Created by Florida Home Economics Association

The Florida Home Economics Association (FHEA), whose goal was "the development and promotion of standards of home living that will be satisfying and developing to the individual and profitable to society," first met on November 28, 1919, at the Seminole Hotel, Jacksonville, FL. Edith M. Thomas, the State Supervisor of Home Economics, chaired the meeting, and became its first president, serving from 1919 to 1920. The FHEA was founded as an affiliate of the American Home Economics Association (AHEA), formed in 1908. According to its Constitution, the FHEA was to reach its goal "by the study of problems connected with the family and the institutional household; by improving and extending home economics instruction in schools and colleges and in adult education programs; by improving professional education for all home economists by encouraging and aiding investigation and research in problems of home economics, and by issuing publications and holding meetings through which there may be wider and better understanding of the value of home economics interests."

The first FHEA district association was the West Coast Home Economics Association, that first met in April 1921. The next groups to organize were Lake, Seminole, Orange, and Osceola Counties in 1923, the South East Florida Association (Dade, Palm Beach, Broward, Martin, and Okeechobee Counties) in 1925-1926, the Florida Central East Coast Association (St. Johns, Flagler, Volusia, Brevard Counties) in 1927, the Central Association (Alachua, Putnam, Dixie, Columbia, Levy, Marion, Gilchrist, and Bradford Counties) in 1928, the Capital City Association (Leon, Jefferson, Gadsden, Wakulla, Liberty, Franklin, Jackson, Suwanee, Madison, Taylor, Lafayette, and Hamilton Counties) in 1929, and the Ridgeland Association (Polk, Highlands, De Soto, and Hardee) and North Florida districts (Nassau, Duval, Baker Counties), organized in 1930. The objectives of the district associations, according to Boletha Frojen, President of the Florida Home Economics Association 1928-1930, were "contact with our fellow workers - home makers, home demonstration agents, lunch room or institutional managers, dietitians, research workers, home economics women in business, and teachers - discuss problems in common, in working toward the same goal - that of improving living conditions and home making."

...