I did some research on the topic but I couldn't pinpoint the beginning of the idea. The sources are ranging between Old Greek Culture and 19th Century.

Most sources agree that homework was frowned upon when the modern school system came up in the 16th Century. As you said correctly, homework was frowned upon because the kids, if they actually go to school, should be able to help the family after school. But not only that, also health issues seemed to be a reason. Lack of sunlight and fresh air got mentioned. It seems that till the launch of the Sputnik in 1957 homework wasn't really popular, but after the launch its popularity raised because people thought that with the successful launch of the Russians the children in the States would fall behind their enemies, so "not being the most advanced country in the world." In the late 60's the popularity of homework went down because parents were worried about the pressure on the students. Homework was limited at that point and this stayed more or less that way till the mid 80's when homework got more popular again because it was used to fight against mediocrity in schools and to help with the increasing load of school work. In the present the same ideology seems to be in the public mind.

Concerning Europe I was just able to find one source that mentions that homework in Germany seemed to be a part of school since the mid 19th century.

Sources that were mostly used:

http://www.nctm.org/news/content.aspx?id=13798 http://people.hofstra.edu/Esther_Fusco/ENC204view.pdf#page=8

I have a followup question to this, that's fairly open-ended (sorry if that's against the rules). In most classes now (in my US-only experience), the learning "cycle" is the teacher gives information during class, and then the student practices that at home. Is this always what homework has been in all cultures?

A surprising amount of schools now (including the one I teach at) are starting to experiment with "flipping" - instead of the "normal" way I mentioned, students watch a video or read something at home, and then practice the material during class time with the teacher there. Is this actually a new (and by new I mean on the scale of a few decades) idea, or have other cultures used this before?

Essentially what I'm asking is if what we in the US think of as homework is what homework has always been, and if all cultures have viewed homework that same way.

I think an interesting way to research this would be to look at literature, especially with young adults as main characters, who might do homework.

The first thing that comes to mind is Hermann Hesse's semi-autobiographical Beneath the Wheel, which was written in 1905 and takes place in a German seminary. The whole premise of the book is that the poor kid's always doing school work and can't develop as a person.

I suppose that might not count as "homework" but it brings up another interesting point, that a lot of education was done at boarding schools and the like, so they probably had out of class assignments, but weren't doing them at "home."

So perhaps if you want to know about "home" work, it might be best to start looking at the history of schools; for instance, trying to figure out when "school" as we now know it became a thing - less elitist than boarding schools, more community institution than home-schooling. And also, of course, figuring out where you want to examine this, geographically speaking.

Thanks for the mention /u/ObsoletePixel. I'd love to hear more answers to this question; I hope we can spark some more great minds to weigh in.

Question time for the historians --

How was the idea of outside work (let's call it internship, apprenticeship, etc.) portrayed in the sense of schooling? Did any Alexandrian era Egyptian, Plato era Greek, or Puritan era American expect to do extra work as it relates to school when they got home? What about other periods?