“We are the cheapest book house in the United States,” declared an 1896 ad for the firm of I. & M. Ottenheimer. “You don’t need a stepladder to reach our prices.” The newsletter was “The Bookseller and Newsman,” a trade journal of publishers and bookstores. News of the publishing firm appeared throughout, from a front…
Marietta Gibson dedicated an entire section to “Ices” in her irritatingly repetitive 1894 cookbook, “Mrs. Charles H. Gibson’s Maryland And Virginia Cookbook.” In it, you will find recipes for grape sherbet; coffee ice cream; a ‘bisque’ ice cream filled with crushed meringues; several recipes for chocolate ice cream; a frozen punch spiked with champagne, rum,…
June 24th was the last day of the 1940-1941 school year. Students received report cards and were dismissed for the summer. The Evening Sun noted that “except for the studious or unlucky few who will attend summer school, there’ll be no more teachers and no more books for twelve weeks.” For the seventh year in…
A few weeks later I found myself in her house, flipping through a recipe scrapbook that had belonged to her mother-in-law.
I once referred to Virginia Roeder as “Baltimore’s own Martha Stewart.” The statement is a little out of character for me, but I wanted to convey my impression of Roeder’s business savvy, the way her “immaculate home” was described in the Sun, her reputation for culinary acumen, and the sense that Roeder was one of…