Home Management Houses were a practical application of the course work in the household management curriculum that had been introduced in 1915 in the then Department of Home Economics. In 1918 the university rented a house at 818 Main Avenue, between the location of Home Economics (Tennessee Hall) and the Hill to serve as an innovative “practice house” for the home management course of study. The house was furnished with cast-off university furniture and kitchen equipment borrowed from Home Economics foods laboratories. The Engineering Department taught the course in household mechanics. Students moved into the house in January 1919.
The next year, the practice house experience of two to six months was relocated to the home of department head Louise Gifford Turner at 1400 Laurel Avenue, and the course was approved for academic credit. In 1926 a house at 1218 White Avenue behind the Jessie Harris Building, later dubbed the “Graduate Center,” was built as a home management (or practice) house. In 1929 Home Economics received permission to obtain babies to live in the practice houses with the students.
In 1940 the house at 812 Volunteer Boulevard (then Temple Avenue) was renovated and became the Colonial Home Management House. In 1942 the Lewisohn Home Management House was opened at 1628 West Cumberland (the Keller House—razed in 2005). In 1968 students utilized one floor of the new Laurel Apartments for the home management training. Sixteen women were divided into groups of four, with each group sharing a two-bedroom apartment. The students planned meals, purchased supplies, and performed necessary household duties, including budgeting funds for entertainment.
Students received three hours’ credit for Home Management 4410 and one hour for a parallel course, Problems in Home Management, for successful completion of requirements.