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By the People Bulletin

 

NEW! Transcribe 18th-century Cookbooks 

Our latest campaign invites you to transcribe the cookbooks that would have been familiar to Americans in the colonial and Revolutionary periods.  While the first cookbook published by an American author was American Cookery by Amelia Simmons in 1796, British cookbooks circulated in North American since Europeans arrived in the colonies. These books provide a unique window into eighteenth-century life in Great Britain and the American colonies.

Cooking was traditionally the domain of women in the eighteenth century and many of these books were written by women, including Amelia Simmons, Eliza Smith, Elizabeth Raffald, and Hannah Glasse. Cookbooks were not the only way that food and medical knowledge circulated, in fact these sorts of books were only available to those who could afford and read them. In many colonial households, cooks prepared dishes that they learned from family, friends, and neighbors. Cookbooks, however, give us a glimpse of what kinds of communal knowledge was passed between women in both printed and spoken form. Learn more about what early Americans were eating, what ingredients they were cooking with, and more! 

Today: Webinar about American Revolution in Context campaigns 

The Long Island Library Resource Council is hosting the By the People team today (12/9) from 1-2pm EDT on a webinar about transcribing and programming The American Revolution in Context campaigns. The webinar is open to all so register to receive the Zoom link to join us! 

Calling all Volunteers! We’re looking for memories in By The People collections 

LOCal needs your help! Our colleagues at the Library have launched LOCal, an initiative with the Eastern Oklahoma Library System and Cleveland Public Library to connect digital Library of Congress collections to life in their own backyards. And they need your help to identify By The People collections that contain rich personal memories. 

Have you encountered surprising, moving, or otherwise remarkable memories in journals, letters, or other documents you’ve transcribed? Let us know! Memories found in Library of Congress collections will play a major role in the Eastern Oklahoma Library System project. Visitors will contribute personal reflections which will pair with content from the Library of Congress to connect modern day Oklahoma with people, places, and eras far away. Locals and visitors can interact with the finished project in May 2026 at the Muskogee Public Library in Muskogee, OK.  

Warmly,

Abby, Carlyn, and Lauren