Boston Cooking School facts for kids

The Boston Cooking School was a famous school that taught people how to cook. It was started in 1879 in Boston by a group called the Women’s Education Association. Their goal was to teach cooking skills to people who wanted to become professional cooks or just cook better for their families. The school became very well-known after 1896, when its principal, Fannie Merritt Farmer, published her famous book, The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book.

How the School Started

The idea for the Boston Cooking School came from Mrs. Sarah E. Hooper. She had visited a cooking school in London and thought it would be a great idea for Boston. She convinced the Women's Education Association to give $100 to start the school. The Boston Cooking School opened its doors on March 10, 1879, on Tremont Street.

Early Teachers and Classes

The first teacher was Miss Joanna Sweeney, who taught basic cooking classes. The cost was kept low, just $1.50 for six lessons, so many people could afford it. For women from wealthier families, Maria Parloa gave special cooking demonstrations. In November 1879, Mary Johnson Bailey Lincoln (Mrs. David A.) joined the school. She later became the school's first principal.

In 1883, the school officially became the Boston Cooking School Corporation. Mrs. Hooper was its first president.

Mrs. Lincoln's Cookbook

In 1884, Mrs. Lincoln published her own cookbook called Mrs. Lincoln's Boston Cook Book: What to Do and What Not to Do in Cooking. She wrote this book mainly to give students a textbook for their classes, so they didn't have to copy recipes by hand.

Special Programs and Lessons

During Mary Lincoln's time, the school started many special programs:

• In 1880, the school worked with the Industrial Aid Society to offer free cooking classes in Boston's North End, an area with many immigrant families.
• They also created special courses on healthy eating for students at Harvard Medical School.
• Nurses from hospitals in Boston and Concord, New Hampshire, could take classes on "sick-room cookery," which taught them how to prepare food for sick people.

The school also invited experts to give special talks. These talks covered many topics, from how the body digests food (given by doctors) to how to buy food at the market. One very important speaker was Ellen H. Richards. She was the first woman to earn a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the first woman in America to get a chemistry degree. Richards gave talks on food chemistry and later helped start the Home Economics movement in the United States.

Fannie Farmer's Influence

Mrs. Lincoln left her role as principal in 1885. After her, Miss Ida Maynard and Mrs. Carrie M. Dearborn, both graduates of the school, became principals.

In 1889, Fannie Merritt Farmer graduated from the school. She was then asked to stay on as assistant principal to Mrs. Dearborn. When Mrs. Dearborn passed away in 1891, Fannie Farmer became the new principal.

Five years later, in 1896, the first edition of Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking-School Cook Book was published. This cookbook quickly became a classic in America and is still printed today!

Fannie Farmer left the Boston Cooking School in 1902. She then opened her own school, called Miss Farmer's School of Cookery, in Boston.

In 1902, the Boston Cooking School became part of Simmons College in Boston. After Fannie Farmer died in 1915, her own school continued to operate until the mid-1940s.

See also

• Anna Barrows, an early 20th-century cooking lecturer and a former student of the school.