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All Stirred Up: Suffrage Cookbooks, Food, and the Battle for Women's Right to Vote
We all likely conjure up a similar image of the women’s suffrage movement: picket signs, red carnations, militant marches through the streets. But was it only these rallies that gained women the exposure and power that led them to the vote?
Ever courageous and creative, suffragists also carried their radical message into America’s homes wrapped in food wisdom, through cookbooks, which ingenuously packaged political strategy into already existent social communities. These cookbooks gave suffragists a chance to reach out to women on their own terms, in nonthreatening and accessible ways. Cooking together, feeding people, and using social situations to put people at ease were pioneering grassroots tactics that leveraged the domestic knowledge these women already had, feeding spoonfuls of suffrage to communities through unexpected and unassuming channels.
Kumin, the author of The Hamilton Cookbook, expands this forgotten history, she shows us that, in spite of massive opposition, these women brilliantly wove charm and wit into their message. Filled with actual historic recipes (“mix the crust with tact and velvet gloves, using no sarcasm, especially with the upper crust”) that evoke the spirited flavor of feminism and food movements, All Stirred Up re-activates the taste of an era and carries us back through time.
Kumin shows that these suffragettes were far from the militant, stern caricatures their detractors made them out to be. Long before they had the vote, women enfranchised themselves through the subversive and savvy power of the palate.
Ever courageous and creative, suffragists also carried their radical message into America’s homes wrapped in food wisdom, through cookbooks, which ingenuously packaged political strategy into already existent social communities. These cookbooks gave suffragists a chance to reach out to women on their own terms, in nonthreatening and accessible ways. Cooking together, feeding people, and using social situations to put people at ease were pioneering grassroots tactics that leveraged the domestic knowledge these women already had, feeding spoonfuls of suffrage to communities through unexpected and unassuming channels.
Kumin, the author of The Hamilton Cookbook, expands this forgotten history, she shows us that, in spite of massive opposition, these women brilliantly wove charm and wit into their message. Filled with actual historic recipes (“mix the crust with tact and velvet gloves, using no sarcasm, especially with the upper crust”) that evoke the spirited flavor of feminism and food movements, All Stirred Up re-activates the taste of an era and carries us back through time.
Kumin shows that these suffragettes were far from the militant, stern caricatures their detractors made them out to be. Long before they had the vote, women enfranchised themselves through the subversive and savvy power of the palate.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published August 4, 2020
41 people are currently reading
299 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
March 25, 2021
What an interesting way to tell the story of the fight for women's suffrage -- through food. I found it fascinating. The way Ms Kumin takes the reader back in time to how these women lived was so enlightening. You cannot help but have a newfound respect for our Foremothers from the 19th & early 20th Centuries. And thanks to Ms Kumin, we can actually try something they might have cooked & feel closer to these women then we ever have before. Now who wants some Pie For A Suffragist's Doubting Husband?
February 22, 2021
I first learned about cookbooks associated with women’s suffrage thanks to this Atlas Obscura article and I was instantly fascinated. Feminism in the 20th century was often more interested in throwing off the chains of household drudgery than with enticing converts through snacks. But that is precisely the premise of All Stirred Up: Suffrage Cookbooks, Food, and the Battle for Women's Right to Vote, which is why I was so excited that I put it on my Christmas wish list. I was expecting a thorough examination of the suffrage cookbooks, the women who created them, and their place in the movement. Sadly, as a book, All Stirred Up is like an underdone cake – it looks perfect on the outside, but the inside is doughy and disappointing and could have used another 30 minutes in the oven.
Laura Kumin is a former lawyer turned cooking educator and food writer. She does not have a historical background, and, as is the case with many non-historians who write food history, it shows.
All Stirred Up begins, even before the introduction, with a lengthy timeline. While I find timelines to be incredibly useful, especially when dealing with complex chronology, starting the book with one was not a choice I would have made. It is confusing to the reader, who is presented lengthy and disparate facts without context or introduction. A lack of context is a theme for the book.
Kumin’s introduction is part explanation of her interest in suffrage cookbooks and part layout of her main argument. She makes a compelling case that modern takes on suffrage history have largely ignored the role of cookbooks in converting skeptics to the cause. Unfortunately, this argument is not often revisited in the subsequent chapters.
Most of the chapters are quite brief, some as few as eight pages, and while historical overviews abound, actual analysis is lacking. Taking up the most space are the recipe sections that follow each chapter, organized by type. Although these recipes are directly taken from the suffrage cookbooks, with modern adaptations designed by Kumin, there is no context for any of the recipes and no dates listed. Most recipe sections draw from multiple suffrage cookbooks without differentiating between them, beyond noting where the originals came from. We do not know why Kumin chose these particular recipes, how they reflected the cookbooks and times from whence they came, or even what, if any, relevance they had to the suffrage movement. For many chapters, the number of pages devoted to recipes outweigh the pages devoted to history.
As for the history itself, most of it is shallow summaries meant to orient the reader to the basics of suffrage history, home economics and food science, and basic culture of the period. While this context is useful for non-historians, it seems to come at the expense of historical analysis. In addition, the chronology of the book is all over the place. The book begins in 1848, with an exercise in “time travel” in which Kumin writes in the present tense. Then zooms ahead to the Progressive Era and back again several times. At the end of Chapter 3, we’re already at the 19th Amendment in 1920, an achievement which is not really revisited for the rest of the book. Throughout the book, the suffrage movement in one decade is conflated with the same movement decades later. Little attention is paid to the context of national culture on the way in which the women's suffrage movement was operated, despite the fact that it was under operation, in one way or another, for over 70 years. Missed opportunities to make connections to other major movements, including abolitionism, Temperance (which is dismissed as detrimental to the cause, p. 78-79), Progressive reform, government regulation, etc., abound.
Chapters 3, 4, and 6 are the strongest, content- and argument-wise. In Chapter 3, “From Seneca Falls to the Ballot Box,” Kumin examines the suffragists themselves and the post-Civil War resurgence of the movement. To her credit, she makes a point of mentioning African American suffragists and their shameful treatment by mainstream white suffragists, as well as male allies and the “antis” – anti-suffragists. However, points that needed more analysis were often presented as literal sidebars in the text. For instance, noted suffrage ally Frederick Douglass, instead of being included in the main text, receives a short summary in a gray box. The Beecher family get similar treatment in a sidebar about how the movement split families. Catharine Beecher, a fervent anti-suffragist, was a cookbook author and young women’s educator of some renown and who, despite conflicting ideas about suffrage, nonetheless co-wrote The American Woman’s Home with her suffragist sister. Cookbook author, fervent abolitionist, and Native American rights activist Lydia Maria Child is mentioned in a quotation, but otherwise ignored. These are just a few of many missed opportunities to engage with the subject matter more deeply – discussing how both suffragists and “antis” used women’s work and the home in their arguments for and against suffrage.
Chapter 4, “We Can Peel Potatoes and Fight for the Vote, Too! Suffrage Strategies and Battle Tactics” is the strongest chapter in the book, and one of the few that cites primary sources in the endnotes. Discussing the divergent tactics between “mainstream” and “militant” suffragists, Kumin compares the mainstream work of the cookbooks, cafeterias, the “doughnut campaign,” a “Pure Food” storefront, and cooperating with agricultural extension, to the militant tactics of parades, protests, arrests, and hunger strikes. Unfortunately, she does not define who exactly is “mainstream” and who is “militant,” except to note differing tactics. Kumin argues that the more mainstream feminists were more successful in changing hearts and minds, but presents little evidence to back up this claim. In addition, despite covering the bulk of the Progressive Era, the chapter mentions, but gives little context to agricultural extension, the Temperance movement, home economics, World War I, and women’s clubs. An overview of home economics and food science comes in the following chapter, “Revolution in the Kitchen.”
Chapter 6 finally addresses the cookbooks themselves, with an overview of how they were financed, celebrity contributors, and how the recipes included were reflective of the periods in which they were published. The cookbooks are still dealt with in generalizations, however, and their individuality is lost in the mix. The section on celebrities, although interesting contains another missed opportunity, as Kumin mentions one recipe contribution from noted feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman, but not her dislike of cooking. In the section on funding, Kumin clearly notes that the cookbooks were usually designed as fundraisers for the organizations, a fact that belies her argument that cookbooks were meant to convert, though she does note they were sometimes also used as enticing premiums for subscriptions. Chapter 7 is a brief discussion of how suffragists used dinners and entertaining to support the cause.
All Stirred Up ends without a clear conclusion, instead relying on Chapter 8, “What Suffrage Means for Us,” an eight-page summary of women in American politics since 1920. This final chapter makes no clear reference to the influence of the cookbooks that purportedly drove the suffrage movement and does not sum up the arguments outlined in the introduction. It is followed by 28 pages of dessert recipes. There is no explanatory postscript, only Kumin’s acknowledgements.
In all, All Stirred Up does make a good point about the role of suffrage cookbooks in the movement, but it fails to back up its few arguments convincingly, particularly in light of the use of community cookbooks as fundraising tools, rather than modes of conversion to the cause. Instead of concentrating the bulk of her argument into Chapter 4, Kumin would have had a much more compelling book had she spread that argument throughout all the chapters, addressing the role of domesticity from the perspectives of both the suffragists and the antis. More primary source analysis would have enriched the narrative. Looking at the writing of major suffrage leaders to determine their personal opinions on cooking and domesticity would have added depth to her arguments. Examining the cookbooks themselves, their recipes, and the organizations and women that produced them as a chronological accounting of the movement, would have added greatly to the coherence and context of the book. Had the recipe sections been introduced by era, with headnotes and historical context for each recipe, their inclusion would have made the book both stronger and appealing to the general public. Ultimately, the book feels as though it was rushed to print, possibly to coincide with the centennial anniversary of the 19th Amendment in 2020.
If you are unfamiliar with basic suffrage and food history, this may provide some good historical summaries and Kumin’s research on the 1909 Washington Women’s Cook Book is particularly strong. But, if you were hoping for a well-written, well-organized examination of the role of food in the suffrage movement and the influence of suffrage cookbooks, as I was, you’ll be sorely disappointed. I can only hope that future historians can expand on Kumin’s work.
Laura Kumin is a former lawyer turned cooking educator and food writer. She does not have a historical background, and, as is the case with many non-historians who write food history, it shows.
All Stirred Up begins, even before the introduction, with a lengthy timeline. While I find timelines to be incredibly useful, especially when dealing with complex chronology, starting the book with one was not a choice I would have made. It is confusing to the reader, who is presented lengthy and disparate facts without context or introduction. A lack of context is a theme for the book.
Kumin’s introduction is part explanation of her interest in suffrage cookbooks and part layout of her main argument. She makes a compelling case that modern takes on suffrage history have largely ignored the role of cookbooks in converting skeptics to the cause. Unfortunately, this argument is not often revisited in the subsequent chapters.
Most of the chapters are quite brief, some as few as eight pages, and while historical overviews abound, actual analysis is lacking. Taking up the most space are the recipe sections that follow each chapter, organized by type. Although these recipes are directly taken from the suffrage cookbooks, with modern adaptations designed by Kumin, there is no context for any of the recipes and no dates listed. Most recipe sections draw from multiple suffrage cookbooks without differentiating between them, beyond noting where the originals came from. We do not know why Kumin chose these particular recipes, how they reflected the cookbooks and times from whence they came, or even what, if any, relevance they had to the suffrage movement. For many chapters, the number of pages devoted to recipes outweigh the pages devoted to history.
As for the history itself, most of it is shallow summaries meant to orient the reader to the basics of suffrage history, home economics and food science, and basic culture of the period. While this context is useful for non-historians, it seems to come at the expense of historical analysis. In addition, the chronology of the book is all over the place. The book begins in 1848, with an exercise in “time travel” in which Kumin writes in the present tense. Then zooms ahead to the Progressive Era and back again several times. At the end of Chapter 3, we’re already at the 19th Amendment in 1920, an achievement which is not really revisited for the rest of the book. Throughout the book, the suffrage movement in one decade is conflated with the same movement decades later. Little attention is paid to the context of national culture on the way in which the women's suffrage movement was operated, despite the fact that it was under operation, in one way or another, for over 70 years. Missed opportunities to make connections to other major movements, including abolitionism, Temperance (which is dismissed as detrimental to the cause, p. 78-79), Progressive reform, government regulation, etc., abound.
Chapters 3, 4, and 6 are the strongest, content- and argument-wise. In Chapter 3, “From Seneca Falls to the Ballot Box,” Kumin examines the suffragists themselves and the post-Civil War resurgence of the movement. To her credit, she makes a point of mentioning African American suffragists and their shameful treatment by mainstream white suffragists, as well as male allies and the “antis” – anti-suffragists. However, points that needed more analysis were often presented as literal sidebars in the text. For instance, noted suffrage ally Frederick Douglass, instead of being included in the main text, receives a short summary in a gray box. The Beecher family get similar treatment in a sidebar about how the movement split families. Catharine Beecher, a fervent anti-suffragist, was a cookbook author and young women’s educator of some renown and who, despite conflicting ideas about suffrage, nonetheless co-wrote The American Woman’s Home with her suffragist sister. Cookbook author, fervent abolitionist, and Native American rights activist Lydia Maria Child is mentioned in a quotation, but otherwise ignored. These are just a few of many missed opportunities to engage with the subject matter more deeply – discussing how both suffragists and “antis” used women’s work and the home in their arguments for and against suffrage.
Chapter 4, “We Can Peel Potatoes and Fight for the Vote, Too! Suffrage Strategies and Battle Tactics” is the strongest chapter in the book, and one of the few that cites primary sources in the endnotes. Discussing the divergent tactics between “mainstream” and “militant” suffragists, Kumin compares the mainstream work of the cookbooks, cafeterias, the “doughnut campaign,” a “Pure Food” storefront, and cooperating with agricultural extension, to the militant tactics of parades, protests, arrests, and hunger strikes. Unfortunately, she does not define who exactly is “mainstream” and who is “militant,” except to note differing tactics. Kumin argues that the more mainstream feminists were more successful in changing hearts and minds, but presents little evidence to back up this claim. In addition, despite covering the bulk of the Progressive Era, the chapter mentions, but gives little context to agricultural extension, the Temperance movement, home economics, World War I, and women’s clubs. An overview of home economics and food science comes in the following chapter, “Revolution in the Kitchen.”
Chapter 6 finally addresses the cookbooks themselves, with an overview of how they were financed, celebrity contributors, and how the recipes included were reflective of the periods in which they were published. The cookbooks are still dealt with in generalizations, however, and their individuality is lost in the mix. The section on celebrities, although interesting contains another missed opportunity, as Kumin mentions one recipe contribution from noted feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman, but not her dislike of cooking. In the section on funding, Kumin clearly notes that the cookbooks were usually designed as fundraisers for the organizations, a fact that belies her argument that cookbooks were meant to convert, though she does note they were sometimes also used as enticing premiums for subscriptions. Chapter 7 is a brief discussion of how suffragists used dinners and entertaining to support the cause.
All Stirred Up ends without a clear conclusion, instead relying on Chapter 8, “What Suffrage Means for Us,” an eight-page summary of women in American politics since 1920. This final chapter makes no clear reference to the influence of the cookbooks that purportedly drove the suffrage movement and does not sum up the arguments outlined in the introduction. It is followed by 28 pages of dessert recipes. There is no explanatory postscript, only Kumin’s acknowledgements.
In all, All Stirred Up does make a good point about the role of suffrage cookbooks in the movement, but it fails to back up its few arguments convincingly, particularly in light of the use of community cookbooks as fundraising tools, rather than modes of conversion to the cause. Instead of concentrating the bulk of her argument into Chapter 4, Kumin would have had a much more compelling book had she spread that argument throughout all the chapters, addressing the role of domesticity from the perspectives of both the suffragists and the antis. More primary source analysis would have enriched the narrative. Looking at the writing of major suffrage leaders to determine their personal opinions on cooking and domesticity would have added depth to her arguments. Examining the cookbooks themselves, their recipes, and the organizations and women that produced them as a chronological accounting of the movement, would have added greatly to the coherence and context of the book. Had the recipe sections been introduced by era, with headnotes and historical context for each recipe, their inclusion would have made the book both stronger and appealing to the general public. Ultimately, the book feels as though it was rushed to print, possibly to coincide with the centennial anniversary of the 19th Amendment in 2020.
If you are unfamiliar with basic suffrage and food history, this may provide some good historical summaries and Kumin’s research on the 1909 Washington Women’s Cook Book is particularly strong. But, if you were hoping for a well-written, well-organized examination of the role of food in the suffrage movement and the influence of suffrage cookbooks, as I was, you’ll be sorely disappointed. I can only hope that future historians can expand on Kumin’s work.
December 1, 2022
I was really excited to read this book. I did not know that suffragettes used cookbooks as a way to spread the word about their cause. It's an interesting history.
The majority of the book is a history book, and each chapter end has recipes.
I liked how the original recipes are shown, followed by an updated recipe for modern kitchens.
I am not sure that I will be making any of these recipes, but I am grateful to know more about suffragette history.
The majority of the book is a history book, and each chapter end has recipes.
I liked how the original recipes are shown, followed by an updated recipe for modern kitchens.
I am not sure that I will be making any of these recipes, but I am grateful to know more about suffragette history.
June 30, 2021
possibly more of a 2.5 stars
January 2, 2024
A reasonable overview of the basics of US suffragist history, but it didn't live up to my hopes. Kumin repeated herself frequently, to the extent that the last couple of chapters felt extremely padded. The recipes were interesting, but overall the discussion of the Suffrage Cookbooks felt added in rather than a lens through which to view history.
December 16, 2020
Very nice coverage of the Suffrage movement without requiring much special knowledge on the part of the reader before diving in. Too many books dealing with historical subjects assume more familiarity with the subject. As a food historian, I appreciated that Ms. Kumin included the original recipes alongside of the adapted versions. I would have further appreciated it if the dates of the originals were also included with each. A comprehensive list of the cookbooks with dates does not appear until nearly page 200 in the book. The adaptions run from faithful reconstructions to looser interpretations which I did not always find captured the flavor of the time to, in one instance, a modern recipe that is 'similar'. I'd come back to it if I was looking at the source cookbooks in detail, but would be sure to include other sources.
August 1, 2020
Thank you to The Bookclub Cookbook for an early edition of this ebook.
While I did not at all enjoy the format of this book, I totally respect and found interesting all the facts compiled into this tome. When I think of women getting the vote I only thing of a couple big names; but there were so many more both women and a few men...even a freed male slave helped with the cause.
I had a vague knowledge of the existence of the suffragette's cookbooks but did not understand before reading All Stirred Up that the cookbooks had several purposes. Considering that the men of this era thought if women were provided the right to vote they would stop having babies and cooking and caring for the home. So the women used the cookbook to assure the men that this movement encouraged cooking and household duties. Ah, but there were secret messages inside the cookbooks that were a way to get the message to women who feared the movement or that their husbands forbid interest in it. Also, it was a great way to raise money for The Cause.
Throughout the book were many recipes both of the era in which the cookbooks were written and current day conversions. I admit I very much enjoyed the first 20 or so, but, for me, it became tiring.
The first several pages of the book listed timelines of historical events, fashion of the time, info about the Suffrage Movement and caveats of interesting facts. Again, the first page or so I found interesting, but after that it was just a list of facts that did not really hold my interest.
I very much enjoyed the few photos of the era; something most books omit.
I enjoyed the quotes throughout the book. I especially liked "Women can not make a bigger mess of voting then men have'. LOL All things considered, it was a pretty good battle cry.
Although, by the end of this book, I asked myself if the facts could have been provided in a more concise and easier to read format I must take a moment to give a nod to all the research involved in the compiling of this book. The list of credits/references/notes is long and through. Kudos to the author even though it was not really my cup of tea.
While I did not at all enjoy the format of this book, I totally respect and found interesting all the facts compiled into this tome. When I think of women getting the vote I only thing of a couple big names; but there were so many more both women and a few men...even a freed male slave helped with the cause.
I had a vague knowledge of the existence of the suffragette's cookbooks but did not understand before reading All Stirred Up that the cookbooks had several purposes. Considering that the men of this era thought if women were provided the right to vote they would stop having babies and cooking and caring for the home. So the women used the cookbook to assure the men that this movement encouraged cooking and household duties. Ah, but there were secret messages inside the cookbooks that were a way to get the message to women who feared the movement or that their husbands forbid interest in it. Also, it was a great way to raise money for The Cause.
Throughout the book were many recipes both of the era in which the cookbooks were written and current day conversions. I admit I very much enjoyed the first 20 or so, but, for me, it became tiring.
The first several pages of the book listed timelines of historical events, fashion of the time, info about the Suffrage Movement and caveats of interesting facts. Again, the first page or so I found interesting, but after that it was just a list of facts that did not really hold my interest.
I very much enjoyed the few photos of the era; something most books omit.
I enjoyed the quotes throughout the book. I especially liked "Women can not make a bigger mess of voting then men have'. LOL All things considered, it was a pretty good battle cry.
Although, by the end of this book, I asked myself if the facts could have been provided in a more concise and easier to read format I must take a moment to give a nod to all the research involved in the compiling of this book. The list of credits/references/notes is long and through. Kudos to the author even though it was not really my cup of tea.
August 4, 2020
There’s a lot of interesting information in this book and I definitely learned a lot.
I wasn’t completely in love with the format just because it didn’t feel like it flowed smoothly. That said, there had to be a ton of research done before this book was written. I can only imagine how much time the author spent researching the topics before writing this book.
This book tells the story of the different types of suffragist and the road to the right to vote. Some chose to protest, some chose another method entirely. Early in the book, a quote is thrown out about how a many men felt that women had to choose the vote over a baby. They felt her place was in the home and if she got the right to vote, she’d fail at being a housewife and a mother. And considering men were the only ones voting, it took a long darn time before women were able to get that right too. They didn’t have a ton of men in their corner pushing for it to happen.
So, some women took an interesting approach. They tried to prove to everyone they could be good cooks, wives, etc and still vote. And they did that in part by selling clever cookbooks.
One of the other clever things about the cookbooks was the hidden secret purpose. They were able to slip some pages into a cookbook about women getting the right to vote. Some times this encouraged women to join in the fight and sometimes it proved to men that the suffragists were good people encouraging their wives to become better cooks.
And something else cool about the cookbooks? The amount of money they raised with the cookbooks went towards their cause.
Even though women couldn’t vote, they were very powerful in sometimes subtle ways. I think it must have been hard for them to feel like they had to prove they could cook in order to garner votes. But I do think it was genius the way they used that idea to strengthen their cause.
There are lots of recipes in this book from original cookbooks. And the author has also adapted them for modern times. Some ingredients in the original recipes were a bit uncommon, but often the changes have to do with flavor. And the original recipes often didn’t include standard measurements, cooking time or cooking methods.
I’d honestly love to see pictures of the original recipes versus their modern counterparts.
I bookmarked a few and I will definitely try something from this book, just for fun.
I got to read an early ebook edition from The Bookclub Cookbook. Thank you! I wouldn’t have found this one on my own and I feel like I learned a lot.
I wasn’t completely in love with the format just because it didn’t feel like it flowed smoothly. That said, there had to be a ton of research done before this book was written. I can only imagine how much time the author spent researching the topics before writing this book.
This book tells the story of the different types of suffragist and the road to the right to vote. Some chose to protest, some chose another method entirely. Early in the book, a quote is thrown out about how a many men felt that women had to choose the vote over a baby. They felt her place was in the home and if she got the right to vote, she’d fail at being a housewife and a mother. And considering men were the only ones voting, it took a long darn time before women were able to get that right too. They didn’t have a ton of men in their corner pushing for it to happen.
So, some women took an interesting approach. They tried to prove to everyone they could be good cooks, wives, etc and still vote. And they did that in part by selling clever cookbooks.
One of the other clever things about the cookbooks was the hidden secret purpose. They were able to slip some pages into a cookbook about women getting the right to vote. Some times this encouraged women to join in the fight and sometimes it proved to men that the suffragists were good people encouraging their wives to become better cooks.
And something else cool about the cookbooks? The amount of money they raised with the cookbooks went towards their cause.
Even though women couldn’t vote, they were very powerful in sometimes subtle ways. I think it must have been hard for them to feel like they had to prove they could cook in order to garner votes. But I do think it was genius the way they used that idea to strengthen their cause.
There are lots of recipes in this book from original cookbooks. And the author has also adapted them for modern times. Some ingredients in the original recipes were a bit uncommon, but often the changes have to do with flavor. And the original recipes often didn’t include standard measurements, cooking time or cooking methods.
I’d honestly love to see pictures of the original recipes versus their modern counterparts.
I bookmarked a few and I will definitely try something from this book, just for fun.
I got to read an early ebook edition from The Bookclub Cookbook. Thank you! I wouldn’t have found this one on my own and I feel like I learned a lot.
November 23, 2023
What an absolutely wonderful micro-history I stumbled upon! I love cookbooks, and I have a passing interest in women's history, so this was a nice meld of two things I could really get into. Kumin did an excellent job with this book - it includes lots of history of the suffrage movement and related things going on at the time, acknowledgements when she couldn't accurately fill in information about motives and purposes of some of the leaders, plus the original recipes from the only 8 surviving titles of suffrage cookbooks and her modern reworking of those recipes. Through this book, she explains what the suffrage cookbooks were meant to do: fundraise, open doors, allay fears, show off to other homemakers, gain supporters one cookbook at a time. She takes time to talk about what the recipes included reflect, as far as the values of household cooks at the time, and also provides a super interesting comparison between the different volumes. I did not actually cook any of the included recipes before returning my copy to the library, since I have plenty of recipes I already want to try, but I may be checking the book out of the library again, or just buying it to include on my cookbook shelf in the future.
September 4, 2020
Learned quite a bit about the suffragists though not how “votes for women” came to be described as “suffrage”. Interesting that suffrage was one of several efforts during the late 19th century. Some women thought equal education or property rights were more important.
The Jewish author misses the story about anti-semitism in the suffrage movement.
It turns out that the League of Women Voters was formed shortly after suffrage was won. Its purpose was to train women how to vote. The author reports that the league had over 150,000 members in the 1960s, but has shrunk dramatically in recent years, to about 50,000 women. There’s no explanation as to why the organization has shrunk so much.
The author briefly discusses the effect of women suffrage on who gets elected. According to her, women are as varied in their political outlook as men. That actually doesn’t jibe with what I’ve heard recently about the gender gap. This is an area that could have been discussed at much greater length.
I found one or two recipes that adhered to a vegan diet. None were interesting enough for me to actually try them.
Lots of eggs, milk, meat, poultry, fish. Yecch!
The Jewish author misses the story about anti-semitism in the suffrage movement.
It turns out that the League of Women Voters was formed shortly after suffrage was won. Its purpose was to train women how to vote. The author reports that the league had over 150,000 members in the 1960s, but has shrunk dramatically in recent years, to about 50,000 women. There’s no explanation as to why the organization has shrunk so much.
The author briefly discusses the effect of women suffrage on who gets elected. According to her, women are as varied in their political outlook as men. That actually doesn’t jibe with what I’ve heard recently about the gender gap. This is an area that could have been discussed at much greater length.
I found one or two recipes that adhered to a vegan diet. None were interesting enough for me to actually try them.
Lots of eggs, milk, meat, poultry, fish. Yecch!
June 4, 2021
Leaned on this heavily for a history project. I was obviously not who the book is marketed to, as I was doing research on suffrage cookbooks, but I felt like it wasn't sourced as well as I would have liked it to be. i.e, I wanted to find some of her sources and move outward from there. I went ahead and bought all the cookbooks available (reprints, of course) but if I wanted to get my paws on some of the recipes and household hints that were printed in various magazines and newspapers that sprung up around the suffrage movement. Covid-19 precluded me from visiting libraries in person, and it is really hard to get cookbooks from college libraries!
Anyhow, the recipes were reprinted directly from the books, and the author shares her tips on how to actually make those recipes in a modern kitchen, which is fun to play along with. Bite-sized nuggets of history in each chapter.
Anyhow, the recipes were reprinted directly from the books, and the author shares her tips on how to actually make those recipes in a modern kitchen, which is fun to play along with. Bite-sized nuggets of history in each chapter.
November 9, 2023
I like food history. I like history about women. This book should have been a slam-dunk to win me over. It wasn't.
Kumin says she wrote the book because she was fascinated by how the movement used cookbooks and food, both as fundraisers and to get their message across. Tea parties gave women a chance to advocate for suffrage. Cookbooks proved they weren't rejecting domestic life. Eggs could have "vote for women" written on the shell.
That stuff's cool but too much of the book is a straight recap of the suffrage movement which isn't what I bought it for (and I've read most of the material elsewhere). It's telling her last chapter is about what the movement means to us today rather than anything about the food.
Kumin says she wrote the book because she was fascinated by how the movement used cookbooks and food, both as fundraisers and to get their message across. Tea parties gave women a chance to advocate for suffrage. Cookbooks proved they weren't rejecting domestic life. Eggs could have "vote for women" written on the shell.
That stuff's cool but too much of the book is a straight recap of the suffrage movement which isn't what I bought it for (and I've read most of the material elsewhere). It's telling her last chapter is about what the movement means to us today rather than anything about the food.
May 14, 2021
The format of this book was terrible - especially on my Kindle. As a hobby baker and cookbook enthusiast, I was curious as to how this played in to the suffrage. The author sort of danced around it the whole time. I liked that recipes were chosen along with modern adaptations, but there seemed to be no rhyme, reason, or other explanation to why the recipes were chosen or their connection to anything in the chapter.
In all, this was part interesting, part underwhelming - sort of like a recipe that you had really high hopes for, but didn't turn out "right" even though you followed all of the instrutions.
In all, this was part interesting, part underwhelming - sort of like a recipe that you had really high hopes for, but didn't turn out "right" even though you followed all of the instrutions.
March 8, 2025
A little slow in places, occasionally repetitive, and doesn’t really get into the suffrage cookbooks themselves until quite a ways into the book. Really more of a history of the suffrage movement itself from the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention to the 1920 ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, with updated recipes from the cookbooks in between chapters. It really was a long time line, with the Civil War and World War I included, and many changes in the preparation of food along the way. Interesting.
October 14, 2025
I really enjoyed this book - it is a great perspective on the women’s suffrage movement. We usually picture marches and protests, but the author shows how much work also happened in kitchens and dining rooms. Using actual suffrage cookbooks, she shows how women used food as a way to spread ideas and reach other women.
I appreciate that the author brings these cookbooks to life with real recipes and wit.
It’s an engaging read that connects food, women's rights, and organizing in a way that remains just as relevant in present day.
I appreciate that the author brings these cookbooks to life with real recipes and wit.
It’s an engaging read that connects food, women's rights, and organizing in a way that remains just as relevant in present day.
Read
August 28, 2021I don't do the star ratings, so lack of star doesn't mean anything. This book was well written and had interesting info and photos, but is more a collect of articles on different topics than a historical analysis. Expected it to go into more depth on the cookbooks. The info on the advent of "home economics" was interesting, but topic adjacent rather than successfully merged nto the cookbook discussion.
March 11, 2021
Fascinating exploration of the history of suffrage cookbooks, used as fundraisers and propaganda. The author offers an extensive review of the suffrage movement and the paralleling domestic science movement. She also acknowledges the concerns regarding opinions voiced by suffragettes regarding minorities. The book includes numerous recipes both the original and a modernized version.
June 17, 2021
I skimmed this book.
This book is a combination of a history of the women’s suffrage movement in the US and includes recipes from as far back as the 1900’s. After the older recipe, the author adds a more recent recipe.
Interesting!
I enjoyed this book; I heard the author speak about it about 6 weeks previously.
This book is a combination of a history of the women’s suffrage movement in the US and includes recipes from as far back as the 1900’s. After the older recipe, the author adds a more recent recipe.
Interesting!
I enjoyed this book; I heard the author speak about it about 6 weeks previously.
December 3, 2020
An interesting read. Loved the historical data and the perspective of ordinary, unheard of, suffragists. Lots of detail. Recipes were interesting and it was very helpful the author adapted them for today. May, or may not, try some.
October 12, 2020
Interesting with old fashioned recipes
December 10, 2020
DNF. P.128. I tried but I honestly lost interest really quickly.
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