Sarah Tyson Rorer
Born18 October 1849
Richboro, Pennsylvania
Died27 December 1937
Colebrook, Pennsylvania
Occupation(s)Dietitian, food writer

Sarah Tyson Rorer (18 October 1849 – 27 December 1937) was an American food writer and pioneer in the field of domestic science. Rorer has been described as the first American dietitian.[1][2][3]

Biography

She was born in Richboro, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Charles Tyson Heston, a pharmacist, and Elizabeth Sagers.[4] Rorer received her early education in East Aurora, New York, and was educated in cooking at the New Century Club in Philadelphia. She had completed courses at the Philadelphia Women's Medical College in the hopes of becoming a pharmacist at the time, but was asked to take over as the Club's teacher after the original instructor left.[5] After she completed school, she herself became a teacher of cooking and dietetics at the New Century Club.[6]

In 1884, she founded the Philadelphia School of Cookery. Rorer was in charge of the Philadelphia Cooking School for 18 years and was able to reach 5,000 students through education during that time.[7] In the course of her career, Mrs. Rorer gave many cooking exhibitions, some of them at the Pennsylvania Chautauqua. She was president of the women's auxiliary board of the Pennsylvania Chautauqua. Her most famous demonstrations were at the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904, where she was director and manager of the East and West pavilions.[8]

Sarah Tyson Rorer was a newspaper columnist for magazines such as Table Talk Magazine, Household New, Ladies Home Journal, and Good House Keeping.[7] She was editor and part-owner of Table Talk from 1886 to 1892, an editor of Household News from 1893 to 1897, and a member of the staff of the Ladies Home Journal until 1911, when Good Housekeeping secured her services. Sarah wrote and published 32 cookbooks under the pen name Sarah Tyson Heston Rorer.[9] White housewives from the upper and middle classes made up the majority of Rorer's readers and students.[10] She was a director of the Pennsylvania Chautauqua School of Domestic Science.[11]

Rorer was not a vegetarian but she did author a successful vegetarian cookbook, Mrs. Rorer's Vegetable Cookery and Meat Substitute, which illustrated how to cook three meatless meals a day.[12]

In 1871, she married William Albert Rorer, from whom she separated around 1896. They had three children. Two boys survived them.[8] During the Great Depression, she depended on her sons and her students for financial support. [11] She died at her home in Colebrook, Pennsylvania.

Selected publications

Mrs. Rorer's Vegetable Cookery and Meat Substitutes, 1909

Rorer published many books on cooking which became standard. Among her publications were:

  • Philadelphia Cook Book (1886)
  • Hot Weather Dishes (1888)
  • Home Candy Making (1889)
  • How to Cook Vegetables (1891)
  • Twenty Quick Soups (1894)[13]
  • Sandwiches (1894)
  • New Salads for Dinners, Luncheons, Suppers and Receptions, with a Group of Odd Salads and some Ceylon Salads (1897)
  • Made Over Dishes (1898)
  • Mrs. Rorer's New Cook Book (1902)
  • World’s Fair Souvenir Cook Book (1904)
  • Mrs. Rorer's Every Day Menu Book (1905)
  • Many Ways of Cooking Eggs (1907)
  • My Best 250 Recipes (1907)[14]
  • Mrs. Rorer's Vegetable Cookery and Meat Substitutes (1909)[15]
  • Dainties (1912)[16]
  • Diet for the Sick (1914)
  • How to Use a Chafing Dish
  • Colonial Cookery
  • A Book on Diet and Cookery

Further reading

  • Weigley, Emma S. (1977). Sarah Tyson Rorer: The Nation's Instructress in Dietetics and Cookery. Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society. ISBN 978-0-87169-119-4.
  • (ed.) James, Edward T.; Janet Wilson James (1974). Notable American women: a biographical dictionary. Harvard University Press. p. 193. ISBN 978-0-674-62734-5. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  • Shintani, Kiyoshi (2008). Cooking up modernity:Culinary reformers and the making of consumer culture, 1876--1916. University of Oregon. ISBN 9781109016598.

Other

Emma Weigley completed doctoral studies in nutrition at New York University in 1971, with a thesis titled Sarah Tyson Rorer (1849-1937), a Biographical Study.[17]

References

  1. ↑ Weigley, Emma Seifrit. (1980). Sarah Tyson Rorer: first American dietitian?. Journal of the American Dietetic Association. 77 (1): 11–15.
  2. ↑ Winterfeldt, Esther A; Bogle, Margaret L; Ebro, Lea L. (2011). Dietetics: Practice and Future Trends. Jones and Bartlett Publishers. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-7637-7662-6 "Sarah Tyson Rorer has been credited as the first American dietitian."
  3. ↑ Payne-Palacio, June R; Canter, Deborah D. (2014). The Profession of Dietetics: A Team Approach. Jones & Bartlett Learning . p. 9. ISBN 978-1-284-02608-5 "The first American dietitian is considered to be Sarah Tyson Rorer (1849–1937)."
  4. ↑ "Sarah Tyson Rorer". Feeding America; the Historic American Cookbook Project. Michigan State University. Retrieved 2 April 2011.
  5. ↑ Groh, Joshua (26 September 2019). "Sarah Tyson Rorer, the pioneering dietician who moved to Colebrook". LebTown. Retrieved 6 April 2023.
  6. ↑ Spector, Gus (2006). Philadelphia: Historic Exteriors and Interiors. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing. p. 89. ISBN 9780738549101.
  7. 1 2 "Pennsylvania Center for the Book". www.pabook.libraries.psu.edu. Retrieved 21 February 2023.
  8. 1 2 The National cyclopedia of American biography, vol. 16. J. T. White & Company. 1918. p. 232.
  9. ↑ "Rorer, Sarah Tyson Heston, 1849-1937 | The Online Books Page". onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu. Retrieved 6 April 2023.
  10. ↑ Berndt, Sarah (2017). "When science strikes the kitchen, it strikes home" : the influence of Sarah Tyson Rorer in the progressive era kitchen, 1880-1915. OCLC 1159235246.
  11. 1 2 Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). "Rorer, Sarah Tyson" . Encyclopedia Americana.
  12. ↑ Shprintzen, Adam D. (2013). The Vegetarian Crusade: The Rise of an American Reform Movement, 1817–1921. University of North Carolina Press. pp. 137–138. ISBN 978-1-4696-0891-4
  13. ↑ Twenty Quick Soups by Sarah Tyson Rorer Archived 24 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine, YourOnlineBookShelf.com.
  14. ↑ My Best 250 Recipes by Sarah Tyson Rorer Archived 24 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine, YourOnlineBookShelf.com.
  15. ↑ Vegetable cooking and meat substitutes by Sarah Tyson Rorer Archived 1 February 2013 at the Wayback Machine, YourOnlineBookShelf.com.
  16. ↑ Dainties by Sarah Tyson Rorer Archived 24 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine, YourOnlineBookShelf.com.
  17. ↑ Weigley, Emma Seifrit (1971). Sarah Tyson Rorer (1849-1937), a biographical study (Thesis). OCLC 60852446.
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