1918–1919 WOMAN’S DOMESTIC SCIENCE & COOKERY STUDENT ARCHIVE 400 pp.

Item Details

ACKERMAN, Alphra. Extensive student workbook and course archive compiled at Teachers College, Columbia University, chiefly 1918–1919, for coursework in cookery, domestic science, household economics, nutrition, sanitation, and table service.  Approximately 400 leaves, gathered by two rings ; comprising handwritten lessons and essays, original diagrams, typed and mimeographed instructional sheets, recipes, printed pamphlets, and mounted newspaper and magazine clippings.

A remarkably substantial record of a woman’s formal education in the newly professionalized field of home economics immediately following the First World War. The opening manuscript lesson, dated September 28, 1918, defines the course as the study of “the food problem from the standpoint of the home,” addressing individual and family dietary requirements, purchasing, preparation, preservation, serving, economy, sanitation, and efficient household management.

The archive includes extensive recipes in both family and individual quantities; notes on food values, meal planning, canning, kitchen work, table service, dishwashing, and household organization; institutional directions for students’ uniforms and laboratory conduct; and printed teaching material issued by Whitcomb & Barrows, Boston, publishers specializing in domestic science and household economics. Particularly attractive components include an original measured floor plan for “The Ideal Kitchen,” signed Alphra Ackerman, Cookery 41, 12/18, diagrams illustrating correct table settings and serving arrangements, and scrapbook pages incorporating period illustrations of dining rooms, serving carts, table decorations, and modern domestic equipment.

The typed and mimeographed material preserves the practical laboratory curriculum, with recipes for breads, cereals, soufflés, Welsh rarebit, vegetables, desserts, and other dishes, often presented in parallel large and individual portions. Several sheets bear manuscript corrections and substitutions, suggesting actual classroom use rather than merely collected instructional material.

An unusually rich primary-source archive documenting the Progressive Era transformation of domestic labor into a systematic academic discipline. Beyond culinary history, it offers material for the study of women’s education, domestic technology, nutrition, household labor, consumer culture, sanitation, gender expectations, and the emerging profession of home economics.

The compiler appears to have been Alphra Ackerman, possibly the woman of that uncommon name later recorded in Hillsdale, New Jersey, although the educational institution represented by the course numbers has not yet been identified.

Approximately 400 leaves, not individually collated. Contents vary in size and format, with edge wear, occasional tears, toning, looseness, and some detached or partially mounted components; binder and leaves worn from extensive contemporary use. As found.