Historical Portraits of Women Home Scientists: The University Of ...

sketches an introduction to each of the six women who are featured in this book.

Foundations

In 1909, John Studholme, a South Canterbury landowner, philanthropist, and enthusiastic advocate of academic home science, convinced a sceptical University of New Zealand council to endorse the appointment of its first woman professor, Winifred Boys-Smith.³⁹ Boys-Smith was offered a salary of £500 per annum, making her one of the highest-paid women in New Zealand. This salary, however, fell far short of the £850 that was paid to male professors at the time.⁴⁰ Forty-five years old at the time of her appointment, Boys-Smith was followed to New Zealand by Helen Rawson, who had completed the natural science tripos at Newnham College, University of Cambridge.⁴¹The two women set up courses in science, food, and nutrition as well as practical courses in home and institutional management. Rawson also taught home science at the Dunedin Teachers Training College.⁴² As a result of the resignation of Boys-Smith in late 1920,⁴³ Rawson was appointed professor and dean, although her tenure was relatively short (1921–1924), and her formal career abruptly ended on her marriage.⁴⁴

The transfer of responsibility from Boys-Smith to Rawson was somewhat of a watershed moment; the Department of Home Science became a Faculty of Home Science, partly in recognition of its growth, and a second professor was appointed—Ann Munroe Gilchrist Strong. A graduate of Colombia University (1905), Strong was one of the founders of the American Home Economics Association (AHEA) in 1908. Appointed as a professor of home economics and rural extension at the University of Tennessee (1905–1907), she was initially offered the position of chair of the proposed Home Science Department at Canterbury College in 1907. However, Strong was unable to take up the appointment because she had accepted a proposal of marriage from Benjamin Rush Strong. In 1921, then aged forty-five and divorced, she was convinced by Studholme to take up an appointment as a professor of household arts at Otago.⁴⁵