1931 ALBION HIGH SCHOOL COOKING CLASS - Historical Albion Michigan

Last week in this column we featured an "action photo" of the Albion High School boys in April 1931, busy in their printing class in the west wing of Washington Gardner High School. This week, we’ll turn our attention to the girls.

Girls at the Albion High School were kept busy learning homemaking skills, such as sewing and cooking. As previously mentioned, this was made possible by the erection in 1922-23 of a new high school building (the west wing). The cooking room was equipped with gas ranges, and there was a sewing room equipped with three Singer sewing machines.

In 1931, local phonographer Ludwig Studios took photographs of these classes. Unfortunately for us, it appears that all students were specifically told to "look down" like they were really working, which makes identifications very hard.

From our Historical Notebook this week we present a photograph of the cooking class. Here we see the happy-to-be homemakers in their white uniforms and hats (at first glance this might appear to be a nurse’s class) "in action" with their mixing bowls, manual egg beaters, double-boilers and coffee cups.

Notice the girl on the right at the sink washing a coffee cup. In the far back we see the lone black girl in the class. She is standing in front of the black board. The poster shows different types of milk containers, and the caption reads, "Which is Dripping Milk?" It’s not good to drip your milk, is it?

Of course, it is easy to tell that this is a "posed" photo. Another observation is that the overhead lights are shut off for the photographer. No good homemaker would prepare their food in the dark, would they?

Next week we’ll feature another interesting photograph from this group of photos.

	Frank Passic — Albion Historian An Albion native and 1971 graduate of Albion High School, Frank Passic has been researching and writing Albion history since 1976. He is the creator of the Albion Historical Notebook, with hundreds of articles appearing weekly in the Morning Star and The Recorder. Frank maintains an extensive personal archive including Riverside Cemetery records, family surname files, genealogies, photographs, city directories, and high school yearbooks. Support his 2026 research at the Historic Albion Michigan Facebook page. Historical Notebook \| From the Archives \| Subject List \| 100 Years Ago \| Alphabetical Index \| Frank Passic Home Page \| Albion History Books \| Contact Frank
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