Cleaning for Your Life: How a Medical Revolution Swept Into Canadian Homes Between 1854 and 1898

Abstract

The last half of the nineteenth century constituted a medical revolution as scientists identified agents of disease. This study looks specifically to Canadian household manuals, bookended by the watershed publications of Catharine Parr Traill in 1854 and Adelaide Hoodless in 1898, to identify what knowledge emerging from the medical revolution known as the construction of germ theory makes its way to Canadian cookbook authors and, in turn, to Canadian homes. In doing so, it also sheds first light on some of Canada's early cookbooks, which have to date received deserved bibliographical attention but not yet close analytical scrutiny.