Lincoln, Mary

Lincoln, Mary (1844–1921) American cookery author and teacher. Born in Massachusetts, she graduated as a teacher from the Wheaton Female Seminary in 1864, and married David Lincoln the following year. Her teaching career did not really begin until 1879 when she was asked to replace Miss Sweeney, one of the original teachers with Maria Parloa at the fledgling Boston Cooking School. Mrs Lincoln taught there until 1885, and in 1884 published Mrs Lincoln’s Boston Cook Book, a text based on her courses at the school. According to the preface, the book was prepared ‘at the urgent request of the pupils of the Boston Cooking School who have desired that the receipts and lessons given during the last four years in that institution should be arranged in a permanent form’. The recipes themselves were drawn from a wide range of contemporary authorities in Europe and the USA, including Soyer, Mrs Beeton, Marion Harland, and Miss Corson; and Mrs Lincoln stressed the science of cooking and its relationship to sound nutrition.