Lettice Pierce Bryan
Born
Lettice Pierce

1805 (1805)
Kentucky, U.S.
Died1877 (aged 71–72)
Macoupin County, Illinois, U.S.
Resting placeCave Hill Cemetery, Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.
Spouse
Edmond Bryan
​
​
(m. 1823; died 1863)​
Children14

Lettice Pierce Bryan (1805–1877) was an American author, who wrote The Kentucky Housewife, a cookbook originally published in 1839.[1][2][3]

Life

The Kentucky Housewife title page

Lettice Pierce was born in central Kentucky, probably near Danville, to James A. Pierce and Elizabeth Crow Pierce, one of three children. In 1823, she married Virginia-born Edmond Bryan. When Bryan was writing her cookbook, she lived in Monticello, Kentucky; her husband was studying at the Medical College of Ohio and the couple had nine young children.[4][5] After the cookbook was published, the family moved twice - to Washington County and then to Grayson County, Kentucky. Bryan had 14 children.[5]

Bryan died at age 72, in 1877, in Macoupin County, Illinois, at the home of her son-in-law C. F. Burnett. She is buried at Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.[6] Her husband pre-deceased her, dying in 1863.[7]

References

  1. ^ Scott, Elizabeth M. (1997). ""A Little Gravy in the Dish and Onions in a Tea Cup": What Cookbooks Reveal About Material Culture". International Journal of Historical Archaeology. 1 (2): 131–155. doi:10.1023/A:1027307906388. S2CID 141441139.
  2. ^ Hatchett, Judith (2009). ""And not a wife only": advice and receipts from The Kentucky Housewife". Border States (17): 35 ff.
  3. ^ Kraig, Bruce (2013). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. Vol. 1. OUP USA. pp. 251 et al. ISBN 9780199734962.
  4. ^ 1840 U.S. Census, Monticello, Wayne, Kentucky; Roll: 126; Page: 182. Ancestry.com.
  5. ^ a b Resor, C. W. (July 18, 2019). "Mrs. Bryan's "Kentucky Housewife": Managing a Household in the 1830s". Primary Source Bazaar.
  6. ^ Portrait and Biographical Album of Henry County, Illinois. Chicago: Biographical Publishing Co. 1885. pp. 228–229.
  7. ^ 1850, 1860 U. S. Census, Ancestry.com.

External links

Authority control databases
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