Shelf Life

Cultural Brews: Coffee and Women's Roles in the Early 20th Century

The 1926 cookbook Coffee and Waffles by Alice Foote MacDougall explores many themes. MacDougall was an entrepreneur who began as a coffee wholesaler and went on to open multiple coffee-centric businesses. The book serves upper-class American housewives and conveys the expectations for women, especially wealthy women, to keep and manage a home, women as entrepreneurs in the early 20th century, and the influence of coffee as a beverage in the early 1900s in the United States.

Upper Class Women as Housewives

MacDougall’s book, Coffee and Waffles, addresses middle and upper-class housewives. Many menus throughout the book catered to different home events, and the direct address of housewives in the foreword written by Charles Hanson Towne, a 20th-century poet: “It will be a boon and a blessing to the housewife” (ix). This sets the tone for the rest of the book, instructing readers to make the connection that the menus for all sorts of occasions are expected to be read by keepers of the home in this time period. Phyllis Palmer, a professor at George Washington University, explains that both men and women would achieve recognition for their respective roles in contributing to their family structure: the women specifically in management of the home. This can easily be translated as an expectation to act as a housewife, a good wife and mother and keeper of the home, even if it isn’t in terms of labor, cleaning, and cooking. MacDougall’s work details the day of a typical lady: first breakfast, which can be informal or formal, followed by small bites like water lily salad or melon compote for lunch, followed by small treats like coffee house crullers and other sweets, followed up with an afternoon spent out on the town, perhaps frequenting bridges and other places to socialize. This would then be followed by a night at a theatre and another, “casual” meal, consisting of savory foods like clam bouillon and clam jelly to sweets like almond cream pudding. All of these meals have menus and plans that require attention to come up with. The lady of the house was expected to oversee the planning and execution of all of the meals and their success would then reflect on the family.

Early 20th Century Women as Entrepreneurs

Alice Macdougall hailed from a wealthy family: her father was a financier on Wall Street. However, in her marriage, her husband steadily lost all of their money. Once he passed, she had to find a source of income, and so she started as a coffee wholesaler and expanded by opening multiple coffee shops, where she served coffee and waffles, specifically, the namesake for her cookbook. She is a great example of women being entrepreneurs in the early 20th century in the United States. In her cookbook, Coffee and Waffles, she exhibits her knowledge of her craft, through twelve entire pages dedicated to speaking on how to make coffee. She explores how to make it in a tricolator, which worked best for restaurants, a percolator, which at the time was best for the home, boiling it (but not in tin), in the Turkish way. In all of these methods, she thoroughly examined the process, as well as the intended results. This is an indicator of her success as a woman entrepreneur: her knowledge about the product she markets would increase her ability to sell it; a testament to her success.

Coffee as an Influential Drink

The popularity of coffee as a beverage is emphasized in Coffee and Waffles. This can be firstly seen in the 25 page chapter dedicated to Coffee and Waffles, with the only mention of waffles being where she speaks about serving them in her coffee shops, but doesn’t give a recipe, “The recipe for waffles! Ah! Just come and eat them” (28). MacDougall emphasizes how the best cup of coffee she has ever had was not very well made, but it was the experience that made the beverage important: “The most divine coffee I ever drank was on the top of a Massachusetts mountain…Boiled coffee in a tin pot. Abomination - but the appetite and the environs!” (17). This description of coffee helps the reader grasp that it may not matter the quality of the coffee, but the drink itself can serve as a way to remember past experiences. MacDougall’s cup of coffee was made using old technology and thus, not made very well. This can be a testament to coffee technology shortly. Coffee was well known as a difficult beverage to make, and women (who were likely the ones making it) were blamed. Mr. Coffee was advertised first in the 1970s, advertising: “Because the new Mr. Coffee with Coffee Saver is the first and only coffee maker to give perfect coffee.” (Shrum 272). Though it was initially expensive, Mr. Coffee gave people their first consistent and convenient cups of coffee. Whether the coffee was enjoyable or not, it was marketed at women and men. Women would no longer be blamed for bad coffee; it came from a machine. It revolutionized the drink. The brand did multiple deals with big names, the most notable of which was with Joe DiMaggio. Not only did the endorsement of Joe DiMaggio encourage consumers to purchase the machine, but it served another purpose: “encourage men to brew coffee at home.” (289). This machine helped encourage men to go into the kitchen, the sphere of the home that was widely associated with women. Finally, Mr. Coffee brought coffee firmly into the home. Before the machine, coffee was a social beverage. It was stereotypically consumed by men in coffee shops while they talked about business. This would be how MacDougall succeeded in her endeavours. Overall, coffee as a drink is seen as culturally significant in many ways, in the impact it has in memories, like with Alice MacDougall, but also in the technological sense, where Mr. Coffee revolutionized how many saw the drink.

For Further Research

MacDougall, Alice Foote. Coffee and Waffles. Doubleday, Page and Company, 1926.

Palmer, Phyllis. Domesticity and Dirt. Temple University Press, 23 Sept. 2010.

Shrum, Rebecca K. “Selling Mr. Coffee.” Winterthur Portfolio, vol. 46, no. 4, Dec. 2012, pp. 271–298, https://doi.org/10.1086/669669.