On March 31, Dr. Heather J. Sharkey and staff from the Presbyterian Historical Society explored PHS’s collection of community cookbooks.

To celebrate National Library Week (April 4-10, 2021), PHS staff and Dr. Heather J. Sharkey, Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania, hosted a webinar that discussed the genre of community cookbooks and looked at why and how this genre developed.

Watch below to see Dr. Sharkey's share cookbooks from her personal collection, PHS staff share cookbooks from the Society's holdings, and hear them discuss the the unexpected insights community cookbooks offer into culture and history, in general, but with a specific emphasis on the United States.