Periodicals: Food Magazines in an Evolving Society

Unless one is required to prepare family meals day after day, it is difficult to realize what a boring and backbreaking task that can be. Nineteenth-century housewives or their cooks must have found inspiration in the pages of the Boston Cooking School Magazine or the Ladies’ Home Journal and concluded what the magazines intended: that they had a “friend” to help them.

After World War I returning soldiers wanted home-cooked meals again, and Good Housekeeping was there to assist. Servicemen also were more open to the ethnic foods they had sampled overseas, and magazines like Gourmet and Bon Appétit provided the recipes.