Project 49: Muddy Acres Homemakers’ Club
by Jamie Gonzales |
![Muddy Acres Homemakers' Club](/news/archive/2014/06/_images/Muddy-Acres-19531-580x400.jpg)
The original club members, 1953. Muddy Acres Homemakers' Club papers, Archives and Special Collections, Consortium Library, University of Alaska Anchorage.
Project 49 is a monthly series from the University of Alaska Anchorage, highlighting characters and events from Alaska's rich history that have been preserved in our archives.
Pin curls, plaid and pioneer practical, the founders of the Muddy Acres Homemakers' Club gathered for their first group photo in 1953. The women of the Sand Lake/Jewel Lake area were wives, mothers, neighbors and members of one of Southcentral Alaska's 32 homemaker clubs in the early 1950s. Predating some of television's favorite homemakers by several years-Leave it to Beaver's June Cleaver (1957-1963) in her pearls and heels, The Donna Reed Show's impeccably coiffed and styled Donna Stone (1958-1966)-the women of Muddy Acres who banded together in 1952 were much more recently adjusted to electricity and running water and certainly more used to mud than their Hollywood counterparts.
![Muddy Acres Homemakers' Club](/news/archive/2014/06/_images/Muddy-Acres-Wild-Game-279x200.jpg)
From the scrapbook: club members faced off with wild game and berry recipes at an annual luncheon. Muddy Acres Homemakers' Club papers, Archives & Special Collections, Consortium Library, University of Alaska Anchorage.
"One dark, rainy day in September, 1952, a group of eight women met to form a new Homemakers' Club. Upon looking out the window at the area surrounding them, they all agreed that 'Muddy Acres' would be an appropriate name for the club, and it has stuck to this day," typed the club historian in a 1957 report.
Through the club, the women shared moose casserole and salmon salad recipes, explored new homemaking fads, took care of their community by improving access to education for their kids and looked after each other, rallying to assist members in need after "burn outs" (house fires). They kept a scrapbook of their club activities.
Their collection fills just one accordion file in the UAA/APU Consortium Library Archives & Special Collections and includes the scrapbook, annual reports on club involvement to the Anchorage Homemakers Council from 1952-1960, photographs of club events and a wooden gavel with an engraved brass plate commemorating their achievement as Anchorage's "Club of the Year" in 1959, the year Alaska transitioned from a U.S. territory to the 49th state.
Making dolls, making friends and making messes
Object: The object of this organization shall be to study home and community problems and how to meet them with the purpose of putting the information received into immediate practice. -Excerpt from the Muddy Acres Homemakers Constitution and By-Laws
![Muddy Acres Homemakers' Club](/news/archive/2014/06/_images/Muddy-Acres-meeting-1958-291x400.jpg)
Log walls and framed flamingo art--a club meeting. Muddy Acres Homemakers' Club papers, Archives & Special Collections, Consortium Library, University of Alaska Anchorage.
The inside back cover of the Muddy Acres Homemakers Constitution and By-Laws, a palm-sized, typewritten booklet, was reserved for "The Homemaker's Creed," which begins, "Keep us, O God, from pettiness."
To that end, the by-laws include this verbiage: "Subjects of a political or sectarian nature shall not be discussed at any of the club meetings."
Club membership was capped at 20, maximum capacity for any club member's home. Hostessing rotated within the ranks for the twice-monthly meetings in the fall, winter and spring months. Summers, one club historian noted, were so full of hunting, fishing, canning and house/yard work that meetings scaled back to just once per month.
Over the years, the club members developed customs that were eventually outlined in their papers. Members' new babies were welcomed with the gift of a silver set from the club, secret pals were drawn each December and maintained throughout the year, a traveling hostess basket made its way from home to home with each meeting and the hostess had the opportunity to take an item and add a new one.
![Muddy Acres Homemakers' Club](/news/archive/2014/06/_images/Muddy-Acres-Doll-1957-288x400.jpg)
Making doll clothes for a fundraiser. Muddy Acres Homemakers' Club papers, Archives & Special Collections, Consortium Library, University of Alaska Anchorage.
To afford these niceties, club members paid dues, 10 cents each meeting, and came up with fundraiser ideas. Some of their most successful fundraisers-raffling off a doll with a full wardrobe of doll clothes handmade by the members-netted almost $300 for the club's coffers.
Beyond their expenditures for silver sets and door prizes, the club bought supplies for their chosen charity, the Turnagain Children's Home, and purchased materials for their forays into new crafting frontiers.
"October - Textile painting became a fad. Paint was being splattered in all directions. Thus some people gained hand painted blouses, aprons, sheets, pillow slips, table cloths and dish towels. We found it a nice, profitable craft," wrote the club's secretary in 1956.
And what may be my favorite sentence of the entire collection, the following year the new club secretary detailed the club's diverse educational exploits for the year: "We saw a number of films on cancer, also on jelly making and furniture refinishing."
College and the art of homemaking
![Muddy Acres Homemakers' Club](/news/archive/2014/06/_images/Muddy-Acres-Mad-Hatters-300x186.jpg)
Anyone with a spare salad bowl and a bit of tulle could fashion something for the club's Mad Hatters Tea Party. Muddy Acres Homemakers' Club papers, Archives & Special Collections, Consortium Library, University of Alaska Anchorage.
Newspaper clippings in the club's scrapbook highlighted a short course in homemaking offered by University of Alaska. Each year, the Anchorage Homemakers Council and area businesses offered scholarships to send several women to the Fairbanks campus for multi-day sessions in homemaking arts. Individual clubs also sent their own delegates who came back with new tips on making the most of your freezer, leather tooling, home management, sewing shortcuts and parka making.
These days, University of Alaska Fairbanks maintains a cooperative extension office in Anchorage where you can learn to preserve meat, can vegetables and fruit and connect with experts to get your soils tested and learn master gardening tips. The women of Muddy Acres would be tickled to learn that today's 20- and 30-something hipsters are swelling enrollments in these courses, excited to pickle things and make the most of their urban chickens, just like grandma used to do.
"We feel this year that we have advanced to a great degree toward the real purpose and goal of the Homemakers' Clubs...our hope is that we continue to grow in friendship with other clubs through Council, and in the art of Homemaking, in which there is a never-ending field," wrote club secretary Alice Wilson in 1958.
![Muddy Acres Homemakers' Club](/news/archive/2014/06/_images/Muddy-Acres-Helen-Johnston-1956-296x200.jpg)
Helen Johnston would've had your back if you were a club member in the 1950s. Muddy Acres Homemakers' Club papers, Archives & Special Collections, Consortium Library, University of Alaska Anchorage.
Soon after, the women of Muddy Acres Homemakers' Club adopted a timeless club motto: "Friendship, Purpose, Unity."
You, too, can meet the women of Muddy Acres as they exist on the pages of their collection on your next trip to the Consortium Library. Archives & Special Collections is open to the public Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
Written by Jamie Gonzales, UAA Office of University Advancement
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