DeMuelenaere, Rose and Van Rensselaer in Belgium

In the spring and summer of 1923, Cornell professors Flora Rose (1874-1959) and Martha Van Rensselaer (1864-1932) traveled to Belgium to assist in the reconstruction efforts after the First World War. The home economics pioneers were asked by the Commission for Relief in Belgium Educational Foundation (CRBEF) to advice on children’s nutrition and female education. For their work, Van Rensselaer and Rose received praise and medals from the Belgian National Work for Childhood and King Albert I.
In this presentation, Dr. Nel de Mûelenaer shares the story of Rose and Van Rensselaer’s Belgian adventure from the perspectives of both the professors and the CRBEF and Belgian partners. What was the exact nature of the relief work? How was it received by the Belgians? And what was the impact of the international mission on Rose and Van Rensselaer’s further work and life? Dr. de Mûelenaer’s discussion covers these and other questions about important work undertaken by two pioneering Cornell scholars in war-ravaged Europe of the 1920's.
Dr. de Mûelenaere is the Cabeaux-Jacobs BAEF postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University, where she received the 2019 Fellowship in the History of Home Economics at the College of Human Ecology and conducts research on the Belgian relief work of American home economists in the 1920s. She is assistant professor in Cultural and Social Food Studies (FOST) at the History Department of the Vrije Universiteit Brussels. Her research interests include humanitarianism, nutrition, social welfare policies and gender in the era of the First World War.