Archives of the Month: The Internet Archive’s Cookbooks and Home Economics Collection

Happy Holidays to all SJSU students, faculty, and staff! This month we wanted to celebrate an ancient human tradition practiced with extra enthusiasm during this time of year: cooking. Despite cultural and religious differences, one can always count on copious amounts of food being prepared throughout the fall and winter months! For instance, in my family, November is the start of 60 days of baking and canning using family recipes that have been passed down for generations. The long-held tradition of the collection and preservation of family recipes inspired us to highlight The Internet Archive’s Cookbooks and Home Economics Collection for our Archives of the Month. The Internet Archive is a non-profit organization started in 1996 with the goal of distributing free access to information for all. Anyone can create a free account that provides instant access to over 625 billion web pages, 38 million books and texts, 14 million audio recordings, 7 million videos, 4 million images, and 790,000 software programs. The organization started a book digitization program in 2005, which has led to the impressive present average of 4,000 books being digitized every day around the world. (IA, n.d.).

The Cookbooks and Home Economics Collection encompasses over 12,000 19^th and 20^th century American books “on cookery, textiles, family and home, budgeting, domestic sciences, and many other delightful topics” (IA, n.d.). The collection includes materials from UCLA’s Young Research Library Department of Special Collections, UC Berkley’s Bancroft Library, and San Francisco’s independent research Prelinger Library (IA, n.d.). These books not only contain heritage recipes preserving cultural traditions from around the world but provide vital historical perspectives on different eras in American history.

You could look through the Win the War Cook Book published by the Women’s Committee Council of National Defense in 1918 during WWI. Perhaps the Farmer’s Own published in 1832 might be of interest as it contains a wealth of historical knowledge on early American 19^th century farming techniques, gardening strategies, and cooking methods. You could also peruse the Cakes, cookies, and Confections recipe book compiled by the California Home Economics Association of Southern California in 1920.

This collection, and the Internet Archive as a whole, is a treasure for researchers and continual learners. We encourage you to take a look, and perhaps you will find a new favorite holiday recipe!

Please join us for our Speaker Event on Thursday, December 8th at 7pm PST with Senior Archivist Kim Hayden from The Center for Sacramento History for a Virtual Tour and the SAASC End-of-Semester Hangout on Monday, December 12th at 6pm PST. If you are interested in joining SAASC, you can find out more here.

This is our last post before the end of the 2022 Fall Semester, but not to worry, we will be back in the new year to kick off Spring 2023!  Come to our January Meetup event on January 25^th at 6pm to discuss all things archives, catch up with classmates, and share your MLIS or MARA journey with incoming students!

 

References

Barnum, H.L. (1832). The farmer’s own book; or, family receipts for the husbandman and housewife; being a compilation of the very best receipts on agriculture, gardening, and cookery, with rules for keeping farmers’ accounts. https://archive.org/details/farmersownbookor00barn/page/144/mode/2up

CHEA. (1920). Cakes, cookies and confections. https://archive.org/details/cakescookiesconf00caliiala/mode/2up

IA. (n.d.). About the internet archive. https://archive.org/about/

IA. (n.d.) Cakes, cookies and confections. [image]. https://ia902604.us.archive.org/BookReader/BookReaderImages.php?zip=/6/items/cakescookiesconf00caliiala/cakescookiesconf00caliiala_jp2.zip&file=cakescookiesconf00caliiala_jp2/cakescookiesconf00caliiala_0001.jp2&id=cakescookiesconf00caliiala&scale=4&rotate=0

IA. (n.d.). Cookbooks and home economics. https://archive.org/details/cbk?&sort=-week&page=8

IA. (n.d.). Win the war cook book. [image]. https://ia600206.us.archive.org/BookReader/BookReaderImages.php?zip=/4/items/winwarcookbook00lync/winwarcookbook00lync_jp2.zip&file=winwarcookbook00lync_jp2/winwarcookbook00lync_0001.jp2&id=winwarcookbook00lync&scale=8&rotate=0

Lynch, R. J. (1918). Win the war cook book. Council on National Defense, St. Louis County Unit. https://archive.org/details/winwarcookbook00lync/page/n5/mode/2up