Favorite Dishes A Columbia Autograph Souvenir Cookery Book.
[Cookbooks]. Shulman, Carrie V. (compiler). Favorite Dishes, A Columbia Autograph Souvenir Cookery Book Over Three Hundred Autograph Recipes, and Twenty-Three Portraits, Contributed Specially by the Board of Lady Managers of the World’s Columbian Exposition, Illustrated by May Root-Kern, Mellie Ingels Julian, Louis Braunhold, George Wharton Edwards. [Chicago], 1893.
8vo, 221pp; (including Contents); illustrated with black-and-white pen sketches and 23 full-page portraits; smooth orange cloth stamped in gold-gilt and white front and spine, Art Nouveau style decorated trade binding with double rules framing three attenuated lilies at the front panel and three descending lilies at the spine; t.e.g.; tips and spinal ends a trifle rubbed; near fine; a lovely copy.
First edition. The Women’s Department at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 provided women a showcase for their talents and skills as artists, sculptors, lacemakers, musicians, composers, writers, printers, etc. Susan B. Anthony had foreseen the importance of the proposed exposition to the women’s movement and insured that, unlike the 1876 Centennial, women would be represented. May Sewall Wright spearheaded the organization of an international gathering of women’s groups to meet and discuss key women’s issues. Berthe Honoré Potter undertook the Women’s Building which, with its mural by Mary Cassatt, its display of popular Cincinnati pottery, and the exhibition of paintings, sculptures and handiwork by a wide variety of artists and artisans, substantiated the right of women artists to be considered professionals. Ruth Yandell, one of the sculptors represented in The Woman’s Building, wrote a lighthearted account of the Exposition entitled Three Girls In A Flat. Harper & Row issued a series of six books, written and printed by women, on women’s issues in conjunction with the Exposition.
This cookery book is not only an attractive souvenir, it also documents the many women who lent their talents to the creation of the Women’s Building as well as their recipes to this compilation. The compiler had called upon each of the “Lady Managers and Lady Alternates of every State and Territory of the United States, including Alaska” to contribute. The contributor’s facsimile signature accompanies each recipe as does, upon occasion, a reflection upon the women’s movement, the origin of the recipe etc. Isabella Beecher Hooker, for instance, gives a recipe for “Soup Regency” and another for sponge cake. Frances Willard confesses “I never knew anything about cooking or had a particle of taste for it” and so provides her mother’s doughnut recipe. A beautiful copy of this handsome book, documenting another facet of this key event in the American women’s movement and very much reflecting the tastes of late 19-th century America.
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