A Superb Copy of the First Suffrage Cookbook

The Woman Suffrage Cook Book Conta[i]ning Thoroughly Tested and Reliable Recipes for Cooking, Directions for the Care of the Sick, and Practical Suggestions, Contributed Especially for this Work

Burr, Hattie A. (editor)

Notes: The first edition of the first American woman's suffrage movement cookbook, printed for sale during the woman suffrage bazaar held in Boston on six days in 1886.

Harriet "Hattie" Burr, who was active in suffrage and other community causes, in Boston compiled recipes and household advice from more than 150 supporters of the suffrage cause in New England and beyond. As she writes in her preface, "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. 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."

Among the authors are the poet Julia Ward Howe, the activist Lucy Stone, the writer Mary A. Livermore, Mary J. Safford (the first female gynecologist), and Marie E. Zakrzewska (founder of the New England Hospital for Women and Children). Many of the other contributors belonged to city and town suffrage groups in Massachusetts (according to contemporary newspaper reports, nearly 200 suffrage groups participated in the bazaar), with a few from further afield. In that respect, The Woman Suffrage Cook Book had a lot in common with other community cookbooks.

The recognizable format reflected that 1) many of the buyers of the book were suffragists who were also wives and mothers who cooked and cleaned at home; and 2) there was a desire among many activists to counter the stereotype that suffragists were harridans working to destroy society. Only at the end of this book was suffrage addressed head on.

The book was hastily put together—the preface is dated November 25 and the book went on sale on December 13—and bound in paper-covered boards with a cloth spine. The construction is flimsy. The initial print run sold out during the bazaar. A second edition (indicated on the title page, and with the ad on page 149 omitted) was offered for sale to the public. The second edition was reissued in 1890 with new ads. All three editions are scarce.

Edition + Condition: First edition (first printing). An exceptionally nice copy, with a bit of light staining to the covers and almost none of the wear usually seen.

Publication: Boston: Published in Aid of the Festival and Bazaar, December 13–19, 1886.

Item No: #362739

Price: $10,000