AMELIA SIMMONS

First edition of the first cookbook by an American author. Earlier cookbooks printed in this country were reprints of European editions. In her "Preface," the author, identified on the title page as "an American orphan," explains that "this treatise is calculated for the rising generation of females in America . . . who by the loss of their parents, or other unfortunate circumstances, are reduced to the necessity of going into families in the line of domestics." Prior to the eighteenth century, most cookbooks were written by men for men cooks. During the eighteenth century women like Amelia Simmons began to write for women housekeepers, or the lady of the house who would direct the housekeeper's work. In a "Publisher's Note" to a 1937 facsimile edition of this book, only two copies were recorded as extant.

Bequest of Melva B. Guthrie