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 1919-1920. Among its accomplishments during the 1920s and 1930s were the compilation of a list of trained women who held positions in hospitals and educational institutions in Florida, the creation of tentative standards of accomplishment for high school classes in Home Economics, and the promotion of the George Reed Act (1929), establishing a federal law furthering vocational agriculture and home economics education in Florida by assuring home economics a fairer share of future federal funding. By the 1940s, the Association had grown. Its membership comprised professional home economists, public school and college teachers, home demonstration agents and extension specialists, Farm Security Administration supervisors, dietitians, and homemakers. According to Penny Ralston, Dean of the Florida State University College of Human Sciences, the FHEA became the Florida Association of Family and Consumer Sciences in 1994.

From the description of Florida Home Economics Association records, 1918-1969 (inclusive) (bulk 1938-1945). (Florida State University). WorldCat record id: 649489695