Cookbooks: From 1860 to World War I

Many societal changes influenced the history of American cookbooks after 1860: the Civil War, the Industrial Revolution, the change from a rural to an urban society, large waves of immigration, the westward expansion, the changing role of women, and the increasing knowledge of and interest in scientific diet and nutrition. Although many of the pre–Civil War trends in cookbook publishing continued, new and major cookbook explosions occurred after the war that had effects throughout the twentieth century and still influence cookbook publishing.