Cookbooks and cooking pamphlets collection, 1910/2008

Access and use

Location of collection:
George Mason University
2400 Fenwick Library
Special Collections Research Center
Fenwick Library MS2FL
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
Contact for questions and access:
POC: Mieko Palazzo
Phone: (703) 993-2220
Fax: (703) 993-2669
Restrictions:

There are no access restrictions.

Terms of access:

The copyright and related rights status of this collection have not been evaluated. (See http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/)

Preferred citation:

Cookbooks and cooking pamphlets collection, C0320, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.

Summary

Extent:
2.5 linear feet (7 boxes)
Abstract:
The Cookbooks and cooking pamphlets collection includes pamphlets, booklets, and other printed materials published by a myriad of American food companies in order to advertise their products. The majority of the collection originates from the 1950s - 1960s.
Language:
English
Preferred citation:

Cookbooks and cooking pamphlets collection, C0320, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.

Background

Scope and content:

The Cookbooks and cooking pamphlets collection includes pamphlets, booklets, and other printed materials published by a myriad of American food companies in order to advertise their products to consumers, particularly women homemakers. The majority of the collection originates from the 1950s - 1960s, but includes materials that span the entirety of the 20th century and early 2000s. Topics range from, but are not limited to, the diets of school children, recipes using well-known American food brands such as Kraft, Jell-O, Campbell's Soups, and 7-Up, and local companies' yearly cookbooks featuring their employees' recipes. Other items include pamphlets on "high altitude cooking" and recipes clipped from newspapers.

Biographical / historical:

The world of post-World War II America saw the flourishing of the economy and suburban expansion, which in turn brought G.I.s back in the work force and pushed American women from their wartime jobs back into the home. Wartime scarcity juxtaposed with the cornucopia of household goods available post-war, as well as the advent of new homemaking technology, were some of the reasons a societal ideal of the economical, creative, and supportive (to her husband and family) American homemaker was made. According to scholar Judith A. Freeman, "[a]dvertisers constantly told each other about various characteristics of women's personalities so as to maintain a generic definition acceptable to all." This image of this ideal homemaker was particularly popular in the 1950s and 1960s, and a variety of food brands used this ideal to advertise to female consumers. The persuasiveness of American advertising on the American female homemaker "[promoted] idealistic standards of behavior, the attainment of which were unreachable goals. This...was so effective that men and women look[ed] to advertising for personal definition. The ideal that the commercial media presented to the American woman fostered a perpetual dissatisfaction with her personal reality which, in turn, encouraged the need to consume - and this was exactly what advertisers intended."

Acquisition information:
Donated by Iowa State University in February 2019.
Processing information:

Processing completed by Amanda Brent in March 2019. EAD markup completed by Amanda Brent in April 2019.

Arrangement:

This collection is arranged chronologically and alphabetically by year.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard