Identifying Experiential Practices and Science in Mid-Eighteenth-Century British Cookbooks with Open-Access Sourcing

Abstract

This dissertation serves as a proof of concept to demonstrate how combining SEO-optimized and open access digitized primary sources, popular historical accounts and traditional historiographical methods may open areas of inquiry within the history of science, technology, and medicine. The dissertation uses digitized copies of cookbooks published in England between 1740 and 1760 to investigate certain areas of daily life and daily knowledge that have been overlooked within the history of science. These texts indicate the presence of scientific and technological knowledge within daily kitchen management and offer an opportunity for historians to look further at how women established scientific and cultural authority within the kitchen. Moreover, the intentional limitation of this dissertation to SEO-optimized and open access digitized primary sources offers insight not only into avenues for further inquiry and opportunities for continued integration of digitized primary sources into formal historical inquiry, but also reveals the disadvantages of such a methodology.