No Food or Drink Permitted? A Epicurean Adventure Through Archives

“No Food or Drink Permitted in the Reading Room”

 The above sentence reflects one of the near universal rules for handling archival materials: food and beverages cannot even be in the same room as our precious documents.  Fortunately, there are enough of food-related collections in the archives to satisfy your cravings or whet your appetite.  The archives  are full of papers of famous chefs, collections of handwritten recipes, and records from food and beverage manufacturers.  Join me on a brief culinary tour of the archives!  

Julia Child Papers at Harvard University's Schlesinger Library

[Picture of Julia Child. Credit: 

Schlesinger Library, Harvard University]

Harvard University holds a 60.18-linear-foot collection containing the papers of one of the most beloved figures in culinary history, Julia Child. The papers hold additional historical interest because of Child's service in the OSS during World War II. The collection contains Child's correspondence, recipes, and materials relating to her books and television program, such as drafts and scripts. Unfortunately, only pieces of the collection have been digitized, so you would have to make the trip to Massachusetts to see the entire thing. The Schlesinger Library also holds the papers of Simone Beck, co-author of Child's first cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and Avis DeVoto, who helped get the book published.
The Julia Child Papers can be found here.

Szathmary Culinary Manuscripts and Cookbooks at the University of Iowa

[Cookbook page. Credit: University of Iowa Libraries]

This collection of handwritten cookbooks dating from about 1600 to 1960 is even more awesome than it sounds, because the University of Iowa allows users to transcribe the handwritten pages from digital images, as part of its DIY History project.  The people responsible for the collection presented on a panel about crowdsourcing at the Midwest Archives Conference this past spring, and it was really interesting to hear about the methods they used and the process of putting the content, as well as the tools that facilitate user transcription, online.  The project has clearly been popular, as the majority of the cookbooks have been completely transcribed.

You can find cookbooks that still need to be transcribed here.

Breweries, Beer and Bars in Wisconsin History at the Wisconsin Historical Society

[Photograph of Schlitz Palm Garden with a drawing of a waiter carrying a tray of beers. Credit: Wisconsin Historical Society]

What Archives Month blog post would be complete without a gallery of digital images devoted to the roles of beer and brewing in Wisconsin history? Answer: not this one! The Breweries, Beers and Bars in Wisconsin History gallery is part of the Wisconsin Historical Images section of the Historical Society's website, with images taken from a variety of different collections. The gallery contains images of beer labels and advertisements, photographs of breweries and bars, and images pertaining to individual Wisconsin breweries, like Pabst and Schlitz.

-Gwen Sieja