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On this day in 1896 The Boston Cooking School Cook Book, by Fannie Farmer was published. This cookbook, which included exact measurements for ingredients, rather than estimates, marked a major event in culinary history. Farmer had suffered a stroke as a teenager and had to quit school. She developed her interest in cooking during her time working as a mother’s helper.
Mrs. Mary Herring Lamb of Sampson County, North Carolina made this Tobacco Leaf (alternately, Washington Sidewalk) quilt in 1879 when she was 10 years old using sewing scraps. Lamb was a homemaker and a home demonstration agent. The record includes this note: “Photo of quiltmaker in her cookbook,” so perhaps she authored a cookbook. Lamb’s niece in-law received the quilt as a gift and documented it during the North Carolina Quilt Project in 1986, eventually donating the quilt to the N.C. Museum of History.
View this quilt on The Quilt Index to read more about it’s history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view.
Sources:
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/cookbooks/p/fannie_farmer.htm
http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/specialcollections/greenngrowing/timeline/1910.html
Posted by Amy E. Milne
Executive Director, Quilt Alliance
amy.milne@quiltalliance.org