Cookbooks

Thanks to the generosity of Waldo Lincoln, who gave his personal library of American cookbooks to the Society in 1929, the researcher is blessed with a collection rich in depth and breadth. A 1985 estimate of its size sets the figure at around 1,100 volumes, for the most part published before the year 1877. The Society actively collects in this field whenever opportunities arise. Although the Society's collecting policy emphasizes materials printed in the New World English colonies and the United States, a few cookbooks with British and other imprints are also included here. It was not until 1742 that a cookbook was published in America, when William Parks, a Williamsburg printer, gave the public The Compleat Housewife. This was a reprint of a London bestseller published fifteen years earlier. The Society's copy of this scarce book is in excellent condition. Another half-century was to elapse before the appearance of what is generally considered to be America's first truly indigenous cookbook, Amelia Simmons's American Cookery, published in Hartford in 1796. A copy of this work is also in the Society's library, as are several later editions, all rare. Fifteen handwritten receipt books, dating from 1650 to the late nineteenth century, are located in the Manuscripts Collection. A few items germane to the general topic of domestic economy are shelved in the Graphic Arts collection. In addition, the Society holds strong collections of printed books on the subject of domestic management theory, kitchens and their furnishings, the history of American eating habits, manuals of brewing, baking, and confectionery, not to mention biographies of such nineteenth-century cultural icons as Catharine Beecher, Sarah Hale, and Lydia Child. These provide the historical and sociological background that goes far beyond the realm of cookbooks, narrowly defined. Materials pertaining to the subject of cookery, including cookbooks, dated pamphlets, dated books, almanacs, and graphic arts, are contained in a comprehensive checklist made in 1983. These are accessible by both author and title, and, in some cases, by subject. In addition, pre-1821 materials are to be found in the Imprints Catalog. Researchers may also look in the General Catalog for information under the subject heading "Cookery" and related terms such as "Food" and "Diet." Of additional help is Eleanor Lowenstein's Bibliography of American Cookery Books 1742-1860, published by the Society in 1972, and William Woys Weaver's Additions and Corrections to Lowenstein's "Bibliography of American Cookery Books, 1742-1860," which appeared in volume 92, part 2, of the Proceedings (1983). A more detailed description of the cookbook collection appears in the Journal of Gastronomy vol. 5, no. 3 (Winter 1989-90), pp. 18-31, under the title "The Cook's Oracle." Cookbooks refuse to remain in the kitchen, for when we look more closely, we find that they illuminate many other aspects of the past: technological (in the shift from fireplace to stove, from pump to running water), sociological (family composition and the relations between husband and wife, parent and child, mistress of the house and servant), and religious and scientific (nutrition theories and fads). For students of women's history, cookbooks present a wealth of information about the changing role of women, without which our understanding of past and current ideals would be much impoverished. - Anne C. Moore, Cataloger, North American Imprints Program