Sometimes the best thing about a book is that small thing found within:
With a color block-printed box label from American Print-Works pasted-in
[Box label in book – American Print-Works (Fall River, Mass.)]; Lea, Elizabeth E. Domestic Cookery, useful receipts, and hints to young housekeepers. Third edition. Baltimore: Cushings and Bailey, 1851. Octavo (19.5 x 12 cm.), viii, 310 pages. Styled “Third Edition”; the third edition, first printing (two additional printings were issued that year.
Originally published in 1845, the book found its final form in this third edition. An early Quaker cookbook, joining works in the same period by Mrs. Widdifield, and Mrs. Nicholson. Food historian William Woys Weaver notes that this book does not wear its Quakerism on its sleeve but reaches for a wider audience. Foxing throughout, but sound, in original green cloth, gilt- and blind-stamped. With the ownership inscription, "Ms Susan J[?] Barnes' Book, Oak Orchard, Fredk Co Md, Susan Barnes". Several handwritten recipes on preliminary and final blanks, and two laid-in, with a few additional recipe clippings also laid-in. Most interesting is a trade card or box label (most likely the later) of American Print-Works, of Fall River, Mass. Block printed on plain paper in red, gold and blue, there is a handwritten number, "28". Founded in Fall River in 1835, American Print-Works built on the cities existing industries of iron works and cotton milling. By the close of the Civil War, Fall River's textile industry was the nation's leading textile city, led by American Print-Works, surpassing even Lowell, Mass. Based on the book's ownership inscription, and the handwriting of specific recipes (one dated September 10, 1891) leads me to believe the label was added to the book in the 1880s or 90s. [OCLC locates five copies; Cagle 445 (earlier copy); Lowenstein 509].
