and continued to teach until 1965. The university established the Margaret Ritchie Distinguished Lecture, and in 1993, renamed the school the Margaret Ritchie School of Family and Consumer Sciences in her honor.

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