Home Economics in the years of fascism

https://doi.org/10.1080/09672567.2025.2491332

Home Economics in the years of fascism: Maria Gasca Diez and the Italian way 
Ivan Paris

Abstract

Starting from the 1920s, numerous attempts were made to adapt the principles of American Home Economics to the European context. This phenomenon also affected Italy. Gasca Diez was the most active and authoritative Italian figure in this process. This article analyses Gasca Diez’s work to highlight the potential impact of Home Economics on the modernisation of the Italian domestic environment, focusing on women’s work and the spread of domestic technology. Gasca Diez bends the objectives and principles of Home Economics to make them coherent with the dictates of the fascist doctrine and its all-encompassing vision of the economy and society.

Keywords: Home Economics, Maria Gasca Diez; female work; domestic technology; fascism