Use Restrictions

Permission to publish material from the Military & Wartime Cookery Collection must be obtained from Special Collections, Virginia Tech.

Access Restrictions

The collection is open for research.

Preferred Citation

Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Military & Wartime Cookery Collection, Ms2017-029, Special Collections, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va.

Acquisition Information

The Military & Wartime Cookery Collection was purchased by Special Collections in April 2017. Possible accruals may be added in the future.

Processing Information

The processing, arrangement, and description of the Military & Wartime Cookery Collection was completed in August 2017. Five additional items were received and added to the collection in September 2017.

Scope and Content

The Military & Wartime Cookery Collection consists of a variety of manuscript and ephemeral materials relating to the history of military and wartime food and cooking. Items in the collection date from 1884 to 1965, though the bulk of the collection covers parts of World War I through World War II (1917-1945). Formats and items include (but are not limited to) menus, U.S. Government publications from various agencies, corporate sponsored pamphlets, ration books, recipes, and a photograph album. While the majority of the collection relates to U. S. military and wartime cooking or food history in America, there are some items relating to British military or U. S. military abroad.

Arrangement

The collection is arranged in series by conflict/era using the broadest wartime dates: The American Civil War (1861-1865); Mid- and Late 19th/Early 20th Century (1866-1914); World War I (1914-1919); Between the World Wars (1920-1938); World War II (1939-1945); Post-World War II (1946-). Within each time period, materials are grouped by format. Each folder has a list of individual items in the contents list of the finding aid.

Please note: materials are located within the conflict or era to which they are relate and may not date only from that specific time period. For example, the Civil War series contains menus from reunions that took place between 1884 and 1905.

Related Material

Separated Material

The following books and publications were purchased as part of this collection and are cataloged for Special Collections Rare Book Collection. The list below is organized by conflict/era to reflect the organization of the manuscript materials. Within each era, items are listed in chronological order by publication date.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Civil War
• Culinary pamphlets
• Ephemera
• History of Food and Drink
• Menus
• Pamphlets
• World War, 1914-1918
• World War, 1939-1945