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Berkeley: Departments and Programs

Demography
There is no history currently available for this department.

Design
As early as 1911, instruction was being offered in courses in domestic art, specifically in textiles and "household design of primitive peoples." Another arrangement was sought in 1914 with the appointment of a committee on home economics under the chairmanship of Jessica Peixotto of the Department of Economics. Professors Myer E. Jaffa, William C. Hays, Charles G. Hyde, and Mr. Eugen Neuhaus were members of the department. The committee was ably seconded by the Dean of Women, Lucy Ward Stebbins, whose report to President Wheeler in 1914 argued the case for the professional instruction of university women above the mere vocational level in fields such as nutrition and decorative art. The result was a Department of Home Economics in two divisions, household art, as it came to be called, and household science. This arrangement continued for four years from 1915 to 1919. The first instructor designated for household art was Mary E. Patterson, who had joined the faculty in 1914. Beginning in 1919, the department assumed separate status and was known under the title Department of Household Art until 1939. For the next quarter of a century it was known as the Department of Decorative Art. In 1964, the department received its designation and was transferred from the College of Letters and Science to the College of Environmental Design. It retained certain ties with Letters and Science, such as offering an undergraduate major in this college.

Throughout its history the department devoted the larger part of its interest to design. Instruction in the lower division, which had for years included the practical study of clothing, turned more emphatically toward general theory of design in the years immediately preceding the second world war. Since that time studio work in several materials was expanded and more extensive historical work in numerous areas was offered. Development culminated in a balance between the theoretical and practical studies in the curriculum. Graduate instruction leading to the M.A. degree was offered from the department's inception.

The core staff in the department in the 1920s consisted of Mary F. Patterson, who served as chairman for some 15 years, and Hope M. GCladding. With the appointment of anthropologist Lila M. O'Neale as associate professor in 1932, the department began a continuing association with the University's Department and Museum of Anthropology. In the late 1930s, Lucretia Nelson and Winfield S. Wellington joined the department. After the war, the members who achieved the professorship were Mary Dumas, Anna H. Gayton, Lea Miller, Charles E. Rossbach and Herwin Schaefer. Willard V. Rosenquist and Peter H. Voulkos served as associate professors. Professors Nelson, Rossbach and Wellington served as chairmen during a period of the expansion of the department to 17 members and of corresponding growth in the curriculum. Over the years the department also developed a considerable collection in textiles, ceramics, glass and other materials.

In 1964-65, the department began to turn even more intensively toward the design field in the framework of the new college. Karl Aschenbrenner of the Department of Philosophy served as acting chairman during this transitional year. After being housed for many years in a redwood frame building overlooking the women's playing fields, the department settled into quarters in Wurster Hall. source

Development Studies Program
There is no history currently available for this program.

Dutch Studies Program
There is no history currently available for this program.

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Last updated 06/18/04.