Canning peaches. Sewing a dress. Making perfect gravy. These are familiar images of home economics, but do they tell the whole story? So often home economics has been cast as a "conspiracy to keep women in the kitchen," an interpretation that has overlooked its impressive and diverse contributions. New scholarship in American women's history suggests that home economics was a progressive field that brought science to the farm home and women into higher education and leadership positions in public education, academia, government and industry