Keeping the house clean: Women and germ theories in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century Britain

Abstract

This paper argues that the domestic science movement played a central role, until now underappreciated, in the dissemination and reception of germ theories. By the turn of the twentieth century, germ theories of disease causation had become widely accepted in Victorian society, and germs became part of the everyday lives of men and women. Led by women, the domestic science movement advocated for a science-based housewifery education for girls, and it incorporated the new bacteriological knowledge into primary and secondary curriculums. Reading the discourses in textbooks and lectures alongside photographic documentation of educational practices allows a better understanding of how theoretical and practical knowledge of bacteriology was developed and encountered by different audiences. Women promoters of domestic science appropriated germ theories to best serve their causes. In this article I particularly focus on the English headmistress Margaret Pillow, née Scott, whose advocacy work strongly influenced the direction of domestic science movement.