Vintage Cookbooks

Our Cook Book and Home Economics Collection has many gems, and a few are highlighted below.

“Stewed chicken without mashed potatoes, and pork without apple sauce loose half their zest.” This is according to the Pilgrim Cook Book published by Chicago’s Pilgrim Evangelical Lutheran Church Ladies’ Aid Society in 1921. With 700 recipes, you can find Sausage in Potato Boxes (p. 31), Blitz Torte (p. 123), Cough Syrup (p. 130), and Sauerkraut Candy (p. 145).

If you’re stuck at home with a sick person, you might want to check out Food for the invalid and the convalescent published in 1912. If Beef Juice (p. 19) and Meat Jelly (p.26) don’t make your ward feel better, you might want to try the Cracker Gruel (p. 33). In case you didn’t realize, “Vegetables and fruit, while they do not contain much nourishment, are necessary to prevent some diseases.” And the authors would also like you to know that, among other things, beer and pickles are bad for children.

Betty Crocker’s Cookbook for boys & girls (1975) shows kids how to prepare all kinds of nifty meals and snacks, including Pigs in a Blanket (p. 112), Three Men In A Boat (p.123), Cabage Wedgies (p. 163), and Ice Cream Cone Cakes (p. 18).

The 1906 book A bachelors cupboard; containing crumbs culled from the cupboards of the great unwedded has a great many pieces of wisdom to impart along with its recipes. Among them: “The day of of the ‘dude’ has passed and the weakling is relegated to his rightful sphere in short order” (p. 2). Once you’re done laughing at the intro, try a saucy recipe like Bed-Spread For Two (p. 75) - be sure to turn to page 76 and read the beginning of the recipe for Chilely for a little giggle. Then move on to some more manly recipes like Indian Devil Mixture (p. 78), Hot Birds (p. 83) and Finnan Haddie (p. 99). On a more sober note, you can read about some of the San Francisco restaurants that were destroyed during the 1906 earthquake starting on page 85.

And finally, you can cook just about anything in a paper bag, including Frog Legs (p. 53), Bacon and Bananas (p. 70), and Omelettes ( p. 88). Check out the 1912 cookbook Standard paper-bag cookery for more ideas.

– Alexis

A is for Archive: One Hundred Years of Alphabet Books

This selection of alphabet books spans a hundred years and is probably of more interest to adults than children. Two of the more unusual books are the Anti-Slavery Alphabet published at the height of the American abolition movement and Little People: An Alphabet which could as easily be titled ‘An Alphabet of Racism’. This popular form of educating (and sometimes indoctrinating) children has endured for over two centuries. The form has also been used to amuse adults as can be seen in An Alphabet of Celebrities.

• The Royal Alphabet (1808):
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• The Merry Cobler and his Musical Alphabet (1815-1820?):
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• The Nursery Present, or, Alphabet of Pictures (1830):
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• An Anti-Slavery Alphabet (1847):
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• Footsteps on the Road to Learning, or, The Alphabet in Rhyme (1849):
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• The Illustrated Alphabet of Birds (1851):
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• Funny Alphabet (1850-1864?):
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• My First Alphabet (1865 to 1889?):
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• An Alphabet of Celebrities (1899):
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• Little People: An Alphabet (1901):
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• An Alphabet of History (1905):
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• A Peter Pan Alphabet (1907):
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– Renata

The Art of the Cat

Many of the Archive’s scanned books contain beautiful or entertaining artwork. The art in these public domain books is free for download, use, or re-use in anyway you like. To illustrate this bounty, we present a selection of books featuring cats.

(Click a flip book and then click through the pages to find illustrations.)

• The Cat’s Elegy (1913): Item / Flip Book
• Kittens and Cats; A Book of Tales (1911): Item / Flip Book
• Mischief Again (1954): Item / Flip Book
• Letters from a Cat Published by Her Mistress for the Benefit of All Cats… (1879): Item / Flip Book
• Cats and All About Them (1907): Item / Flip Book
• The Tale of Tom Kitten (1907): Item / Flip Book
• The Adventures of Whittington and His Cat (1850): Item / Flip Book
• Nonsense Drolleries: The Owl and the Pussy-cat; The Duck and the Kangaroo (1889): Item /Flip Book
• Dame Trot and Her Cat (188-?): Item / Flip Book
• Three Little Kittens : A Story for Little Tots (1908): Item / Flip Book

– Renata

The Art of the Cat

Please see: http://internetarchive.wordpress.com/2008/01/30/the-art-of-the-cat-2/

Turn of the Century Magazines

The late 1800s and early 1900s were an exciting time to be part of the magazine industry. Literary and pulp magazines began to flourish as the cost of chemical wood pulp dropped from $366 per metric tonne in 1866 to $36 in 1900. Magazines like Munsey’s and McClure’s dropped their prices to around 10 cents and began produced volumes with novel-sized proportions.

The Internet Archive has much to offer from this period in the history of journalism. The Prelinger Library collection contains many representative magazines from the period, as does the Project Gutenberg collection.

Munsey’s Magazine (1898): Frank Munsey began printing this publication in 1889, with the intention of creating “a magazine of the people and for the people, with pictures and art and good cheer and human interest throughout.” In this edition: “My Favorite Novelist” column, about Charles Dickens; a story about new Supreme Court judge Joseph McKenna; a story about the development of “Old New York,” which includes the phrase, “It was, historically speaking, only the other day that New York was the settlement of New Amsterdam …”

Argosy Magazine (April 1891): Arguably the first pulp magazine and also created by Frank Munsey, Argosy was, in Munsey’s words a “publication of decent fiction, good red-blooded fiction for the millions.” This volume was printed five years before the magazine became all-fiction, when it still contained illustrations and articles.

Scribner’s, vol 1 (1887): Scribner’s Magazine was a more upscale publication than the previous three, seeking to compete with the likes of Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s Monthly. Known for its ornate illustrations and engravings, the publication sandwiched its literary content in with informational articles and editorials. This first volume contains the article “American Elephant Myths, an article about the Development of the Steamship, a story entitled “The Story of a New York House,” and a poem about a Japanese stone cutter.

The Mentor (Multiple volumes, 1913-1914): “A Wise and Faithful Guide and Old Friend” is the quote on the cover of this magazine, which contains “condensed instructive reading” and “rich picture value.” This link contains a scan of a bound volume of Mentor, 25 issues from 1913-14. Each issue is themed around a particular subject in Art, Literature, Travel, Music or History. Some of the themes included here are “American Landscape Painters,” “The Wife in Art,” “Beautiful Buildings of America,” and “The Conquest of the Poles.”

Written by: Stephanie Sapienza

Pound & Friends

Ezra Pound (1885-1972) may be better known for his fascist political leanings than for his poetry. Yet, his greatest influence was probably that of patron: He spent his long life befriending, publishing, and supporting fellow poets and writers. His friendships cast a wide net and include many of the best-known poets and writers of the 20th Century. Many works by Pound and his literary friends are available on the Archive.

Ezra Pound:

• Umbra, The Early Poems of Ezra Pound (1920) Scanned from the first of 100 signed copies and dedicated to Mary Moore (see below) “if she wants it”.
• Exultations (1910) Scan of a signed copy.
• Ripostes of Ezra Pound (1913) Scan of a signed copy.

William Carlos Williams

• The Tempers (1913)
• A book of poems, Al que quiere! (1917)
• Kora in Hell: Improvisations (1920)
• Sour Grapes, A Book of Poems (1921)

William Butler Yeats

• The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)
• Responsibilities, and other poems (1916)
• Irish Fairy and Folk Tales (191

T.S. Eliot

• Prufrock and Other Observations (1917)
• Ara Vus Prec (1920)

Marianne Moore

• Poems (1921)
• The Dial: The Archive contains 53 volumes of this literary magazine, many of them edited by Moore.

James Joyce (These books are text-only):

• Chamber Music
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
• Ulysses

D.H. Lawrence

• Amores; Poems (1916)
• Tortoises (1921)
• Sons and Lovers (1913)

Robert Frost

• A Boy’s Will (1915)
• Mountain Interval (1921)
• North of Boston (1915)

– Renata

Creepy Crawlies

As part of my aversion therapy regimen, I thought it would be “fun” to put together an entire post about spiders.

• Thiodina sylvana : An academically oriented video of a jumping spider
• Spider trapping a large bug
• Spider Engineers : click one of the stream links in the box on the left
  
• Little Miss Spider : animated spider
• Spider in the House : a children’s song
• The Life of the Spider : an 1887 book about spiders
• A Noiseless Patient Spider : a reading of the Walt Whitman poem
• Horrors of Spider Island : a feature film where a mutant spider bite turns someone into a monter
• The wonderful stories of Fuz-Buz the fly and Mother Grabem the spider : an illustrated tale

– Alexis

The Wonderful Writer of Oz (& Other Stories)

Today is the birthday of Frank Baum (May 15, 1856 - May 6, 1919). To celebrate we’re highlighting his works available on the Archive. Thanks to our partners LibriVox, Project Gutenberg, and the University of California Libraries you can read or listen to quite a few books by the wizard of children’s literature:

Oz Books

• Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz Text Audio
• Glinda of Oz Text
• Little Wizard of Oz Stories Audio
• Ozma of Oz Text Audio
• Rinkitink in Oz Text
• The Emerald City of Oz Text Audio
• The Lost Princess of Oz Text Audio
• The Magic of Oz Text
• The Marvelous Land of Oz Text Audio
• The Patchwork Girl of Oz Text
• The Road to Oz Text Audio
• The Scarecrow of Oz Text
• The Tin Woodman of Oz Text
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Text Audio
• Tik-Tok of Oz Text

Other Stories

• A Kidnapped Santa Claus Text
• American Fairy Tales Text
• Aunt Jane’s Nieces Text
• John Dough and the Cherub Text
• Life and Adventures of Santa Claus Text
• Mary Louise Text
• Mother Goose in Prose Text Audio
• Sky Island: Being the Further Exciting Adventures of Trot and Cap’n Bill After Their Visit to the Sea Fairies Text Audio
• Tamawaca Folks: A Summer Comedy Text
• The Enchanted Island of Yew Text Audio
• The Fate of a Crown Text
• The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus Text
• The Master Key : an Electrical Fairy Tale, Founded Upon the Mysteries of Electricity and the Optimism of its Devotees Text Audio
• The Sea Fairies Text
• The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People Text

– Renata

Fairy Tales

The Archive’s quality assurance manager for books, Marcus Lucero, bookmarked these volumes of fairy tales. He’s gotta know the Archive’s books better than anyone, so they’re worth seeing! Most have incredible illustrations, and are (of course) in the public domain.

• The Wonder Clock: Or, Four & Twenty Marvellous Tales, Being One for Each Hour of the Day (1915)
• The Sleeping Beauty (1920)
• East of the Sun West of the Moon: Old Tales from the North
• Indian Fairy Tales (1892)
• Aesop’s Fables (1869)
• Old French Fairy Tales (1920)
• Fairy realm: A Collection of the Favourite old tales. Illustrated by the pencil of Gustave Doré (1866)

– Renata

All in the Family: Mary Shelly Et Al

Mary Shelley (1797-1851), best known as the 19-year-old creator of Frankenstein, wrote numerous novels and stories throughout her life. She was the daughter of two famous (even notorious!) writers: William Godwin (1756-1836), a radical philosopher best known for his work “Enquiry Concerning Political Justice” and for his novel Caleb Williams; and Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), considered to be the first feminist for her radical treatise, A Vindication of the Rights of Women. Mary Wollstonecraft died from an infection resulting from Mary’s birth. The devastated Godwin hurriedly wrote and published a Memoir about his deceased wife as well as her embarrassing letters to her ex-lover. While these writings were problematic for Wollstonecraft’s reputation at the time, they provide an rare look into the complex life of an exceptional 18th century woman. Godwin also published her unfinished novel, Maria, or the Wrongs of Women.

At age 17, Mary Shelley ran off with the (already married) atheist vegetarian poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), whom she married after his wife’s subsequent suicide. Widowed at the early age of 25, Mary Shelley was forced to support herself and her son with her writing. She worked hard to cleanse Shelley’s radical reputation and popularize his work for a Victorian audience, eventually editing and publishing his poems with commentary. Her efforts resulted in his becoming one of the most celebrated poets of the nineteenth century.

Works by Mary Shelley on the Archive:

• Frankenstein (1833 edition)
• The Last Man (1826 edition)
• The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, volume 1 and volume 2 (1830 edition)
• Mathilda (first published 1959)
• Prosperine and Midas (first published 1922)

– Renata