publishing – Early American Cookbooks

Northeastern

Books published in the Northeast comprise 61% of the Early American Cookbooks collection. Large numbers of cookbooks were published in New York, traditionally the publishing center of the United States, as well as in Boston and Philadelphia. The high percentage in the Northeast also reflects the population distribution in the United States in period from 1800 to 1920. Most commercial publishing was centered in the Northeast in the early 19th century and book publishers became established in other regions as the population shifted westward over time.

Text analysis of books published in the Northeast shows some interesting trends. When the books are compared to the full set of titles in Early American Cookbooks, the over-represented terms show terms more common in early 19th century books. These include early printing styles such as the long “s” which looks like an “f.” In the tag cloud below “fweet” is “sweet’ and “fugar” is “sugar.” There are also old versions of words (divers rather than diverse) and English spellings such as flavour, colour, and centre. The Northeast region is also evident in place names such as Philadelphia and local companies such as Ryzon, a baking powder company based in New York

Northeastern over-represented terms (Meandre Dunning Log Likelihood to Tagcloud Algorithm)

This visualization was created by comparing two sets of texts, cookbooks published in the Northeast and the full Early American Cookbooks collection, using the Meandre Dunning Log-likelihood to Tagcloud algorithm in the HathiTrust Research Center Portal.

Books by year

The number of cookbooks published per year grew steadily during the 19th century and bounded upwards in the early 20th century. In the early 19th century, most families used collections of handwritten recipes, often handed down through generations and shared with neighbors and friends. The publishing industry in the United States expanded rapidly during the late 19th century and commercially produced cookbooks became widely available. The market for cookbooks continued to expand with many famous titles produced in multiple printings and editions. Community cookbooks (published by a church or charitable organization to raise funds) also increased in number after the Civil War. The growth of the packaged food industry led to the publication of cookbooks tied to commercial products (such as Crisco or Jell-O) in early 20th century.

Regional cookbooks

This map shows the number of books published per state for the full collection of 1450 cookbooks. New York has the greatest number of books published, followed by Massachusetts, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and California. These numbers align with the growth of the book publishing industry in the United States. New York City, traditionally the publishing center of the United States, published the greatest number over time, followed by other publishing centers in Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. The trend in the numbers also shows the history of westward expansion from 1800 to 1920, with the greatest total numbers in the East and much lower numbers in the West.

Dividing the collection into United States census regions shows that 61.1% of the titles were published in the Northeastern region, 24% were published in the Midwest, 8.8% in the West, and 6.1% in the Southeast.

The map was created by downloading the MARCXML catalog records for the collection from the HathiTrust Research Center. The records were converted using MarcEdit and then sorted and cleaned using OpenRefine. The records were then loaded into Tableau to create latitude and longitude data from state names and to make a filled map displaying the number of records per state.