[originaltext] As the twentieth century began, the importance of formal edu

As the twentieth century began, the importance of formal education in the United States increased The arrival of (26) a great wave of southern and eastern European immigrants at the turn of the century coincided with and contributed to an enormous expansion of formal schooling. (27) By 1920 schooling to age fourteen or beyond was compulsory in most states, and the school year was greatly lengthened Kindergartens, vocation schools,  extracurricular activities, and  vocational education and counseling extended the influence of public schools over the lives of students, many of whom in the larger industrial cities were the children of immigrants.
     ( 28 ) Reformers  early  in  the  twentieth  century suggested that education programs should suit the needs of specific populations.  Immigrant women were one such population. Schools tried to educate young women so they could occupy  productive  places  in  the  urban  industrial economy,  and  one  place  many  educators  considered appropriate for women was the home.  Although looking after the house and family was familiar to immigrant women. American education gave homemaking a new definition. In preindustrial economies,  homemaking  had  meant  the production as well as the consumption of goods, and it commonly included income-producing activities both inside and outside the home, (29) in the highly industrialized early-twentieth-century United States, however, overproduction rather than scarcity was becoming a problem.  Thus, the ideal American homemaker was viewed as A consumer rather than a producer.  Schools trained women to be consumer homemakers, cooking, shopping, decorating, and caring for children "efficiently" in their own homes, or if economic necessity demanded, as employees in the homes of others.