How you can start a research collection

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If you want to know how to cook calf’s head pie or discourage a loved one from drinking, Bowdoin College now has the answers.

The liberal arts college in Brunswick announced Tuesday that it had acquired a 700-volume collection of American cookbooks, including many from the final days of Colonial life. The books came to the college from a private collector in New York who worked with Biddeford-based bookseller Rabelais Inc. to place the collection.

Paul Revere's engravings in Susannah Carter's 1772 cookbook, The Frugal Housewife. Copyright Bowdoin College

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE COLLECTION

The earliest title is “The Frugal Housewife” by Susannah Carter of Clerkenwell. Originally published in Great Britain in 1765, the American edition came out in 1772. It includes two engravings by Paul Revere about preparing rabbit, goose, turkey, chicken, pheasant, woodcock, duck and pigeon for roasting or boiling.

“American Cookery” was first published in 1796 by “an American Orphan” named Amelia Simmons. The edition in the collection was published in 1815, and includes “the art of dressing viands, fish, poultry and vegetables; and the best modes of making puff-pastes, pies, tarts, puddings, custards and preserves. And all kinds of cakes, from the imperial plumb to plain cake.”

There’s a book by Harriet Beecher Stowe and her sister Catharine, “The American Woman’s Home.” They do not restrict their writing to recipes. The book also includes tips for planting a garden, managing children and hanging pictures, all based around the idea that it was a woman’s job to make a good home.

“The House Servant’s Directory” by Robert Roberts, published in 1828, is believed to be the first book by an African-American issued by a commercial press. It is also the first book dedicated to domestic work written by an African-American.

— Staff Writer Bob Keyes

“The breadth is astonishing,” said Bowdoin Library Director Marjorie Hassen. “It demonstrates the history of the culinary arts in this country, as well as early American life and right up through the 20th century. It’s an extraordinary resource for the study of social and cultural history.”

...Apgar built much of the collection by going out on weekends with his wife, visiting antique shops, bookshops, yard sales and anywhere else he might find books. He bought any cookbook published before 1900, adding those published afterward on merit.