Women’s work in the transition to modernity: the worker cook book and our cookery book

Flora Pell’s Our cookery book and Mary Gilmore’s Worker cook book were published at a similar time and contribute to contemporary ideas about womanhood as they were emerging during the modern period in the early decades of the Australian nation. In different ways the books politicised domestic life and sought to domesticate political life by asserting a distinct voice for women and elevating the significance of cooking. The works integrate the everyday life of women within broader societal changes. My interests are directed here towards demonstrating the role of the cookbooks in reflecting and performing the work of social transformation in the transition to modernity