The American Housewife And Kitchen Directory

The first edition of this very popular nineteenth century cookbook was published in 1839 as The American Housewife, later expanded to The Kitchen Directory and American Housewife and often republished as The American Housewife and Kitchen Directory. Author Anne Howe’s name did not appear on the title page until later editions published after this 1841 version. Her preface states that although she is not an Ude (French chef) or a Kitchiner (popular British cookbook author), she knows the culinary arts as “practiced by good American cooks.” Bemoaning the inadequate instructions and limited practical knowledge expressed in other cookbooks, she presents over 350 recipes from the simplest broths to the most delicate cakes and sweetmeats with efficient instructions and practical economy. In addition to her recipe collection, the book includes recipes on cookery for the sick and making perfumes, as well as sections on housewifery and carving that appear to be simply lifted from earlier works. This edition of The Kitchen Directory and American Housewife was reproduced by permission from the volume in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1812 by Isaiah Thomas, a Revolutionary War patriot and successful printer and publisher, the Society is a research library documenting the life of Americans from the colonial era through 1876. The Society collects, preserves, and makes available as complete a record as possible of the printed materials from the early American experience. The cookbook collection includes approximately 1,100 volumes.

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The first edition of this very popular nineteenth century cookbook was published in 1839 as The American Housewife, later expanded to The Kitchen Directory and American Housewife and often republished as The American Housewife and Kitchen Directory. Author Anne Howe’s name did not appear on the title page until later editions published after this 1841 version. Her preface states that although she is not an Ude (French chef) or a Kitchiner (popular British cookbook author), she knows the culinary arts as “practiced by good American cooks.” Bemoaning the inadequate instructions and limited practical knowledge expressed in other cookbooks, she presents over 350 recipes from the simplest broths to the most delicate cakes and sweetmeats with efficient instructions and practical economy. In addition to her recipe collection, the book includes recipes on cookery for the sick and making perfumes, as well as sections on housewifery and carving that appear to be simply lifted from earlier works. This edition of The Kitchen Directory and American Housewife was reproduced by permission from the volume in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1812 by Isaiah Thomas, a Revolutionary War patriot and successful printer and publisher, the Society is a research library documenting the life of Americans from the colonial era through 1876. The Society collects, preserves, and makes available as complete a record as possible of the printed materials from the early American experience. The cookbook collection includes approximately 1,100 volumes.

Priscilla J. Brewer examines the development and history of the first American appliance—the cast iron stove—that created a quiet, but culturally contested transformation of domestic life and sparked many important debates about the role of women, industrialization, the definition of social class, and the development of a consumer economy. Brewer explores the shift from fireplaces to stoves for cooking and heating in American homes, and sheds new light on the supposedly "separate spheres" of home and world of nineteenth- century America. She also considers the changing responses to technological development, the emergence of a consumption ethic, and the attempt to define and preserve distinct Anglo-American middle class culture. There are few works that treat this significant subject, and Brewer covers impressive new ground. Extensively documented—based on letters, diaries, probate inventories, census records, sales figures, advertisements, fiction, and advice literature-this book will be valuable to scholars of American history and women's studies.