by Virginia Bergman Peters (1995)
White men who met and wrote about the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara peoples of the upper Missouri in the 18th and 19th centuries found them prosperous and compelling. Their ceremonies were elaborate; they were colorful subjects for painters such as Karl Bodmer and George Catlin; they bought lots of trinkets and firearms. Women, if mentioned at all, appeared as drudges and slaves in a male-dominated society, for these travelers failed to note the less obvious. Skilled farming by women produced a food surplus which allowed leisure for male ceremony; excess food made possible a continental trade network fostered by the linguistic powers of women traders; men, on the other hand, lived in their mother-in-law's house and gave the trophies from ritual war parties to their mother's lodge. Society was matrifocal, and its activities conformed to the sanctions of religion. In this book, Virginia Peters uses women's accounts, the strong oral tradition of the people, their myths and creation stories, and anthropological and archeological data to examine this vitality. She even follows the life cycle of a representative woman, and explores female farming, trading, and hunting activities, the organization of village life, and the culture of war. Basic to village society, Peters shows, was deep faith in an order where the generative female principle had primacy, sustaining and defining the people and everything in their world from sun to rain to bison, stones, and corn.
Catharine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
Seeking to elevate the status of domestic work, Beecher and co-author Harriet Beecher Stowe redefine it as labor for which women must be educated. They also offer instruction in the specifics of maintaining a household.
Alice Morse Earle in the year
The author reconstructs for us colonial life by describing in great detail manners, customs, dress, homes, and child life.
Hee Jung Yoon
Juan lives in Mexico, where his family owns a taco restaurant. When Juan goes to the Cinco de Mayo festival, he meets a tourist family that speaks another language. Juan takes the tourists to his family's restaurant and spends the day with them. Readers will learn about Mexican culture and cuisine as Juan shows the tourists the best attractions and offers them the tastiest food.
Sidney Saylor Farr
Sydney Saylor Farr is a woman who knows Appalachia well. Born on Stoney Fork in southeastern Kentucky, she has lived much of her life close to the mountains, among people whose roots are deep in the soil and who pass on to their children a love for the land, a strong sense of belonging and of place. Mountain food and how it is cooked is very much a part of this sense of place. Ask any displaced Appalachians what they miss most and they will probably talk about soup beans, country ham, and homemade buscuits. They may also remember the kitchens at home, the warmth from the wood-burning stove.