An important concept from the Industrial Arts era of technology education, it refers to the program established in the 1920s which combines manual training, drawing, and home economics into Industrial Arts.
Out of General Shop emerged the concept vital to the history of the amateur woodworking, the homeworkshop movement.
[notes, to be edited] …By 1908, Lois Coffey had begun to attract attention for her work from the state department of education in Illinois. While at Macomb, Coffey, probably aided by several other teachers, set up the first "general shop," in which students alternated through experiences in shopwork, drawing, and home economics. This eventually led to the integration of manual training, drawing, and home economics into "industrial arts," a term Coffey was using by 1909. (Famously, Industrial Arts was coined as a term in 1904, by Charles Richards) William E. Warner's interpretation of the "general shop", Policies in Industrial Arts Education: Their Application to a Program for Preparing Teachers, would later revolutionize industrial arts, and Warner would later credit Bonser with the general shop theory.(see P. Gemmill, "Industrial arts laboratory facilities-Past, present, and future", in Martin, G. Eugene,ed., " Industrial arts education : retrospect, prospect Bloomington, Ill. : American Council on Industrial Arts Teacher Education, 1979)...
Source: Patrick N. Foster "The Founders of Industrial Arts in the US", Journal of Technology Education 7, no 1 (?)