Dr. Margaret Comstock Snell

In 1868, the Oregon legislature chose Corvallis College as the land grant college for the state.  Under the terms of the federal Morrill Act, Oregon was to receive 90,000 acres of public land to support a college which would teach military tactics and “such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanical arts....to promote liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life.” Courses related to agriculture were added to the curriculum first. After the state took over control of the college in 1888, the Oregon Agricultural College (as it became known) added classes in engineering and “Household Economy and Hygiene.” The latter was seen as a practical, agriculturally-related program to help families improve the preparation and preservation of food.

The first professor of Household Economy and Hygiene, hired in 1889, was Dr. Margaret Comstock Snell.  Before coming to OAC, Margaret Snell had graduated from Grinnell College in Iowa, taught school for seven years, established a school for young women in near Oakland, California, and graduated with honors from Boston University's medical school.

Dr. Margaret Snell

 

The program she established at OAC was the fourth in the nation and the first in the western United States.

She emphasized the application of science and used her medical training to “teach people how to stay well, rather than treat them once they are sick.” Soon over 24 women were enrolled (compared to 43 in agriculture), taking classes in general hygiene, sewing, cookery, etiquette, and aesthetics.

Carrie Pimm Cook, who graduated in 1911, recalled that in the early years, “Home Economics had two kinds of classes-- cooking and sewing....O. A. C. had no sewing machines, so hand sewing consisted of hems, gathers, ticks, hemstitching, darning, mending and finishing edges.

Sewing samples

“These two little sewing samples were my first exam project at the end of a term."

Mrs. Cook continues: “In between student inspection and instruction our beloved Miss Snell walked about quoting poetry and literary gems that live on within this student's memory 72 years later.”

Dr. Snell became known in Corvallis as the “apostle of fresh air” for her advocacy of open windows for better air circulation and for walking in the fresh air for health. After she retired from OAC in 1907, she promoted the planting of shade trees around public buildings and raised funds to plant birch and maple trees, especially in the area around Central Park. She also designed and constructed houses which faced away from dusty street and toward open-air, tree-lined courtyards.

Photo of buildings designed by Margaret Snell on Monroe Avenue,
Corvallis, Oregon, that was being used by the
Newman Foundation Catholic Church, Sept. 1966.

Dr. Margaret Comstock Snell died in 1923.

By Martha Fraundorf, Volunteer for Benton County Historical Society, Philomath, Oregon