This paper considers how home economics n education policy was employed to shape the social development in Iraq in the early 1950s. During this period, Iraqi policymakers and internationl advisors sought to build a modern Iraq using the development of home economics education for young women and girls. In this work, I engage closely with the reports and collected writings from the archives of Ava Milam Clark who was a Dean of the School of Home Economics at Oregon State College and who served as an advisor for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. In a report to the government of Iraq in 1952, she recommended that the Ministry of Education expand the home economics curriculum especially at secondary schools and at the Queen Aliya College for Women in Baghdad. Building on the existing work on gender in Iraqi national development, I provide an analysis of Milam Clark’s recommendations to examine how the ideals of American home economics education were adapted and deployed in the context of Iraqi national development. I compare Milam Clark’s recommendations and observations about Iraq with her work in the United States and other countries where she served as an advisor. Through this I show how differences in the utilization of home economics curricula reflect differences in the intentions behind educating women for the home and for the nation. The limitations in the implementation of Milam Clark’s recommendations shed light on the contested nature of the types of education available for young women and girls in 1950s Iraq.