Martha Van Rensselaer

Martha van Rensselaer (June 21, 1864 – May 26, 1932) was a founding co-director of the College of Home Economics, which led to the establishment of the New York State College of Human Ecology in Ithaca, New York. Van Rensselaer served as an educator and proponent of the application of knowledge to improved quality of life in the home. She called the field of study “domestic science” and focused on key aspects of homemaking.

Biography Van Rensselaer was born on June 21, 1864, in Randolph, New York.

Her mother was a participant in the women's suffrage and temperance movements, and from her mother, Van Rensselaer learned about the potential of women to influence society.

Van Rensselaer graduated from high school and became a teacher. She was elected commissioner of Cattaraugus County, New York, a position typically held by men, from 1893 to 1899. Prior to this appointment, Van Rensselaer was asked to promise she wouldn’t get married – a common requirement of women at the time – but refused. She received the position regardless. She never married, but went on to share a home with her romantic partner Flora Rose.

In 1900, Liberty Hyde Bailey invited Van Rensselaer to organize a cooperative extension education program for women in New York State's rural areas. Under the direction of Van Rensselaer's, the program enrolled over 20,000 women in under five years. The curriculum sought to translate advancements to agriculture to farm life.

New York State College of Human Ecology Martha van Rensselaer arrived at Cornell University in 1900 to organize a reading course for farmers’ wives.

Van Rensselaer offered home economics courses in 1907. Two years later, Van Rensselaer received her A.B. 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. She and Flora Rose were often “collectively referred to as Miss Van Rose” and they lived together from 1908 til 1932, when Van Rensselaer died. 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”.

Eulogies for Van Rensselaer all mention Flora Rose as her domestic partner and celebrate their professional and personal relationship.

New York State funded the construction Martha van Rensselaer Hall to house the New York State College of Human Ecology. The building was dedicated in 1932, shortly after Van Rensselaer] death. 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. As we lay the cornerstone of this great building, it is not its material expression in brick and stone and steel that I would have you consider. Rather it is to its significance as a symbol of new and vital forces arising to meet strenuous modern problems."

Publications Household bacteriology, 1913 A manual of home-making, 1919