Exhibit

Cooking Up Change

Women’s Agency and Community Building Through Cookbooks
Title page for Recipes, an International Collection. Paper is white and there is a black and red illustration of two decoratively drawn fish forming a large circle in the middle of the page. The text compiled by The United Nations Women's Association, Bangladesh 1980 is along the bottom edge.
Recipes (title page), United Nations Women’s Association (Bangladesh), 1980
Credit: Schlesinger Library
Cookbook cover on very stained beige paper with 300 years of Black cooking in St. Mary's County, Marlyand to the center and right. A drawing of a rocking chair on an oval rug is to the left of the text.
Come in, sit down, make yourself at home (cover), St. Mary’s County Bicentennial Commission, ca. 1975
Credit: Schlesinger Library
Women from the Fishermen's Wives of Gloucester giving a cooking demonstration at a grocery store. Three women in white aprons standing around a white folding table. One of the women is cooking fish in a frying pan. Two women customers are in the background watching. There are also stocked shelves in the background.
Cooking demo for non-traditional fish at Market Basket, Danvers, Massachusetts, photograph, February 1980
Credit: Records of the Fishermen’s Wives of Gloucester, Schlesinger Library
Title page for Recipes, an International Collection. Paper is white and there is a black and red illustration of two decoratively drawn fish forming a large circle in the middle of the page. The text compiled by The United Nations Women's Association, Bangladesh 1980 is along the bottom edge. Cookbook cover on very stained beige paper with 300 years of Black cooking in St. Mary's County, Marlyand to the center and right. A drawing of a rocking chair on an oval rug is to the left of the text. Women from the Fishermen's Wives of Gloucester giving a cooking demonstration at a grocery store. Three women in white aprons standing around a white folding table. One of the women is cooking fish in a frying pan. Two women customers are in the background watching. There are also stocked shelves in the background.
Through Friday, Jan 8, 2027
Open to the public

Location

Lia and William Poorvu Gallery
Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

Drawn from the Schlesinger Library’s extensive collection of more than 4,300 community cookbooks, Cooking Up Change: Women’s Agency and Community Building Through Cookbooks explores the history and cultural significance of community cookbooks spanning the 19th to the 21st centuries. The collection showcases the efforts of women’s groups within a variety of organizations to raise funds for their religious, educational, and civic causes while also documenting the social and cultural history of their varied communities and culinary traditions.