It finally happened. June 16, 2026, was the publication date for Dames, Dishes, and Degrees: Faculty Wives in America. The book launch was on the same date. Publishing Dames, Dishes, and Degrees was an exceptionally long process, and I am so happy that the book is finally out in the world.
It was a great success. There were about 35 people, and the bookstore sold out the 14 books they had ordered. Amherst Books served pretzels, wine and seltzer, and I made cookies from Charlotte Turgeon’s 1954 cookbook, Time to Entertain. I talk about her in the book. The nut meringues were a big hit.
There were a lot of good questions. Some came from the young people who attended, which thrilled me. One was about whether single women would have had as many problems getting academic positions as the married women I describe in the book did. Unfortunately, it was very difficult for any woman, married or not, to become a professor before the 1970s. It is still hard for women, in many fields, to achieve full professor rank.
These pictures from the event are also on the News page of this website. The final picture is the display window of the bookstore. It says I am a local author. So exciting.
Before I had a WordPress website, I had an ersatz blog on Network Solutions, my previous host . The post about the book party for Brewing Battles was on that site, so it is not a post I can link to. That event was at a brewery, which was a lot of fun
Here is that post:
| 03/2/08
The Brewing Battles book party was on Feb. 27th and it was a great success. The food was good as was the beer; my talk on Schlitz and Pabst went well. There are a couple of pictures from the event. One question a lot of people asked was how did I arrive at this topic for a book? My dissertation was on the American liquor industry and the federal government from 1862 to around 1915. My interest in the topic developed when I discovered that the liquor industry, along with tobacco, contributed over fifty percent of the federal government’s internal revenue from the Civil War to the institution of the income tax in 1913. Although I later decided to change careers and become a nurse I did not lose my interest in history in general and specifically the topic of my Ph.D. studies. After a few years I began to think about how the beer industry was well suited for a comprehensive examination of its growth and development. When I began to look at brewing from Repeal on, I found many of the same issues and concerns that had existed in the earlier period. Even today brewers, large and small, must confront the federal government and taxation as they conduct their business.
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So sorry to have missed it. I was in London. Glad it was well attended and that you made some sales!