Bureau of Home Economics

The bureau developed recipes, collected information from the burgeoning scientific practice of nutrition, published sewing patterns for homemade clothing, produced radio content like the Aunt Sammy personality, wrote articles for newspapers and magazines, and generally contributed to the adoption of scientific practices in routine household activities.

[4] Its efforts were focused in three areas which formed its major departments: Clothing and Textiles, Economics of the Home, and Food and Nutrition.

Since the early 1920s, the USDA studied how homemakers moved through their days and spent their time by equipping women with pedometers and having them keep time-use diaries.

[6] With its roots reaching back to home-front conservation during World War I, the bureau was positioned to tackle the strains of the Great Depression early in its history.

A domestic, homemaking counterpart to Uncle Sam, Aunt Sammy was the front face of many of the bureau's extension efforts.