Emma Weigley

Emma Seifrit was born in Reading, Pennsylvania.[2] She graduated from Albright College in 1954.[3] She completed doctoral studies in nutrition at New York University in 1971, with a thesis titled Sarah Tyson Rorer (1849-1937), a Biographical Study.[4]

Emma Seifrit was a clinical instructor in nutrition at Reading Hospital after college, and won an essay award from the American Dietetic Association in 1960.[5] She taught home economics at Albright College[6] and nutrition at Drexel University; she was also an adjunct professor of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania.[7]

Publications by Weigley included "The High Fat Diet" (1963),[8] "The Philadelphia Chef: Mastering the Art of Philadelphia Cookery" (1972),[9] "'It might have been euthenics': The Lake Placid Conferences and the Home Economics Movement" (1974),[10] "The Professionalization of Home Economics" (1976),[11] Sarah Tyson Rorer: The Nation's Instructress in Dietetics and Cookery (1977),[12] a biography based on her dissertation,[2][13] "Infant Feeding Practices: A Century of Transitions" (1988),[14] and Robinson's Basic Nutrition and Diet Therapy (1997), a textbook.[15] She also co-edited Essays on history of nutrition and dietetics (1967), a collection of essays published on the fiftieth anniversary of the American Dietetic Association.[16] The collection included her own essay, "Food in the days of the Declaration of Independence".[17] Her collection of Sarah Tyson Rorer papers is housed at the American Philosophical Society library.[18] She also wrote the article on Rorer for the American National Biography.[19]

Emma Seifrit married Russell Weigley in 1963. They had two children, Jared and Catherine. Her husband died in 2004.[20] She died in 2020, aged 87 years, from coronavirus, in South Philadelphia.[2] She was one of the thousand names included in The New York Times cover story on May 24, 2020, "U.S. Deaths Near 100,000, An Incalculable Loss".[21]