The What Not Or Ladies Handy Book

"The What-Not" is a charming collection of recipes, household hints, and handicraft projects geared towards women in the late 19th century. Topics covered in this book include cooking, cleaning, gardening, embroidery, and more. With detailed instructions and whimsical illustrations, this book is a delightful glimpse into the domestic arts of a bygone era. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

As cooking advanced from simply placing wild grains, seeds, or meat in or near a fire to following some vague notion of food as a pleasing experience, soup--the world's first prepared dish--became the unpretentious comfort food for all of civilization. This book provides a comprehensive and worldwide culinary history of soup from ancient times. Appendices detail vegetables and herbs used in centuries-old soup traditions and offer dozens of recipes from the medieval era through World War II.

In the last half of the 19th century, the women of America were beginning to develop their own sense of style. Although influenced by European fashions and the social and economic changes of the time, they made clothing choices based upon their personal aspirations and their practical everyday needs. Providing an overview of fashion influences for each decade from the 1860s to the end of the century, Everyday Fashion in Found Photographs presents iconic garments, using sources from the period, to provide commentary and detailed description of the styles of the time. Previously unpublished vintage photographs show women across the social spectrum wearing items such as the Garibaldi shirt, the cuirass bodice, the Mother Hubbard, bicycle bloomers, and much more. Names, dates and functions of garments are examined in detail, and ties are established between social and historical contexts and the evolution of clothing styles. This illustrated book is for readers who want to identify and understand specific clothing items as well as gain insight into the mind-set of fashionable women from Victorian-era America. Dress history scholars, costume designers, curators of costume collections, social and cultural historians and those who appreciate vintage photographs can learn about elements of late 19th century women's dress and thereby develop an understanding of what was fashionable, and why.

Ledbetter explores themes and patterns of poetry publication in a variety of women's periodicals published throughout the Victorian era using taste, style and the significance of poetry to advance our understanding of women's lives in the nineteenth century.