Historic Cookbook Collections (And More): What Are All These Cookbooks?

We have explored the digital collections of libraries, archives, museums, and government pages to bring you some excellent resources that pertain to historic cookbooks and culinary collections. 

We have organized this guide by type of collection.

First, we compiled some of the best fully digitized historic cookbooks. These cookbooks are fully accessible through the internet.

Second, we compiled a list of fully digitized (and mostly digitized) culinary collections. Many of these include cookbooks, but they also have other texts that relate to culinary including agricultural books and home economic texts.

The final section contains nondigitized cookbook collections. These are taken from libraries that have rich cookbook and culinary collections but have not yet made fully digitized copies. Many of these institutions provide digital listings, however, of all the items in their collection.

Attributions for Images: from left: 1) From Emergence of Advertising in America, 1850-1920 > CK0064. Emergence of Advertising On-Line Project. John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History. Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa/ 2) From the collection homepage for "Feeding America," at Michigan State University  4)From the IUPUI University Library, Digital Collection: Service through Sponge Cake 4) :Image taken from Virginia Tech's Digitized Rare Books Collection 5)) From Emergence of Advertising in America, 1850-1920 > CK0064. Emergence of Advertising On-Line Project. John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History. Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa/

If you have any questions about...

• this guide
• digital resources
• conducting research
• or anything else!

... then please feel free to contact the library through the links below.