Archives West Finding Aid

The Ellen H. Richards Club at Washington State Normal School (now Eastern Washington University) was originally founded in 1919 in order to promote the study of Home Economics (originally called Domestic Arts at Eastern Washington University). The club disbanded, but was reorganized in the Winter quarter of 1924, where it remained in existence through at least 1967. In 1928, the Club became an affiliate of the American Home Economics Association, a national professional association founded by Ellen H. Richards in 1908 and currently known as the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences.

The scrapbook was created by Nancy Kate Broadnax Philips, a professor of Home Economics hired by Washington State Normal School in 1928. Broadnax specialized in textiles with a Master of Arts from the University of Washington. Broadnax took a leave of absence in 1940 to attend a teacher’s college at the University of Texas, then took another leave of absence from 1943-1945 to serve in the American Red Cross during World War II. Broadnax married Alfred Philips, a professor of mathematics at Eastern Washington, before retiring in 1956 as an Associate Professor of Textiles and Clothing.