Menu
Collection

Historical How-Tos

Over the years, Americans have sought guidance from advice columns, almanacs, textbooks, cookbooks, handbooks, guidebooks, and manuals. Looking back at these sources today, conversely, can offer us a fascinating window into daily life in the past. The pieces in this collection each focus on a specific “how-to” text.
created by Kathryn Ostrofsky on June 3, 2025
Illustration of Benjamin Franklin overlaid on textbook excerpt

Ben Franklin Put an Abortion Recipe in His Math Textbook

To colonial Americans, termination was as normal as the ABCs and 123s.
by Molly Farrell via Slate on May 5, 2022
 
How to end a pregnancy.
"The American Instructor" (1748)
Two people sitting in camping cabin.

How to Live ‘Amid the Silence of the Woods,' According to America’s First Camping Guide

The history of camping in the U.S. starts in the Adirondacks, with a guidebook that became an instant bestseller.
by Olivia B. Waxman via TIME on July 23, 2018
 
How to pitch a tent and ward off woodchucks.
"Adventures in the Wilderness" (1869)
A photograph of Frederick Douglass imposed on the cover of The Columbian Orator by Caleb Bingham.

The Columbian Orator Taught Nineteenth-Century Americans How to Speak

For strivers like Lincoln, guides to rhetoric had a special currency in the nineteenth century.
by Danny Heitman via Humanities on April 2, 2025
 
How to practice eloquence.
"The Columbian Orator" (1797)

Farmers’ Almanacs and Folk Remedies

The role of almanacs in nineteenth-century popular medicine.
by Jessica Brabble via Nursing Clio on June 30, 2020
 
How to treat burns and snake bites.
"Farmer's Almanac" (1818 - )

Lydia Maria Child Taught Americans to Make Do With Less

A popular writer’s 1829 self-help book ‘The Frugal Housewife’ was based on the same democratic principles that made her a champion of the abolitionist cause.
by Lydia Moland via The Wall Street Journal on November 10, 2022
 
How to make coffee from roasted peas.
"The Frugal Housewife" (1829)
Lithograph of a bachelor from 1848.

Brothels for Gentlemen: Nineteenth-Century American Brothel Guides, Gentility, and Moral Reform

Brothel guides’ descriptions of brothelgoers asked that if respectable men could enjoy sexual pleasure for sale in American cities, why couldn’t their readers?
by Katherine Hijar via Commonplace on December 1, 2018
 
How to discretely find a quality companion — and poke fun at reformers. 
"Prostitution Exposed" (1839)
Marian Anderson singing at the Lincoln Memorial on April 9, 1939.

Reading, Race, and "Robert's Rules of Order"

The book was an especially formal response to the complications of white supremacy, segregated democracy, and civil war.
by Kent Puckett via Public Books on April 28, 2023
 
How to run a meeting.
"Robert's Rules of Order" (1876)
Eleanor Kirk

How to Pitch a Magazine (in 1888)

Eleanor Kirk's guide offered a way to break into the boys’ club of publishing.
by Paul Collins via The New Yorker on September 4, 2014
 
How to find a publisher.
"Periodicals that Pay Contributors" (1888)
Dyed ostrich feather samples in a book.

As Bright as a Feather: Ostriches, Home Dyeing, and the Global Plume Trade

In the 19th century, dyed ostrich feathers were haute couture, adorning the hats and boas of fashionistas on both sides of the Atlantic.
by Whitney Rakich via The Public Domain Review on May 7, 2025
 
How to make fancy hats and boas.
"The Practical Ostrich Feather Dyer" (1888)
Cover of The Woman Suffrage Cook Book.

How Women Used Cookbooks to Fight for Their Right to Vote

Before women could vote, they sold cookbooks like ‘The Woman Suffrage Cook Book’ to raise money for their cause.
by Aimee Levitt via Eater on October 31, 2024
 
How to support women's rights and make rhubarb toast.
"The Woman Suffrage Cookbook" (1890)
Cover of amateur photography handbook

Say Cheese! How Bad Photography Has Changed Our Definition of Good Pictures

The changes in popular photography.
by Ben Marks via Collectors Weekly on July 28, 2021
 
How to capture a moment.
"How to Make Good Pictures" (1898 - )
Painting of Venetian Glass Workers, by John Singer Sargent, c. 1880.

Work the Lazy Way

On Annie Payson Call’s advice to tired nineteenth-century workers.
by Lily Houston Smith via Lapham’s Quarterly on May 31, 2022
 
How to take a deep breath and relax.
"Freedom of Life" (1905)
Inez Milholland with her dog.

Let Us Mate

Proposal advice from Inez Milholland, originally published in the Chicago Day Book, 1916.
via Lapham’s Quarterly on January 3, 1916
 
How to ask a man to marry you.
"The Chicago Day Book" (1916)
Black and white photograph of the Opening of the New York City Subway, 1904.

Advertising Etiquette: On Shaping the New York City Subway

NYC subway etiquette reflects socio-economic divides.
by Simone Blandford via Journal of the History of Ideas Blog on November 21, 2024
 
How to behave yourself in mixed company.
"Subway Sun" (1918)
New York Times building.

The History of 'The New York Times' Stylebook

'The New York Times' was an early adopter of style guidelines.
by Merrill Perlman via Columbia Journalism Review on June 19, 2018
 
How to standardize your spelling of "theatre," "bolshevism," "aeronaut," "&c."
"Times Style Guide" (1928)

What Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People” Can Teach the Modern Worker

Dale Carnegie treated the employee-employer relationship as a sacred, symbiotic bond.
by Jessica Weisberg via The New Yorker on April 2, 2018
 
How to be nice and stay positive.
"How to Win Friends and Influence People" (1936)
Cover of the 1940 Negro Motorist Green Book.
partner

Traveling While Black

In 1936, Victor Green published a guide of restaurants, gas stations and lodgings that would accommodate African Americans travelling across the country.
via BackStory on June 1, 2018
 
How to make it through the South alive.
"The Negro Motorist Green Book" (1936)
The Osterizer’s Spin Cookery Blender and Cook Book.

Of Potato Latkes and Pedagogy: Cooking for the History Classroom

A cooking assignment helps illuminate the lives of Jewish women in the past for students.
by Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall via Perspectives on History on May 23, 2023
 
How to start new traditions.
"Delightful Osterizer Recipes" (1949)
Title page of garden club cookbook.

Tahir’s Tamales: Syrian Cooking in the American South

Community cookbooks provide a perspective on the American melting pot.
by Andrew P. Haley via Perspectives on History on June 21, 2023
 
How to blend flavors and cultures.
"Tchula Garden Club Cook Book" (1958)
Abortion advocates marching in protest with signs

What Feminists Did the Last Time Abortion Was Illegal

How abortion activists responded in the wake of the 1989 Webster decision and what we can learn from their efforts.
by Michelle Moravec via Nursing Clio on December 14, 2021
 
How to find a safe provider.
"The Abortion Handbook for Responsible Women" (1969)
Members of ARDE Frente Sur in 1987.

The Psyops Manual the CIA Gave to Nicaragua's Contras Is Totally Bonkers

To defeat the leftist Sandinistas, Washington provided aid to the Contras along with a crazy psychological warfare anticommunist manual.
by Jared Keller via Task & Purpose on December 19, 2017
 
How to be the best "propagandist-combatant" you can be.
"Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare" (ca. 1980)
The cover of Behold, a Pale Horse by Milton William Cooper.

The Conspiracist Manual That Influenced a Generation of Rappers

How "Behold a Pale Horse" found its way to the Wu-Tang Clan, Mobb Deep’s Prodigy, Busta Rhymes, Tupac Shakur, NAS, and more.
by Mark Jacobson via Vulture on August 22, 2018
 
How to unravel the secrets of mind control.
"Behold a Pale Horse" (1991)
brought to you by
© Bunk History