Tracey Deutsch – Julia Child and Gendered Labor at Midcentury

The Journal of American History

In this episode of the Journal of American History Podcast Andrew Cooper speaks with Tracey Deutsch about her article, "The Vigorous Approach to Cooking: Julia Child, Domesticity, and Gendered Labor at Midcentury," which appeared in the December 2024 issue of the Journal of American History. Tracey shows how Julia Child reframed laborious, elaborate cooking as a middle- and even upper-class activity. Rather than inward-focused family dinners overseen by thoughtful wives and mothers, these meals were outward facing—ways to welcome other couples, and new ideas, into one’s home. For Child and growing numbers of home chefs, cooking came to be understood as so important that it lay outside women’s realm, and hence outside the realm of work at all. Andrew and Tracey discuss archives, Julia Child, race, and the broader social implications of changing perceptions of food and cooking.

Read the article here: https://doi.org/10.1093jahist/jaae182

Music: King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band's Mabel's Dream, 1923

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