Category: The Vintage Bookshelf

The Vintage Bookshelf

Saturday Mornings: A Housekeeping Story

VintageJenny
Saturday Mornings, a storybook manual from 1906.

The book sat wedged between two other volumes at the used bookstore. With a worn spine that was unreadable, the book looked forgotten and forlorn. That’s when I decided that regardless what its pages contained, Saturday Mornings needed to come home with me. I gently pulled the book from the shelf, opened it, and realized I’d found a treasure. Saturday Mornings was a housekeeping story.

Written by Caroline French Benton in 1906, Saturday Mornings is instructional, but uses a story to get its point across. Like many of its competitors through 1919, the book explains how to complete tasks within the framework of a story. I’ve always loved these books and have several in my collection. This one is actually titled Saturday Mornings: A Little Girl’s Experiments and Discoveries, or How Margaret Learned to Keep House.

I recently found it on my bookshelf again, nestled between a few vintage cookbooks. I decided it was time for an airing, to use an old housekeeping term.

The Book’s Story

Saturday Mornings began as a series of articles in Good Housekeeping magazine in 1905. Titled “Margaret’s Saturday Mornings,” each article became a chapter of the book, with a little more added. The articles were edited a bit before their final form. I found that words changed between the Good Housekeeping article and the printed book. Fun became delightful. A list of bathroom tasks was shortened to clean the grates and other things. Overall, however, the book and the articles remained almost the same.

Margaret’s journey begins at the Christmas Tree, where she finds everything she needs to run a household tied to the branches. In addition, a small red book nestles among the branches. Its title is Saturday Mornings, and it holds everything she needs to begin her adventure in housekeeping.

Throughout subsequent chapters Margaret learns the best way to keep a kitchen fire alive, and set and serve various meals in the dining room. She learns about laundry and linen, bedrooms and bathrooms. The last short chapter takes Margaret through an entire day’s work, where she showcases everything she knows.

Looking over the pages, some housekeeping tasks remain the same over 100 years later. Others, however, changed quite a bit. We no longer clean anything with gasoline, for instance. It was used to cut deep grime and for other tasks, but I couldn’t imagine wetting a cloth with gasoline to clean anything. Of course, in 1906 your choices for cleaners included ammonia, vinegar, cake soap, and other similar chemicals. Since fiberglass tubs and electric clothes washers stood far in the distance, the materials used to clean these items were unheard of as well.

Caroline French Benton wrote many other articles and books on the home and the women’s sphere. Her most well known book is probably A Little Cook Book for a Little Girl in 1905, although she went on to write about women’s clubs, motherhood, and thrifty lifestyles.

Read it Yourself

You can find a copy of Saturday Mornings, a housekeeping story, at Project Gutenberg, and download it in several formats or read it online.

If the history of housekeeping interests you, you will enjoy this book. In fact, you might also like Never Done: A History of American Housework by Susan Strasser. (Amazon link).

And if you enjoy stories of youth from 1905-1915, you might enjoy this post on the Motor Maids School Days, where Billie and her car find friends and solve a mystery.

The Vintage Bookshelf · Vintage Entertainment

Mary Frances Knitting and Crocheting

VintageJenny
Partial cover to The Mary Frances Knitting and Crocheting Book. A young girl sits on a sofa surrounded by a yarn doll, balls of yarn. She knits with two very large knitting needles.
The cover of the Mary Frances Knitting and Crocheting Book

Mary Frances needs to learn all kinds of skills. She needs to learn to cook, clean, sew, knit, crochet, garden. Her world is full of learning! Mary Frances stars in an entire series of instruction books, beginning with a cookbook in 1912. In The Mary Frances Knitting and Crocheting Book she learns to knit and crochet. She makes clothes for her doll along the way. Her teachers are the Knitting People, a delightful set of tools that come to life and tell Mary Frances exactly how things should be done.

In the pages of The Mary Frances Knitting and Crocheting Book we meet Knit and Knack the knitting needles, Crow Shay the crochet hook, and Yarn Baby, a yarn doll. These characters, along with their friends, show Mary Frances the ropes of creating with yarn. She makes doll clothes, a baby doll’s set, and a few things for herself. And you can find patterns for all of these in the book. Because The Mary Frances Knitting and Crocheting Book was published in 1918, the last set of patterns is from the Red Cross. A flyer of knitted articles for World War I soldiers gives Mary Frances experience with adult-size clothing. 

Two baby dolls dressed in hand made outfits. One wears a blue cape, mittens, and matching knitted booties, while the other wears a pink sweater, bonnet, and matching booties.
Dress your baby dolls in the finest handmade outfits.

Note: This is a book of its time. It may contain outdated references or illustrations, like most books from 1900-1930.

One Adventure After Another

By the time Mary Frances graduates to knitting and crocheting, she’s much older than the little girl who started the series with a cookbook. She’s had adventures with the Kitchen People when she learned to cook. The Thimble People taught her to sew. She learned the basics of housekeeping from the Doll People. And in her last adventure before she learns to knit, she meets the Garden People. Her knitting and crocheting book is more advanced than any of the other books. It contains more projects and less chatter. The story line still exists, but it’s not as all-encompassing as the story you find in the Mary Frances Sewing Book.

When the story opens, Mary Frances is accosted by her great aunt Maria, who is, of course, a paragon of the textile arts and cannot believe that Mary Frances doesn’t know how to knit or crochet. She offers to teach her, and Mary Frances says that she’s been wanting to learn for the longest time. Then Mary Frances remembers how Aunt Maria taught her father to knit, and how much he hated it. 

She sits down with her knitting bag after her aunt scurries away, and wishes that helpful fairies like the Thimble People could teach her to knit and crochet. Crow Shay the hook begins to talk to her, and she realizes that real help waits for her after all. 

Learning from the Pros

She endures one lesson with Aunt Maria before her aunt is whisked away by a family emergency. Mary Frances finds herself alone with her brother, talking knitting needles, and Katie, the household cook. 

This gives Mary Frances the freedom she needs to concentrate on the lessons from the knitting needles and crochet hook. With their help she creates a doll’s wardrobe. A little over the first half of the book teaches crochet. Then the chapters switch to knitting instruction. Black and white photographs from 1918 show how to form the stitches. 

A blonde doll ready for the outdoors. She wears a dark blue velvet coat and matching hat, a knitted shawl or scarf over the coat, and a fringed muff hangs from her neck.
Mary Marie ready for a day on the town

Illustrations throughout the book show how the finished articles should look. In the original book several color pages show the progress of a sixteen inch doll’s wardrobe. Mary Marie, the doll, received a complete handmade wardrobe in the sewing book, but now she needs coats and hats, shopping bags and mufflers. The book even gives instructions for an aviator doll outfit and a Teddy Bear Suit. The suit looks like a WWI army uniform, but teddy bear suits were actually one-piece sitcot jumpsuits. WWI airplane pilots wore them. So although it’s quite cute with its trousers, jacket, and tam, I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be, or why it’s called a Teddy Bear Suit. 

A young teen girl in 1916-1917 wears a long hip length knitted jacket with a wide belt.
Mary Frances can even knit herself a fashionable sweater.

Read It For Yourself

Whether you’ve wanted to learn knitting and crochet like Mary Frances, or you’d like a romp through a century-old instruction book for children, you might enjoy this book. Download The Mary Frances Knitting and Crocheting Book from the Internet Archive or Project Gutenberg. And let the yarn adventures begin.

If you enjoy vintage knit and crochet projects, you might like this Twenties Crochet Wrist Bag or this 1950s Knit Potholder.

Poems from the Pages · The Magazine Rack · The Vintage Bookshelf

Twenty Books Worth Reading… in 1921

VintageJenny

The other day I stumbled upon an article called Twenty Books Worth Reading. It caught my eye, since I’m always looking for new vintage literature to read. I’m reproducing the list of twenty books worth reading here, along with links to online copies for each title.

As we close one year and start another (I write this at the end of December), it’s helpful to look forward to the new year. I don’t go as far as making a resolution, but I do think through the coming months. What do I want to accomplish? What do I want to learn? What new skill do I want to master this coming year?

One of those lists, of course, includes the list of books that I want to read. My To Be Read list is taller than I am, yet I can always find a new or old title worth delving into. With that in mind, I offer this list.

Twenty books worth reading

Some of these titles you will recognize. Most, however, you probably will not. I was unaware until writing this of a very popular Canadian author named Frederick Niven. He goes on my reading list for this year. I hope you will find at least one book to treasure from this list. Perhaps you will become reacquainted with an old friend.

The books include ten fiction books and ten nonfiction titles.

The fiction books

  • Miss Lulu Bett. Zona Gale. A story of a modern Cinderella, this book became a play during the winter of 1920. Zona Gale won a Pulitzer for the play version of her story. Read it at Project Gutenberg: Miss Lulu Bett.
  • Main Street. Sinclair Lewis. The story of Carol Kennicott and the town Gopher Prairie, Main Street became a best-selling commentary on small town life. You can Read Main Street at Google Books.
  • Alice Adams. Booth Tarkington. Perhaps best known for his novels Penrod and The Magnificent Ambersons, this new book received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1922. Not only did Alice Adams receive a Pulitzer, but it was made into a movie. Twice. Read Alice Adams at Project Gutenberg.
  • The Golden Answer. Sylvia Chatfield Bates. This started as a serial in the magazine Woman’s Home Companion. You can read The Golden Answer at Google Books.
  • The Brimming Cup. Dorothy Canfield Fisher. An older married woman falls in love with another man. Known in juvenile reading circles for her novel Understood Betsy, Fisher was named by Eleanor Roosevelt as one of the ten most influential women of her time in the United States. Read The Brimming Cup at Project Gutenberg.
  • Seed of the Sun. Wallace Irwin. This one is thinly veiled propaganda. You might want to read it with your blood pressure meds handy, if you have any. It seems to be a fictionalized tirade against Japanese immigrants on the West Coast of the United States. The original reviewer even used the term propaganda in his writeup. I couldn’t get through the first chapter. Read Seed of the Sun at your own risk, available at Google Books.
  • The Mysterious Rider. Zane Grey. Ah, now we are back in familiar territory. A Zane Grey western tale. Take a ride down the trail with The Mysterious Rider at Project Gutenberg.
  • Guns of the Gods. Talbot Mundy. This is a tale of India, the story of Princess Yasmini and her first love affair. Find Guns of the Gods at Project Gutenberg.
  • How Many Cards?. Isabel Ostrander. This is a detective story. Ostrander wrote many detective stories. If you like this one, you may like the others as well. Read How Many Cards? at Google Books.
  • A Tale That Is Told. Frederick Niven. This is a tale about the children of a Scottish minister, told by his son. Niven was a very popular Canadian writer, as I mentioned before. You can find A Tale That Is Told at the Internet Archive.

Nonfiction titles

  • Travels and Adventures of Raphael Pumpelly. Raphael Pumpelly, ed. by O.S. Rice. This is an abridged version of Pumpelly’s autobiography, reworked for teen and young adult readers. Pumpelly was a mining engineer, geologist, archaeologist, and explorer. Quite a bit to fit into one lifetime! Read it yourself at Google Books. Travels and Adventures of Raphael Pumpelly.
  • Roads to Childhood. Annie Carroll Moore. This book, written by a New York City children’s librarian, discusses good books for children. You can get a copy of Roads to Childhood from Google Books.
  • Health for the Growing Child. William R. P. Emerson, M.D. This is a book that discusses underweight and underfed children, a common enough problem in the early Twenties that Emerson wrote a book about it. Emerson was a pediatric specialist and faculty member of Dartmouth, and when he wrote this volume he was probably a faculty member at Tufts University. I could not find a copy of this book anywhere, but the next year Emerson published Nutrition and Growth in Children, which may be an expanded version of the earlier title. Find it at the Internet Archive. Nutrition and Growth in Children.
  • The Autobiography of Margot Asquith. Margot Asquith was a wit, a countess, a British socialite, and married to the (then) current British Prime Minister. According to the reviewer, “she writes often in questionable taste, but seldom if ever is she insincere.” This one goes on my to-read stack. You can find it at Project Gutenberg, in a two-volumes-in-one compilation. The Autobiography of Margot Asquith.
  • Margaret Fuller: A Psychological Biography. Katharine Anthony. Anthony was a college-level math teacher who was interested in both biography and psychology. She combined the two to write several “psychological biographies,” which were either celebrated or panned by the press. You can read Margaret Fuller: A Psychological Biography yourself at the Internet Archive.
  • The Famous Mrs. Fair, and Other Plays. James Forbes. The other two plays in this compilation are The Chorus Lady and The Show Shop. The Famous Mrs. Fair saw stage time as well as a movie adaptation in 1923. Obtain The Famous Mrs. Fair from Google Books.
  • The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism. Bertrand Russell. Russell was a British mathematician, philosopher, and pacifist. He wrote more than 60 books. In this one, he puts forth his thoughts about visiting Russia and seeing the beginning of Russian Communism. Read The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism at Project Gutenberg.
  • The Evolution of Sinn Fein. Robert Mitchell Henry. Henry was a professor at Queen’s University, Belfast. The year of 1921 brought Ireland’s struggle for independence to the newspapers of the United States. Sinn Fein was (and is) a political party within Ireland. This book would find interest in those who had read about Ireland’s cause. You can read The Evolution of Sinn Fein at Google Books.
  • San Cristóbal de la Habana. Joseph Hergesheimer. San Cristóbal de la Habana is the original name for Havana, Cuba. This book is a travelogue of Hergesheimer’s trip, filled with luscious descriptions of what he saw. Read San Cristóbal de la Habana from Project Gutenberg.
  • Scenario Writing Today. Grace Lytton. Want to know how movie scripts were written in the Twenties? Look no further than Scenario Writing Today, a book about how to write scripts. Retrieve your copy of Scenario Writing Today from Google Books.

The books as a whole

I was surprised I located every one of these titles without much effort. If you would prefer a printed copy, I noticed that almost every one of them appeared available in reprints from Amazon or your favorite reprint seller. Some of them, though, may only be worth one read to you.

Of course, these are all books of their time. They may contain material we find offensive today. They may also have factual information which later proved incorrect. Such is the hazard of reading 100 year old books. Much of the content, however, should be excellent. After all, several of these books became movies, and two received Pulitzer prizes.

Overall, they give a good look at the literature and nonfiction scene of 1921. This not only tells you what people were reading in the early Twenties, but also how they thought about things.

If you would like to add a twenty-first book to your list of twenty books worth reading, I suggest Daddy Long-legs, by Jean Webster. Although it dates a bit earlier than 1921, readers were definitely reading this book in the early Twenties as well.

I wish you happy reading.

The Vintage Bookshelf · Vintage Entertainment

A Dickens Ghost Story

VintageJenny
Wikimedia Commons image of the frontispiece from The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain by Charles Dickens. A man sits in front of a fire while a ghost stands behind him, leaning forward. A wide border of demons and angels surrounds the image.
Frontispiece from The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain by Charles Dickens. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Not that ghost story. Not A Christmas Carol, which we love dearly but have heard, and seen, and read over and over again. No, this is a Dickens ghost story different from that one.

Charles Dickens, you see, wrote many ghost stories. Not just one. And he wrote five tales specifically for Christmas. In today’s tale the two intersect. For The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain, by Charles Dickens, is both a Christmas tale and a ghost story. What could be better?

Mr. Redlaw is a chemist and renowned instructor. Well loved and much respected, he lives with secret sorrows he cannot dispel. Painful memories of the past accost him constantly.

A spirit visits him and offers to remove the sorrows and memories which plague him. No more shall he find himself weighed down by the past that he cannot change.

Redlaw agrees to the transaction. For it is a transaction: he will pass the same forgetting to all he meets. Of course, it comes with some very unintended consequences for both Redlaw and those in his community circle.

Beyond the story

This is a story about the importance of community. About the importance of memory. And it’s a story about the incredible influence we have, good or ill, on the people around us.

It’s also a story about Christmas. A story about the joy and closeness that Christmastime should bring. And it’s a story about redemption.

Dickens does a beautiful job, as always of bringing to life the world that is 1850 London. This story includes four different social classes, perhaps more. Chemist Redlaw shows us the educated, intellectual Londoner. Milly and her husband William introduce us to the Victorian servant class. They work for their living attending to the chemist, but they appear a different class than the failed newspaperman on the corner or the street waif that Milly feeds and shelters from compassion.

Read it yourself

The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain would be a great tale to tell around the Christmas fire. This Dickens ghost story brings home the importance of family and connection, even more than A Christmas Carol.

You can find it as a free read on Google Books and Amazon’s Kindle. If you want a hard copy for your book shelves, you can locate several different editions at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, or your favorite bookseller.

The Vintage Bookshelf

The Trail of the Lonesome Pine

VintageJenny
An image of the sheet music for Trail of the Lonesome Pines, 1913
Sheet music for the song derived from the novel. Date: 1913. Image: Wikimedia Commons

This month I’m reading a bestseller about a civil engineer and a mountain girl. The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, by John Fox Jr., is a tale of the Appalachian mountains of the Virginia/Kentucky border before the coal mines and before the railroad. Published in 1908, it became a bestselling novel. In 1912 The Trail of the Lonesome Pine was adapted into a Broadway play and the book was republished. Project Gutenberg offers the 1912 version for free reading.

I was completely unaware of this book before I started to research needlework patterns. However, the Lonesome Pine motif appears quite often in crochet and embroidery through the 1920s. It even became the subject of a song. You can see the sheet music in the illustration. Wondering about this flurry of interest, I began a search and ended up at this title. If The Trail of the Lonesome Pine caught the imagination of the United States through the Twenties, I wanted to know why. So I read it.

This is a tale of an engineer who has big dreams of progress and advancement. He came from the north, hoping to build up a town and make his fortune from coal mining in the region. While looking at the lay of the land, he meets a girl named June. June is sturdy and unschooled, but wise in mountain culture. Although the book repeatedly calls her “little girl,” the narrator also comments that many mountain girls would be married by her age. So she begins the book a teenager and comes to maturity throughout the tale.

Whirling around this story is a longstanding feud between the Tollivers and the Falins, supposedly started over a child’s jeers during a game of marbles. But no one really seems to know. All they remember is the clan hatred. June is a Tolliver, and her relationship with Jack the engineer complicates things.

At the same time that the book describes the possibilities for coal mining, metal refining, and railroads, it extols the beauty of the land. Jack names the local flora for June as they walk through the hills. The paragraphs describing native flowers and birds appeal to the senses much like Gene Stratton Porter’s descriptions in The Harvester. Amongst the wildness of nature stands the Lonesome Pine, the only one of its kind in the area. It sees Jack and June’s first meeting, and it witnesses their relationship as it changes.

The Trail of the Lonesome Pine appears often on Appalachian literature reading lists. John Fox Jr., who lived in the Kentucky area he writes about, actually wrote many more short stories and novels about Appalachian life and culture between 1895 and 1920. If you love Trail, you might enjoy others as well.

The Vintage Bookshelf · Vintage Entertainment

Frankenstein: A Vintage Horror Book

VintageJenny
Image from 1840 edition of Frankenstein, a vintage horror book.
Original engraving from Frankenstein. Wikimedia Commons.

This is October, the month of darkening days, rainy skies, and spooky shadows. In honor of that, this month I’m reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a vintage horror book. If the concept of horror concerns you, be assured that this is not Stephen King. It’s not even equivalent to Edgar Allan Poe, who wrote in the 1830s and 40s.

A brooding scientist. The girl he left behind. The mother he adored. Pelting rain and icy winters. His best friend. These all come together in Frankenstein, weaving a tale of creation and a tale of regret.

Connecting with the past

Reading an antique book like this connects you with the past in a unique way. You aren’t only reading about the past, you are joining others in reading it. In the 1920s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s people picked up Frankenstein and enjoyed it for the first time. Or maybe for the second time. Or the third. You can share in their enjoyment of the book, in much the same way they enjoyed it. For they too were reading of a time long past, in a book they considered a classic.

So what would it have been like to sit in a poodle skirt at the local soda fountain, dreaming over Frankenstein –– but quickly, because the book was due by the end of the week! Thankfully, it’s not too long, and you could probably finish this next chapter in the time it takes you to slowly drain your carbonated drink. Or going back further, how thankful would you be that the local Carnegie library had a copy of Frankenstein on the shelves this very month, when you needed to read it in the 1930s, in the middle of the Depression? If the weather’s nice, you could sit on the front porch and read a chapter or two while you wait for the ice man in his wagon. He’s due on Thursday afternoons, you know.

Back to the present

If you’ve never read Frankenstein, I encourage you to give it a try. This book isn’t Victorian. It predates Victorian life by 20 years. Even though it was written in 1817, getting caught up in the action and flow of the story proves easy.

None of the chapters take too long to read, and it’s relatively short. The book opens with a series of letters from a ship, and the story unfolds from there. Mary Shelley revised the book several times between 1817 and its 1840 printing. You can see some of her revisions in the Chapter 7 manuscript page below. The version we read is usually the 1840 revision.

Image from Mary Shelley's handwritten manuscript for Frankenstein. Wikimedia commons image.
A handwritten manuscript page from Frankenstein. Wikimedia Commons.

Novel vs. reputation

Before this month I’d never read Frankenstein. I assumed that what everyone said about the novel was true. “Frankenstein was a terrible monster, named for his creator, did horrible things, yada yada yada.” Except, that’s not correct. None of it is actually true.

If I told you why the general knowledge and consensus about the novel is false, it would give away too much of the story. So I won’t. You’ll have to find out by reading the book or by Googling the answers. They’re out there in abundance.

One thing I wasn’t prepared for in Frankenstein was Shelley’s glorious descriptions of nature and the characters’ response to it. She describes mountains and lakes, snow and ice, autumn and spring in terms that drew me far into the novel. Very much a Romantic description, nature itself functions as a character in the novel. It evokes responses in the people who interact with it.

Read it yourself

Get your hands on a copy of Frankenstein and enjoy it this autumn as readers have for nearly 200 years. Although Frankenstein is a vintage horror book, its lost none of its appeal. True, the horror genre reads much differently today than it did in the nineteenth century. However, that’s one of the reasons we seek out these books, right?

You can read Frankenstein at Project Gutenberg. Or get a paperback or Kindle copy from Amazon. Really, if you want a copy with pages to turn, you should be able to find it at your favorite bookseller. It’s a classic.

Watch the movie

Versions of Frankenstein appeared in the movies several times. In 1931, Boris Karloff starred in Frankenstein. A version was released in 2011. Even Abbott and Costello met Frankenstein in 1948.

If you want to see the very first Frankenstein movie, it’s this 1910 silent by Thomas Edison Productions. The film only lasts a little over twelve minutes, so the suspense will be over quickly.

However you partake of it, enjoy your time with Frankenstein, vintage horror at its earliest.

This one not your thing?

If the idea of Frankenstein really doesn’t thrill you, perhaps you’ll enjoy this writeup on Steps in Time, an autobiography by dancer Fred Astaire.

Recipe Collections · The Vintage Bookshelf

A Cookbook Worth Reading

VintageJenny
A 1920s illustration of a woman sitting at a table. She has in front of her a plate, an open can of pineapple rings, and a bowl. Shelves of cookware and dishes sit beyond her. From a cookbook by Louise Bennett Weaver.

Every now and then I like to curl up with a nice cup of hot tea and a good cookbook. A cookbook worth reading is a wonderful addition to any kitchen library. A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband (with Bettina’s Best Recipes) qualifies as one of those books, and I’m reading it this month. To be truthful, I’m reading it again.

During the 19-teens, instructional novels became quite popular. These were books that taught you how to do something, but did it within the framework of a story. Thus, while the story entertained you and you found yourself caught in its grip you also learned something. The books tried to walk the fine line between instruction and entertainment. Some succeeded more than others at this task. This cookbook is from that genre.

A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband…

A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband, by Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles LeCron, first appeared in 1917. The story opens as Bettina and her new husband Bob step into their little cottage when they arrive home from their honeymoon. Each short chapter tells something about their first year of marriage. They also conclude with a set of recipes that serve two (or three or more, when Bettina and Bob have guests or she needs planned left-overs.)

Each month begins with a short and somewhat corny little verse. You can smile over them, laugh over them, or groan over them. Your choice.

Weary are we of our winter-time fare;
Hasten, O Springtime, elusive and arch!
Bring us your dainties; our cupboard are bare!
Pity us, starved by tyrannical March!

A thousand Ways to Please a husband with Bettina’s best recipes

While the First World War rages somewhere, and deeply affects the lives of readers, the book remains blissfully unaware of such events. Bettina exists in the pre-war world, where she shops carefully for meat and fills her days with decorating the cottage and cooking for small parties. In the course of this first year Bettina throws an informal luncheon party, a Sunday evening tea, a motor picnic, a porch party in the late afternoon, a porch breakfast, and a Sunday dinner for guests. She also hosts a shower for her friend Alice and a good-bye luncheon for another friend. Bettina and Bob host a Halloween party. They host friends for dessert regularly.

So what’s with all this entertaining? Did the authors have nothing to talk about but parties? Actually, not really. Within these 152 chapters the authors lay out, in story form, practically any occasion that a young bride might find herself hosting. Have a friend who’s getting married? Here are two shower menus, dinner menus for both the bridal party and bridesmaids, and an outline for how to gather the bridesmaids for a luncheon after the wedding. This information, and the stories that surround it, makes this a cookbook worth reading.

Recipes for every vintage occasion

Need to serve a somewhat formal dinner? Bettina did that when she made Sunday dinner and she helpfully provides the menu and the recipes for her trip to Aunt Lucy’s for Thanksgiving. She also gives a menu and recipes for Alice and Harry’s bridal dinner, probably the most formal menu in the book.

An interesting point of the book is that all dishes are alcohol-free. The book makes no mention of wine, beer, whiskey, or any other alcohol either as ingredient or beverage. The strongest liquid Bettina serves is coffee, and it seems like none of her friends imbibe either. I expect alcohol-free cookbooks during the 1920s, but A Thousand Ways saw publication a full two years before Prohibition. (Bettina and her friends do drink a lot of coffee! In fact, the only two beverage recipes listed in the index under Drinks are for coffee and hot chocolate.)

Thankfully this book contains a decent index, because if you find yourself immersed in the story you will have no idea where to find the hot chocolate recipe once you’re finished, other than “I think it was somewhere near the beginning.” That is one issue with a cookbook worth reading. Without a good index it becomes hard to find things later.

Similar books by the same author

This was the first Bettina book. Several more followed: A Thousand Ways to Please a Family, When Sue Began to Cook, and Bettina’s Best Desserts, for example. Please a Husband focuses on events like gatherings, informal parties, and unusual occasions –– like fixing dinner from the emergency shelf after you’ve been out all day. Please a Family, on the other hand, concentrates on holidays. This second book covers ice-skating parties, Valentine’s Day, Easter, May Day, summer cooking, Christmas, and New Year’s.

A Thousand Ways to Please A Husband proves more popular today than Please a Family, its sequel. For one thing, the tone of the two books comes across very different. In the first book Bettina can appear a bit bossy. In the second she’s downright insufferable. Which is a shame, because the story holding the second book together is just as cute in its own way as the tale of Bettina and Bob’s first year together.

In my copy of How to Please a Husband, several half-sheets of paper live inside the back cover. These are the names and page numbers of many recipes from the book that I want to try. Some of the recipes from this book are so good that they found their way into our regular family rotation.

If you’ve never experienced a cookbook worth reading, I encourage you to give How to Please a Husband with Bettina’s Best Recipes a try. I re-read it every few years, cover to cover. Sometimes it’s when I need a little encouragement to try new recipes. Usually, though, I find myself reading about Bettina’s adventures when I want to dip into the world of 1917 when cut flowers decorated every nice dining table, automobiles were new, and homemade candy sent through the mail provided an indescribable treat. 

Read it for yourself

You can find A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband online at the Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg. If you’d like to try A Thousand Ways to Please a Family as well, you can download it from Google Books. Dover Publications has reprinted it as well, if you’d like a paper copy.

The Vintage Bookshelf · Vintage Entertainment

Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch

VintageJenny
Illustration from 1901 book Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch. A woman and teenage boy stand by a window. She has her arm around him. They look out the window together.
Original illustration from Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, 1901.

Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch is a cheerful body who gives her daughters geography names like Asia, Australia, and Europena. She lives in the Cabbage Patch, a run-down neighborhood near a railroad track in Louisville. Mrs. Wiggs lives with her five children in a house that’s the pride of the neighborhood because it has a real tin roof. Of course, one of the boys made it from flat tin cans, but it sure sounds nice when it rains!

The story of Mrs. Wiggs is a story of hope in the face of abject poverty. She is ever hopeful and most things turn out all right. She tends to see the world a bit through rose-colored glasses, however. Her memories of her deceased husband, for example, differ quite sharply from both her children’s memories and from reality.

It’s also a story of the progressive social movement of the late Nineteenth century. Mrs. Wiggs is befriended by a wealthy young woman who spends much of her time in the Cabbage Patch. Besides delivering food baskets, this young reformer gives encouragement and comfort at the same time that she learns a few things about herself.

Mrs. Wiggs is a story of class distinction –– if you read this book, expect to see outdated and offensive terminology more than twice. I think the story could stand as well without it, but I wasn’t writing the book through the lens of 1901. I’m looking at it more than 100 years later. And time changes things.

Upon its publication Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch was very popular. In fact, even though it was published in 1901, new copies were still being sold in 1926. The book was later republished in 1961 and sold as a children’s book by Whitman. What made Whitman think this was a children’s book, I have no idea. I first read Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch as a ten year old when someone gave me a used copy of that Whitman printing.

Read it for yourself

This book is more a novella than a novel. It takes only a couple hours to read. In fact, it was such a quick read that I sought out two separate copies to make sure they were complete. They are. You can read or download it at Project Gutenberg or you can download the book in PDF, text, or epub formats from the Library of Congress. Or, if you like, you can purchase a reprint from your favorite bookseller.

Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch was written by a regional author, Alice Caldwell Hegen Rice. Born in Kentucky, she visited an area in Louisville that revealed to her the life of the underprivileged. That trip became the basis for her book.

Rice went on to publish several books. You can find ten of her works on Project Gutenberg if they interest you.

Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch was made into four different movies as well as a stage play. Here’s a link to the 1919 silent version on Youtube. Normally a movie like this would have music with it. Perhaps a solo piano player or even a small group of musicians. However, this one is truly silent.

If Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch isn’t your thing, you might like The Harvester or Motor Maids School Days. All three take place in the same ten-year span or so, and they are all very different reads.

The Vintage Bookshelf · Vintage Entertainment

The Harvester by Gene Stratton-Porter

VintageJenny
Red book cover. Title: The Harvester, by Gene Stratton-Porter.

David Langston is known by many names. His best friend, surgeon Dr. Carey, calls him “David.” To others in the area he’s known as Medicine Man, Harvester, and even That Lazy One. The other farmers call him lazy because he raises no large crops on his land. Instead, he tends to the herbs that made medicines in 1900. He grows them, harvests them, and sells them to Chicago for a nice profit. You have just discovered The Harvester, a 1911 book by Gene Stratton-Porter.

Twenty-six year old Langston enjoys a good life. His bank account is sufficient for his needs, and his needs are few. David takes his job and his life seriously. Each spring he re-evaluates his life and work at the arrival of the first bluebird of Spring. He lets his trusted dog Balshazzar decide for him, and this year brings a surprise. Then he experiences a dream –– or was it a vision? –– that changes everything. He immediately sets about the business of updating his little cabin so it will be fit for two.

Illustration from book The Harvester. A man sits on the front steps of his house looking out over the water. A woman appears in the mist.
The Harvester sees his Dream Girl.

But who is she, this Dream Girl? And where can he find her? While he searches he tends to his acres of plants, harvesting one to cure this ailment and another to cure that one. As the reader, you walk with him through the paths. You hear the birds call, see the calm of the pond, and hear the babble of the creek.

Gene Stratton-Porter, naturalist

Part of the charm of The Harvester is that it was written by a naturalist. Gene Stratton Porter was a regional writer who told stories about the Limberlost Swamp area of northern Indiana. She also documented its native moths, plants, and birds in various nature studies.

Title page of The Harvester. White page bordered by double black lines. Text: By Gene Stratton-Porter. Author of A Girl of the Limberlost, Freckles, etc. Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs. New York, Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers.

Long one of my favorite books, reading The Harvester again was a joy. Although the story takes place through all the seasons over a year’s span, I always think of The Harvester as a spring/summer book. Perhaps it’s because the action opens with the arrival of the first bluebird of spring and follows from there.

Is The Harvester high literature? No; very little published in 1910-1912 was. However, many of these books provided good reading. The Harvester remains a charming read more than 100 years after its writing. If you want a book to curl up with, whether your companion is a glass of iced tea under a tree or a mug of hot cocoa by the fire, The Harvester by Gene Stratton-Porter is one of the best companions I know.

A book of its time

Like many of the books I write about each month, Gene Stratton-Porter’s The Harvester is a book of its time. For one thing, you may find some of the word spellings odd. You’ll know them when you see them. I don’t know whether this was regional spelling, the time period. or something else that made Stratton-Porter attach strange endings to some of her words.

You may find controlling characters, small-minded characters, and fearful women. Or you may not. One thing you will find: an author who believed that she and the women around her had something to offer her world. She wrote about it, and she lived it through her books, nature studies, short stories, articles, and photography. If you haven’t discovered Gene Stratton-Porter before now, you are in for a woodsy treat.

Read it yourself

You can find a copy of The Harvester at Project Gutenberg, The Internet Archive, and Google Books. If you’d like a physical copy, they are available in both hard and paperback reprint from your favorite bookstore.

The Vintage Bookshelf · Uncategorized · Vintage Entertainment

Daddy-Long-Legs: novel and commentary

VintageJenny
Cover of Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster
Cover of the original release.

Jerusha Abbott has a problem. She is about to age out of the orphanage where she’s spent her entire life. As far as she knows she’s never been anywhere else. The orphan home’s director even gave her name to her: Jerusha was out of the Bible, and Abbott from the telephone directory.

Thus begins the story of Jerusha “Judy” Abbott. She learns that her college board and tuition will be covered by one of the orphan home Trustees. Her main requirements are to work hard and to send her benefactor a letter every month. There’s only one problem. She doesn’t know his name.

The orphanage director tells Jerusha to address her letters to Mr. John Smith. Jerusha saw the man’s shadow in passing on Trustee Visiting Day, so she knows he is tall. She names her new friend Daddy-Long-Legs.

A commentary in the novel

This month I’m reading Daddy-Long-Legs, by Jean Webster. She was Mark Twain’s grand-niece. This book is an epistolary novel, meaning that its action unfolds one letter after another. An enduring favorite, this is my fourth time reading it. One of the things I love about Daddy-Long-Legs is that it is a sweet novel, but also a commentary on the world it portrays.

Daddy-Long-Legs tells the story of Jerusha growing up and experiencing the world. We see her world only through her letters to her benefactor. But the book also tells much more. Beyond the mysterious millionaire and his protégé, the book speaks of the frustrations and culture of its time. Jerusha reaches adulthood, but she cannot vote. The book’s publication date is 1912, and women didn’t vote until the presidential election of 1920. That’s eight years away from the world of Jean Webster.

Jerusha marvels at her roommates who grew up in luxury. Then she contrasts it to her own upbringing, and the differences become apparent. She muses on the social class differences in her world, and gives us a look at the very poor. She has a dream of social progress and of making her own way, but to see if she succeeds at either you will have to read the book.

Webster uses Daddy-Long-Legs to discuss the current (1912) place of women in society and life. In this, Daddy-Long-Legs is both novel and social commentary. Because the subjects come from Jerusha as she discovers life, the topics seem natural and not preachy. For that reason alone the book is worth the time to read it. Webster wrote other books, including a sequel to Daddy-Long-Legs, but this is her best known.

Because the book dates from 1912, it contains conventions and ideas of its time. However, I was surprised at how forward-thinking it was in several areas. You can enjoy Daddy-Long-Legs as a novel, as social commentary, or as both.

Experience it yourself

Daddy-Long-Legs saw several movie adaptations, beginning with the 1919 Mary Pickford version you can watch on YouTube here. In 1955 Fred Astaire starred in Daddy-Long-Legs, but the Astaire version differs considerably from the book. If you are an Astaire fan, read the book first. It will only a take a few hours.

You can read Daddy-Long-Legs online at Wikisource, or download a copy from the Internet Archive.