The introductory texts reproduced here were written by the original Feeding America team to contextualize the books that were selected for inclusion as part of the 2001 digitization project.

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The Woman Suffrage Cook Book: Containing thoroughly tested and reliable recipes for cooking, directions for care of the sick, and practical suggestions...
By Hattie A. Burr.
Boston: Mrs. Hattie A. Burr, [1890?], c 1886.

We have selected seven charity cookbooks to represent the more than 3000 that were published in the United States between 1864 and 1922. As we indicated in our introduction, the charity cookbook is a legacy of the Civil War. They are a remarkable resource for the culinary historian.

For other charity cookbooks, please see:

• Presbyterian Cook Book 1873
• Shuman, Favorite Dishes 1893
• Kander, The Settlement Cook Book 1901
• Fox, The Blue Grass Cook Book 1904
• Jennings, Washington Women's Cook Book 1909
• The Neighborhood Cook Book 1914

These books all represent themselves as charities, but also are cross-referenced to other categories. In this case, the growing women's movement in general and the fight for women's suffrage in particular. This book is also cross-referenced under Fairs and Exhibitions.

It was published "In Aid of the Fair and Bazaar, December 13-19, 1886 [and the] Country Store, April 21-26, 1890, Boston." Following on the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, Fairs of all kinds (international, national, regional, political and business) were held throughout the United States. Many cookbooks resulted from these Fairs. See also Shuman, Favorite Dishes 1893.

Mrs. Burr, the editor, proudly explains that "Among the contributors are many who are eminent in their professions as teachers, lecturers, physicians, ministers, and authors, - whose names are household words in the land." She further tells us that, "A book with so unique and notable a list of contributors, vouched for by such undoubted authority, has never before been given to the public."

And so, the famous names and their recipes are to be found: Emma Ewing's Iowa Brown Bread, Mary Livermore's Graham Gems, and household hints by Julia Ward Howe, Lucy Stone, and Frances Willard.

There is a wonderful recipe in rhyme for a Breakfast Dish by Elizabeth W. Stanton. Many of the charity cookbooks of this era included rhymed recipes.

A number of the recipes are location-specific and/or hark back to older times: To Fry Spring Chicken and Make Gravy as Mother Did It, Newburyport Housekeeper's Way to Glorify Cold Mutton, New England Sausages, New Jersey Molasses Cake, Rocky Mountain Sponge Cake, Centennial Pepper Hash, Old-Time Baked Indian Pudding, Last Century Blackberry Pudding, and Washington Cake, St. Louis, 1780.

In addition to recipes, this volume includes information on suffrage and has good local ads. It is a fine example of an American cookbook, both for its recipes and for its historic associations.