All Stirred Up

A look at how suffragettes brought their political messages into American homes through cookbooks that appealed to women in nonthreatening and accessible ways and ran counter to the militant and stern caricatures often associated with the movement.

Ever courageous and creative, suffragists carried their radical message into America's homes wrapped in food wisdom. Cookbooks, which ingenuously packaged political strategy into already existent social communities, gave suffragists a chance to reach out to women on their own terms, in nonthreatening and accessible ways. Cooking together, feeding people, and using social situations to put people at ease were pioneering grassroots tactics that leveraged the domestic knowledge these women already had. Kumin shows us how these women brilliantly wove charm and wit into their message. Her book is filled with actual historic recipes that evoke the spirited flavor of feminism and food movements. -- adapted from jacket