The Art of Baking Bread (Northwestern Yeast Co., no date, looks 20s or earlier)

This was obviously written in the days when breadmaking was still a regular part of most housewives' routine. Elaborate sponge recipes using boiled potatoes are involved in most of the recipes and you get a general sense of the hard work involved in breadmaking. On the other hand, you also get a sense that the finished loaves were incredibly fragrant and delicious, especially from the beautiful illustrations. There's something calming and restorative about this booklet, even including the root beer recipe.

Graphic Design: Very nice Art Noveau-ish typography and layout in brown ink on cream-colored paper.

Illustrations: Extremely beautiful full-color illustrations of homemade bread and rolls, which somehow capture the essence of such baked goods.

You can almost smell that good homemade bread smell.

I don't like raisin bread, but I love this illustration.

These don't look like rolls to me––they look like thick slices of homemade bread, but what do I know? Who cares? They look delicious.

Surprising Quotes:

• "Making bread at home is an American custom, and a home art in which the housewives of this country excel."
  
• "Today the knowledge of how to make good, wholesome bread stands first in the science of home cooking, and rightly so, for nearly half of the diet is now bread. Every housewife should know how to make good bread because it constitutes so large a portion of the family food."
  
• "Every ten-year-old girl should learn how to make good bread. It should be the starting point in her home cookery training."
  

Sample Recipe:

Root Beer

MATERIALS

5 cakes Yeast Foam or Magic Yeast
3 tablespoons sugar
1 pint lukewarm water
1 bottle Root Beer Extract
5 gallons pure, fresh water, slightly lukewarm
4 pounds sugar

Dissolve 5 cakes of Yeast Foam or Magic Yeast and 3 tablespoons sugar in a pint of lukewarm water. Keep in a warm place for 12 hours, then stir well and strain through cheese-cloth. (Throw away particles of meal left in cloth.) Add bottle of Root Beer Extract, 4 pound sugar and 5 gallons of lukewarm water. Mix thoroughly and bottle. (Tie or fasten in corks.) Keep in warm place about 48 hours. After cooling it is ready for use. Keep in cellar or place of low temperature.