About This Project

This project pulls from the source material of the Whitney cookery collection, which consists of seventeen English and American manuscripts, dating from the early 15th to late 19th centuries. The Whitney collection is currently located in the Manuscripts and Archives Division at The New York Public Library (NYPL). I limited the scope of this project to material from the NYPL's collection created after 1650 and before 1800 for several reasons: first, the only manuscript in the collection created pre-1650 is currently on display as part of the NYPL’s “Treasures” exhibition and I was not able to access it for in-person study; second, contemporary cookery manuscripts from the Morgan Library were more difficult to access and digitize than the NYPL's, due to the Morgan's research policies; and third, I wanted to focus this exhibit on early modern empire, and I personally fall into the historical school that believes the early modern period ended in England with the beginning of the Second Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century.