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The Home Management House was a live-in lab built in 1941 that home economics students used to show they could, well, manage a household. Located on Linden Drive, the two-story home had four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a study, a kitchen, a laundry room, and a sun porch, plus additional spaces for instructors and demonstrations. Any life hackers reading this may be interested in Aline Hazard ’40’s description of the labor-saving amenities and gadgets offered in the home — including ball-bearing double eggbeaters and automatic irons — in her 1947 radio segment from WHA’s Homemaker program. Up to eight seniors at a time would live in the house with a supervising instructor for two weeks to fulfill a requirement for the home economics degree. These students had to master skills like planning proper nutrition on a budget — a handy thing for anyone to know. As part of the two-week examination period, students took turns planning healthy meals that would feed a person for a dollar or less a day. Throughout the 1960s, the UW — and the U.S. — experienced a cultural revolution that shook up home economics education on campus and began the shift toward today’s School of Human Ecology (SoHE). By 1970, the Home Management House was deemed unnecessary, so faculty claimed the building as a homey office space. You may remember an attempt to find a buyer for the house in 2009, but no one took the $1 (plus some serious moving charges) deal. Instead, the building was carefully demolished to make room for a new SoHE building, Nancy Nicholas Hall, which incorporated recycled materials from the old Home Management House — an economical and efficient decision, no doubt.

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