How the Other Half Ate

A History of Working-Class Meals at the Turn of the Century

Katherine Leonard Turner

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780520277588
• eBook ISBN: 9780520957619
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Kunst
• Subtopic: Nordamerikanische Geschichte

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, working-class Americans had eating habits that were distinctly shaped by jobs, families, neighborhoods, and the tools, utilities, and size of their kitchens—along with their cultural heritage. How the Other Half Ate is a deep exploration by historian and lecturer Katherine Turner that delivers an unprecedented and thoroughly researched study of the changing food landscape in American working-class families from industrialization through the 1950s.

Relevant to readers across a range of disciplines—history, economics, sociology, urban studies, women's studies, and food studies—this work fills an important gap in historical literature by illustrating how families experienced food and cooking during the so-called age of abundance. Turner delivers an engaging portrait that shows how America's working class, in a multitude of ways, has shaped the foods we eat today.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• 1 The Problem of Food
• 2 Factories, Railroads, and Rotary Eggbeaters: From Farm to Table
• 3 Food and Cooking in the City
• 4 Between Country and City: Food in Rural Mill Towns and Company Towns
• 5 “A Woman’s Work Is Never Done”: Cooking, Class, and Women’s Work
• 6 What’s for Dinner Tonight?
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index