Books Arts and Publishing

Books Arts and Publishing

Community Cookbook Collection

(Rare Books & Manuscripts) The BPL's growing Community Cookbook Collection documents the culinary history of New England communities. The collection contains cookbooks created by churches, synagogues, schools, hospitals, benevolent societies, and other organizations, with a selection of historically significant cookbooks from other regions included for context. Community cookbooks are rich sources for the study and analysis of both community foodways and cultural history more generally. Typically compiled by women and published to raise funds, they are highly local productions that invariably reflect the values and aspirations of the communities in which they were produced. To survey BPL's collection online, you can search our catalog for the title Community Cookbook Collection (Boston Public Library). Specific cookbooks can be viewed in person in the Special Collections reading room. Do you have cookbooks to donate? The Community Cookbook Collection continues to grow through purchases and via donation of cookbooks to the library. If you have community cookbooks that you are interested in donating to the BPL’s collection, we'd love to learn more! Please fill out our Special Collections donation form!

Kleist, Herbert (1902-1986) Collection

(Rare Books & Manuscripts) Kleist was a librarian and book collector with a particular interest in the art of book design and illustration. The Kleist Collection contains about 5,000 volumes of miniature books, pulp fiction, children’s books, Christmas books, and late 19th-century and early 20th-century imprints. Kleist’s focus on decorative covers, dust jackets, and illustration is the overriding theme of the collection, which documents the work of well-known, obscure, and forgotten designers and illustrators. Online access: Items that have been fully electronically cataloged can be retrieved through either of the online catalogs, opens a new window via a title search for "Herbert Kleist Collection (Boston Public Library)". (Rare Books & Manuscripts)

Wheeler, Leeds Armstrong Collection

Formed by Wheeler and given by his family in his memory, this collection includes many black and white lithographs and chromolithography from the Boston firm of Armstrong and Company, active from about 1870 to 1900. Included are photographs and memorabilia of Armstrong, and pictures, documents, and notes relating to the Armstrong business, which for a time was the Lithographic Department of the Riverside Press, Cambridge, part of Houghton Mifflin & Co. (Print Department)

A-Z Collections Index