1880 Autograph Letter Signed by Female Cookbook Author, Juliet Corson, Founder of the New York Cooking School and Pioneer in the Scientific Cookery Movement.

Cooking lessons for the children at Five Points

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Letter from Juliet Corson (1841?–1897), founder of the New York Cooking School and pioneer in the scientific cookery movement.

Writing from Syracuse, New York —across two full pages to a Mrs. Smith— Corson refers to her busy schedule lecturing and giving cooking demonstrations:

...I am so busy that I cannot keep pace with my letters. You are very good to say so many kind things to me, and I trust that circumstances may so far favor me that I shall have the pleasure of seeing you soon again. May I ask you to send the Hartford papers which contained notices of the cooking lesson to me at Washington, D.C., c/o Bureau of Education, Dept. of the Interior? ... I gave the lesson to the children at the Five Points [New York City?], to their manifest delight. From here I go on Saturday to Washington, for a two weeks’ stay.

“In 1873 Corson became secretary of…the Women’s Educational and Industrial Society. ...the organization offered courses at a free training school for women, which was dedicated to providing them with skills to make them employable. ... In 1874 the free training school began classes in the various domestic arts. In the cooking class, Corson lectured while a chef cooked. In 1876 Corson founded her own institution, the New York Cooking School. ... In 1877 Corson published her first book on cooking, The Cooking School Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-day Cookery. ... Corson worked to introduce scientific cooking and domestic economy into the curriculum of schools and colleges. She advised teachers on how to present these subjects in a systematic fashion and during the 1870s and 1880s offered instruction in Montreal and at the University of Minnesota, the Lake Erie Seminary in Ohio, Miss Porter’s School in Connecticut, and schools in California. The U.S. commissioner of education had asked her to spread her knowledge around the country and became a great supporter of her work.” (ANB)

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