[4] In 1900, Liberty Hyde Bailey invited Van Rensselaer to organize a cooperative extension education program for women in New York State's rural areas.

from Cornell, and in 1911, she and Flora Rose held the position of professor, and in 1912, they co-directed a fledgling department of Home Economics, out of the New York State College of Agriculture.

In 1925, women suffrage leader Carrie Chapman Catt wrote to Van Rensselaer, "I regard your department as the most forward in the entire country.

"[7] Van Rensselaer discussed topics with her students in regards to new theory on marriage and worked in a scholarly manner “at revealing and strengthening the connections between the professional and the personal”.

Roosevelt visited Van Rensselaer on campus to advocate for an expansion of the concepts of home to include community, nation, and world.

Although Van Rensselaer died in 1932, her contributions left a framework for the School of Home Economics to later become the New York State College of Human Ecology in 1969.

Many accounts from friends and colleagues demonstrate that they saw Van Rensselaer and Rose’s relationship as one that exemplified the kind of partnership and professionalism that they advocated for through their work in the Home Economics courses.

[2] When Van Rensselaer died in 1932, Herbert Hoover wrote in part, "Her passing will bring a sense of personal loss to thousands, from whom her quiet devotion to every cause, looking to the well being of children and to the enrichment of the life of women, had evoked their warm affection and their deep respect.

On the occasion of the dedication, co-director Flora Rose said, "Martha Van Rensselaer conceived of home economics education as a means by which women's mind could be trained, their capacities released, and their deepest desires satisfied through growth in understanding.