Open Doors: 100 years of FACS

Submitted by cleveland on

“Open Doors: 100 Years of Family and Consumer Sciences at UGA” an exhibit on the college’s centennial, also focuses on the admission of women to public higher education, UGA’s role as a land-grant institution, and how the field has grown and adapted over the decades.

The exhibit, at the Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries, will be on display through June and includes publications, manuscripts, period clothing from the Historic Clothing and Textile Collection, and photographs of the first women admitted to UGA, food preservation classes, needlework demonstrations, WWII military on the UGA campus and other moments from the past 100 years.

When women were first able to register for classes for the bachelor of science in home economics in 1918, Mary Creswell described it as “prying open the doors of the university to undergraduate women.”  The next year, Creswell became the first woman to earn a bachelor’s degree from UGA. Soon, 12 more women followed.

The opportunities for education opened doors not only for these women, but the people of Georgia and the nation, as home economics graduates took their knowledge and shared it, teaching Georgians how to prepare nutritious meals for their families and clothe their children.

Over the past 100 years the College of Family and Consumer Sciences has grown and evolved, but this principle of service has remained.

The story of FACS at UGA is one of innovation and progress; the areas of study and research have expanded and evolved to address the most pressing issues of today’s society.

The College of Family and Consumer Sciences offers a wide variety of areas of study including 11 undergraduate majors, ranging from human development and family science to consumer journalism to nutrition science. These areas of study fall under four departments: Foods and Nutrition; Textiles, Merchandising, and Interiors; Financial Planning, Housing and Consumer Economics; and Human Development and Family Science. The college also is home to the Institute on Human Development and Disability. Over the years, the departments have developed and evolved due to changing societal trends and circumstances, each successive group of students and faculty building upon the efforts of those who came before them.

A website looks at the centennial in detail:  http://www.fcs.uga.edu/centennial

The Russell Special Collections Libraries are open free to the public M-F, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. and on Saturdays, 1-5 p.m. www.libs.uga.edu/scl