Eliza S Turner

Over the weekend I picked up a winning auction lot from an auction house near Baltimore. Ostensibly I was looking for the 78rpm records in the lot, but also included in it were these four cookbooks.

The oldest - Mrs. Rorer's Cook Book - was published in 1886. By my arithmetic, that makes this book 137 years old.

I originally felt that I would simply look into reselling these on eBay. Mrs. Rorer's, for instance, seems to be selling for between $60-$120 on eBay, which is at least a $30 profit over my entire purchase were I to successfully sell it at $60. (Of course, it's eBay, so anything is possible). I've since decided against it.

Browsing through the books was enlightening and entertaining. These four cookbooks all have recipes and instructions on how to brew coffee, for instance. Different recipes, too! Yes, I am going to try them all out at least once.

What really caught my eye about the Mrs. Rorer cookbook, however, was the front matter:

First up, the publisher of the cookbook was Arnold and Company, a publishing house founded in 1854. This was, of course, back in the day when publishing and bookmaking was an impressive and very respectful enterprise.

The dedication of the book, however, really caught my eye.

Mrs Eliza S Turner through whose energy and liberality was established the first cooking school in Philadelphia.

The first cooking school. This is some history. I will admit, my adult ADD got the better of me and I ran down this rabbit hole, which lead from 78rpm records, to re-selling books on eBay, to coffee recipes, to Eliza S Turner. Welcome to my daily thought activities.

Per wikipedia:

Eliza L. Sproat Turner (1826 – June 20, 1903) was an American writer, women's club founder and leader, abolitionist, and suffragette. Turner began her adulthood as a teacher and writer, and soon after became involved in a number of social causes. She was a member of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society and was a leader of the Women's Congress and the publication of the New Century for Women newspaper for the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876. The following year she helped found the New Century Club women's club and in 1882 was instrumental in the establishment of the New Century Guild of Working Women. Her poetry and viewpoints about women's issues were published in newspapers and magazines.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliza_Sproat_Turner)

This is a great summary, but does not tell me much about the cooking school, which is really what I was after. The rest of the article explains how she was a very forward looking libertarian woman who firmly believed in women's equality. She led a very interesting life and was even a nurse at Gettysburg! Now there's another rabbit hole that I successfully avoided.

What I did find, however, is that she was instrumental in the founding of the New Century Guild of Working Women in 1882, which rightly fits the timeframe I'm looking at. This became the New Century Trust which still exists to this day.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Century_Guild)

Ultimately I came across this from the drexel.edu archives:

Many years went by before Tony (Anthony Drexel) was approached again to support women’s education with his name and money. In 1881, his friend Eliza Sproat Turner, a local suffragette and activist, began teaching what is believed to be America’s first evening classes for working girls and women. Using funds from Tony and Childs (George W Childs), Turner started trade classes in 1886 at her newly cofounded New Century Guild (one of the first settlement houses for working women). Courses included typesetting, glass cutting, leaded glass designing, dressmaking, bookkeeping and cooking.

Yes, indeed, Eliza Sproat Turner founded the first ever cooking school in Philadelphia, and the organisation that housed it still exists to this day.

What I Learned Today: Eliza Sproat Turner founded the first ever cooking school in Philadelphia, and amazing things can be learned from even old cookbooks.

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(c) All images and photographs, unless otherwise specified, are created and owned by me.
(c) Victor Wiebe

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About Me

Sometimes photographer. Wannabe author. Game designer. Nerd. 
General all around problem-solver and creative type.

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