Date of Award
5-2009
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Degree Program
History
Department
History
Major Professor
Powers, Madelon
Second Advisor
Candy, Catherine
Third Advisor
Mitchell, Mary N.
Abstract
Cookbooks have a unique ability to record women.s history, both private and public. Cookbooks transmit not only instructions for preparing specific dishes, but also the values of class, race and gender of the times and places in which they are created. This study will focus on several such cookbooks produced by Louisiana women in the mid-twentieth century, from the 1930s to the 1970s. Different though these works are, they collectively demonstrate that the best cookbook authors are purveyors not only of recipes, but also of class values, ethnic relations and folklore, and gender models that one generation of women endeavors to transmit to the next. Most important, this study will argue that these cookbooks provide a rich and penetrating insight into the class structure in rural Louisiana, race and accomplishment in an era of segregation, and the role of gender in domestic and professional occupation.
Recommended Citation
Wolfe, Rachael, "Beyond the Ancestral Skillet: Four Louisiana Women and Their Cookbooks, 1930-1970" (2009). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 951.
https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/951
Rights
The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this dissertation or thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation.