CMU LibGuides: History: 79-377 Food, Culture, and Power: A History of Eating: Primary Sources

Intro

In historical research, “primary sources” are materials produced during the time of an event, often by those who witnessed or participated in it. These sources aren’t just limited to written documents like newspaper articles or journal entries; they can also include photographs, posters, audio recordings, videos, books, and more. The key is not the type of source, but how it is utilized as evidence for the period it represents.

These are not exhaustive lists of resources, but merely some starting points. For resources not listed here, ask your librarian.

General Primary Source Databases

These databases generally contain many collections of primary sources, and are often a bit more interdisciplinary as a result. This can be especially useful when you're not sure of where to start.

Food Studies Online This link opens in a new window
Archival content, visual ephemera, monographs, and videos that explore how food shapes the world around us. Examples of topics covered in the collection: Organic Farming/Small Farms, School lunch programs, Childhood nutrition, Marketing and advertising, Packaging, Food industry, Environmental impact of GMOs, US food programs during WWI/WWII, Food security, Famine, Vegetarianism, Labor practices, Food safety, Wine making, Obesity, Gender roles through history, Food habits around the world and more.
Gale Databases This link opens in a new window
Gale contains many primary source collections, including 18th century collections, 18th century US Newspapers, History of the Americas, Environmental History, and more. Sources are OCRed and searchable

Digital Public Library of America: Food
The Digital Public Library of America includes "highlights of collections from libraries, archives and museums across the United States, organized into easy-to-navigate topics." Subtopics for the food collection include Farm and Factory, Cooking at Home, Markets, Dining Out, Food in Wartime, and Food and Social Justice.
Food & Drink in History (AM Explorer)
From feast to famine, explore primary source material documenting the story of food and drink throughout history. The materials in this collection illustrate the deep links between food and identity, politics and power, gender, race and socio-economic status, as well as charting key issues around agriculture, nutrition and food production.
Hathi Trust Food Studies Collection
Catalog of old digital books on cooking, gastronomy, food production, and health pamphelets

Cookbooks & Menus

Feeding America
An online collection of some of the most important and influential American cookbooks from the late 18th to early 20th century. Includes 76 cookbooks from the MSU Libraries' collection as well as searchable full-text transcriptions.
Culinary Institute of America Menu Collection
Collection of 30,000 historical menus includes menus from CIA restaurants and donations from major menu collectors documenting the history of dining in America and abroad.
Buttolph Collection of Menus (1850-1924)
Collection originating through the energetic efforts of Miss Frank E. Buttolph (1850-1924), a somewhat mysterious and passionate figure, whose mission in life was to collect menus. Offers access to extensive collection of nearly 19,000 restaurant menus.
Menus: the Art of Dining
Offers access to approximately 2000 restaurant menus dating from 1870-1930 collected by Henry J. Bohr, an editor of a 19th century hotel and restaurant trade publication. Contains secondary source material as well as primary source materials.
Recipe for Victory: Food and Cooking in Wartime
From the University of Wisconsin: books and government publications on the nutritional value of foods, how to grow productive gardens in less than ideal conditions, and cookbooks with recipes for dealing with scarcity; works from the U.S. and England published between 1917 and 1919
Transportation Library Menu Collection
A collection of airline, railroad and cruise ship menu from Northwestern University
What's on the Menu? (NYPL)
"With approximately 45,000 menus dating from the 1840s to the present, The New York Public Library’s restaurant menu collection is one of the largest in the world, used by historians, chefs, novelists and everyday food enthusiasts." Not only can you search this robust collection, you can also participate in the project by helping to transcribe recipes for future researchers.
Mexican Cookbook Collection
UTSA’s Mexican Cookbook Collection is comprised of nearly 3,000 cookbooks, from 1789 to the present, with most books dating from 1940-2000. In addition to broad general coverage, the collection includes concentrations in the areas of regional cooking, healthy and vegetarian recipes, corporate advertising cookbooks, and manuscript recipe books.
Community Cookbooks (Library of Congress)
American Foodways: The Jewish Contribution
This exhibition highlights the Jewish contributions to and experience in American culinary history. Includes cookbooks and menus
Cookery and Culture (Utah State University)
The digitized historical cookbooks in this collection date from the 1700s to the 1900s. Mostly American and British, they contain not only recipes, but also elegant engravings of table settings and cooking paraphernalia, home remedies and cure-all tonics, instructions on managing servants, and more. In short, these gastronomical treasures reveal much about the societies and economic times that created them.
Culinary History and Cookbook Digital Archive
From abundance to diets, from prohibition to war, TWU's collection of cookbooks richly illustrates decades of America's changing relationship with food. The Archive includes selected cookbooks and recipe leaflets from the Woman's Collection Cookbook Collection dating back to the 1880s.

Twentieth Century Advice Literature: North American Guides on Race, Gender, Sex, and the Family This link opens in a new window
Offers sources related to historic values and behaviors in the United States. Recipes, eating habits, and cooking recommendations may be found in this resource.
Gerritsen Collection of Aletta H. Jacobs This link opens in a new window
Covers years 1543-1945, bulk is 1880-1920. The collection is especially rich in women's journals, scholarly medical and sociological studies, and housekeeping and advice manuals. Search "Cookery" instead of just cookbooks

Agriculture & Government Documents

USDA Farmer's Bulletins
The United States Department of Agriculture Farmers' Bulletins were produced to disseminate information about agricultural topics. This collection includes bulletins published between the 1880's and the 1980's.
From the University of North Texas Library.
Agricola
Catalog and index to the collections of the National Agricultural Library, as well as a primary public source for world-wide access to agricultural information. The database covers materials in all formats and periods, including printed works from as far back as the 15th century. For all aspects of agriculture and allied disciplines, including animal & veterinary sciences, entomology, plant sciences, forestry, aquaculture and fisheries, farming and farming systems, agricultural economics, etc.
Core Historical Literature of Agriculture (CHLA) (Cornell University)
"The Core Historical Literature of Agriculture (CHLA) is primarily a collection of landmark agricultural texts published between the early nineteenth century and the middle to late twentieth century. These full-text materials cover agricultural economics, agricultural engineering, animal science, crops and their protection, food science, forestry, human nutrition, rural sociology, and soil science."
The Modern Farmer (Cornell)
A guide covering The Modern Farmer, a serial publication from 1929-1949 published by the National Federation of Colored Farmers (NFCF) and the history of Black Americans in agriculture.
National Agricultural Library Digital Collections (NALDC)
A project of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agriculture Library, this digital collection contains "substantive or essential information in the agricultural sciences, document[s] United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) research, and serves as a national resource for agricultural information."

HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
Legal research database, with numerous libraries covering congressional publications, law publications, treaties, etc.
ProQuest Congressional This link opens in a new window
Congressional materials ca. 1789-present. Full text of hearings, Senate and House documents, the U.S. Serial Set (a collection of U.S. Government publications compiled under directive of the Congress), legislative histories, committee prints, etc. Database Guide

While you can find advertisements related to food in some of the other primary source databases (think of anything with newspapers or magazines), some databases are focused solely on advertisements

Ad*access
From Duke University, over 7,000 U.S. and Canadian advertisements covering five product categories - Beauty and Hygiene, Radio, Television, Transportation, and World War II propaganda - dated between 1911 and 1955.
AdViews: Digital Archive of Vintage Television Commericals
Thousands of television commercials created or collected by the D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B) advertising agency, dated 1950s - 1980s.
Library of Congress: Advertising Food
Large and small, printed and handwritten—all kinds of signs advertise food. The shape of a building, a display of cans, and the smile of a street vendor also encourage food choices. Which of the following images would persuade you to take a second look at the fruit, vegetables, meats, and other fare available from the 1880s to present day?
Food Advertisements Through the Decades
This database features some of the ads analyzed in Dr. Parkin’s book Food is Love: Advertising and Gender Roles in Modern America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006).
Library of Congress: WWI Posters on Food Supply
Posters in this collection were used during World War I by countries on both sides of the conflict to disseminate information, "garner support, urge action, and boost morale." This subset of posters focuses on issues related to the food supply and rationing efforts.
Advertising Archives
the Advertising Archives is the largest and most comprehensive resource of its kind in Europe with a collection spanning the years from the mid-19th Century to the present day.
Waxman Collection of Food and Culinary Trade Cards (Cornell University)
"The Waxman Collection of Food and Culinary Trade Cards comprises approximately 6,500 printed advertising cards dating from the last quarter of the nineteenth century.... Among its subjects are agriculture, food processing and food distribution, cookery in both home and restaurants, kitchen equipment, tableware, views on food and health, and many related sectors of domestic life."
Advertising Cookbooks
Advertising cookbooks, which continue to be widely and handsomely produced today by many manufacturers, were printed early in the 20th century in quantities much greater than the press runs for regular cookbooks. At the time of this writing the Peterson Collection contains over 2,500 booklets and leaflets dating from the 1880s to present and advertising a wide variety of food products, kitchen appliances and cookware.
Life Magazine
Digitized issues back to 1935

The New Yorker This link opens in a new window
Full-page color access to the archives of the New Yorker magazine, from 1925 to the present, as part of the OpinionArchives database.

History: 79-377 Food, Culture, and Power: A History of Eating

Intro

General Primary Source Databases

Cookbooks & Menus

Agriculture & Government Documents

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