15 Facts About Christine Frederick

Christine Frederick was an American home economist and early 20th century exponent of Taylorism as applied to the domestic sphere.

Christine Frederick conducted experiments aimed at improving household efficiency, as well as arguing for women's vital role as consumers in a mass-production economy.

Christine Frederick wrote books on these subjects, the best-known of which is probably Selling Mrs Consumer, which offers an early justification for planned obsolescence as a necessary feature of the industrial economy.

In 1906, Christine Frederick McGaffey graduated from Northwestern University and became a teacher.

Christine Frederick was especially interested in making kitchens more efficient for women and is credited with bringing about standardization of the height of kitchen counters and work surfaces.

At the Applecroft Home Experiment Station, Christine Frederick investigated some 1,800 different products from household appliances to food, looking for labor-saving methods of preparation and use.

In 1912, Christine Frederick began a series of articles under the title 'New Housekeeping' in the Ladies' Home Journal to explain Taylorism to middle-class women.

Christine Frederick followed this up in 1915 with a correspondence course called Household Engineering: Scientific Management in the Home, which was published as a book of the same title in 1919.

Christine Frederick inspired the French journalist Paulette Bernege, who became the leader of the Domestic Sciences movement in France in the inter-war years.

Christine Frederick visited France in April 1927, where Bernege quickly arranged a meeting of the League for Household Efficiency, Association for Household Electric Appliances and Mon Chez Moi, at which the Minister of Housing presided.

Christine Frederick was home economics editor of Butterick Publishing Company's magazine The Designer, as well as a consulting editor for Shrine and the American Weekly.

Christine Frederick earned money by promoting specific products under the banner of home efficiency.

Christine Frederick sometimes worked with her husband, who was president of a company called Business Bourse that specialized in publishing business-related research and data.

Christine Frederick died of heart disease in 1970 at the age of 87.

Christine Frederick's papers are held in the Radcliffe Institute's Schlesinger Library.