Background/Context/Biography
There are many helpful specialized scholarly encyclopedias, dictionaries, and handbooks in Widener and other libraries that can give you an overview of a specific topic. You can try searching in HOLLIS for your subject plus the words encyclopedias or dictionaries. Thus: “United States” AND Cooking AND (encyclopedias OR dictionaries).
The Oxford companion to food, by Alan Davidson. 3rd edition, ed. by Tom Jaine. NY : Oxford University Press, 2014. 1 online resource (xxx, 921 pages)
HOLLIS Record
The Oxford encyclopedia of food and drink in America, ed, by Andrew F. Smith. 2nd ed. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2013. 1 online resource (3 volumes)
Food in time and place : the American Historical Association companion to food history, ed. by Paul Freedman, Joyce E. Chaplin, and Ken Albala. Oakland, California : University of California Press, 2014, 395 pages
HOLLIS Record with Online Version
The restaurant lover's companion : a handbook for deciphering the mysteries of ethnic menus, by Steve Ettlinger and Melanie Falick. Reading, Mass. : Addison-Wesley Pub., 1995, 345 p.
HOLLIS Record with Online Version
What other things were happening at that time?
The following books offer historical overviews of particular eras of American history
American decades, ed. by Vincent Tompkins. Detroit : Gale Research, 1994-2011. 11 vols.
HOLLIS Record
--[1] 1900-1909 -- [2] 1910-1919 -- [3] 1920-1929 -- [4] 1930-1939 -- [5] 1940-1949 -- [6] 1950-1959 -- [7] 1960-1969 -- [8] 1970-1979 -- [9] 1980-1989 -- [10] 1990-1999 -- [11] 2000-2009.
American eras:
Development of a nation, 1783-1815 FindIt@Harvard
Westward expansion, 1800-1860 FindIt@Harvard
The reform era and eastern U.S. development, 1815-1850 FindIt@Harvard
Civil war and reconstruction, 1850-1877 FindIt@Harvard
Development of the industrial United States, 1878-1899 FindIt@Harvard
Almanacs of American life:
Civil War America, 1850 to 1875 FindIt@Harvard
Victorian America, 1876 to 1913 FindIt@Harvard
Modern America, 1914 to 1945 FindIt@Harvard
Cold War America, 1946 to 1990 FindIt@Harvard
Culinary biographies: a dictionary of the world's great historic chefs, cookbook authors and collectors, farmers, gourmets, home economists, nutritionists, restaurateurs, philosophers, physicians, scientists, writers, and others who influenced the way we eat today, ed. by Alice Arndt. Houston, Tex.: YES Press, 2006, 418 p.
HOLLIS Record
The founders of American cuisine: seven cookbook authors, with historical recipes, by Harry Haff. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2011, 286 p.
HOLLIS Record
General Sources
American National Biography is the standard American source for biographies of major figures. Can do searches of occupations and limit by date.
World Biographical Information System includes full text of thousands of biographical dictionaries accessible by name of biographee.
Biography and Genealogy Master Index (BGMI) indexes thousands of English-language biographical dictionaries and other compendia. Not full text; one must do HOLLIS searches for retrieved sources.
Additional sources in Finding Biographical Information.
Welch, Jeanie M. 1994. The Spice Trade : a Bibliographic Guide to Sources of Historical and Economic Information. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. HOLLIS record