It’s interesting to ponder the ways in which different political impulses and movements have had an effect on recipes.
For instance, did the “Women’s Club Movement” and the Progressive Era result in cookbooks that would otherwise have not been produced, and recipes that may not have otherwise been documented? Or would community cookbooks have been an inevitability, produced by churches, causes, and maybe just “because,” whether women wanted to change the world or not?
There is no way to know of course. I only know that there are many cookbooks made by women’s clubs or guilds around the state and that they began with the Progressive era of the 1890s and continued up through at least the 1980s.
“Women’s Club Favorites,” made by the Women’s Club of Hagerstown in 1986 is one of my more recent cookbooks in this vein.
The Women’s Club of Hagerstown was organized in September of 1921 and had over 300 members within a month.
Many of the women had been involved in World War I relief efforts and found that they wanted to continue charitable activities after the war ended. In 1971, founding member Mrs. William T. Hamilton recalled that the transformation of the war relief group, the Forward Club, into the Women’s Club began in earnest when Mrs. Emmett (Anne McWilliams) Gans, the wife of a “major developer” moved to the area from Chicago. Gans served as the organization’s president until 1928.
An early triumph for the group was collecting money to lure the Russian Ballet, including the famous Anna Pavlova, to perform in Hagerstown on the way to Washington DC. “Since Pavlova was then in middle age, she appeared only once, doing her famous dying swan dance from ‘Swan Lake’,” Hamilton recalled. In addition to the ballet, the Women’s Club hosted many other performances and lectures intended to culturally benefit Washington County.
Black Russian Pie first hit the newspaper recipe scene in the early 1970s, when it was very popular to turn cocktails into desserts. Early recipes make the pie with gelatin and a Kahlua-soaked graham-cracker crust. The version I made uses marshmallows and swaps the crust for Oreo cookies. My spouse happens to be a lover of bother cookies & cream desserts and Kahlua, which drew me into this recipe, contributed to the “Women’s Club Cookbook” by Mary Ellen Beachley. I can’t definitively identify her. There were many Beachleys in the Hagerstown area including a Beachley’s general store in the 1890s, and Beachley furniture company which still exists today.
The Women’s Club of Hagerstown was a relative latecomer to the whole “Women’s Club Movement,” but they are still around to this day, and host a tour of their historic headquarters and gardens every three years. June 10, 2023 will be their 12th tour.
Recipe:
- 24 marshmallows
- .5 Cup milk
- .333 Cup Kahlua
- 1 Cup cream, whipping
- 24 cookies, Oreo
- 2 Tablespoon melted butter
Make a crust using Oreo cookies, crumbled and combined with melted butter. Melt marshmallows in milk; add Kahlua and the whipped cream. Pour in pie shell. Freeze.
Recipe from “Women’s Club Favorites,” Women’s Club of Hagerstown, 1986