Collections Corner

Historical Recipes and Cookbooks

The holiday season is characterized by large meals, lavish spreads of specialty dishes, and family traditions. Below you’ll find a selection of recipes from the history of the Eastside. Try one and share your dish with us! Email a picture of your creation to our Collections Manager to be featured on our social media pages.

1950 Ford Treasury of Favorite Recipes from Famous Eating Places

The cookbook lists restaurants throughout the United States. Each page describes one restaurant, and includes an illustration and a recipe from that establishment.

Pound steak with tenderizer. Pour flour into shallow pan; add salt and pepper. Press steak into flour mixture and turn several times. Melt shortening in heated Dutch oven (425°). Brown steak well on both sides, then add chopped onion. Mix mushroom soup with equal parts of water, stir well, and pour over steak. Turn fire down to 350° and let simmer for 2 hours. Add more water if necessary. Serves 4 to 6.

Dutch Oven Steak

2 pounds round steak, 1 inch thick

1 cup flour

1 tablespoon salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 cup shortening

1 large onion, chopped fine

1 can mushroom soup

 

1962 Favorite Recipes from Faraway Places

Century 21/Seattle World's Fair Souvenir Cookbook. The book was printed by Frederick and Nelson and Revere Ware.

Pour mixture over 4 pork chops - 1” thick.

Let stand for 24 hours.

Remove chops and brown in Revere 10” Skillet.

Pour Vinegar mixture over chops and cook until chops are tender.

Garnish with 4 slices pineapple and 4 maraschino cherries.

Pork Chops Tahitian

Mix Together:

3/4 cup vinegar

1/2 cup soy sauce

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons dry mustard

4 cloves garlic

 

1916 Jell-O, America's Most Famous Dessert

In addition to the recipes, this book tells the story of a new bride and how she uses Jell-O to cook dinner for her new husband, entertain, and cook for her children.

Thrifty Salad

Dissolve one package of Lemon Jell-O in one pint of boiling water. When cold, put a shallow layer in bottom of mould, and when partly set, place in sliced tomatoes. Fill mould with alternate layers of salmon, cold cooked peas and cold Jell-O. Serve on bed of lettuce leaves, garnished with tomatoes, adding French dressing or mayonnaise.

 

Automatic Voting Machine Corp. Instruction Model.

As we draw nearer to the 59th quadrennial presidential election, let’s take a look at a piece of election history.

1997BHS.26.020

1997BHS.26.020

This is our Automatic Voting Machine Instruction Model. Added to the collection in 1997, this machine was probably used in the 1950s.

This demonstration device would have been available at the polling place for poll workers to show voters how to place their votes before they entered the privacy of the large voting booth.

When using the full voting machine, a voter would enter the machine and pull a lever to close the curtain. The voter would then make their selection from an array of small voting levers denoting the appropriate candidates or measures. The machine would lock out other candidates when one candidate's lever is turned down. When the voter was finished, they pulled a lever which opened the curtain and reset the machine.

Mechanical lever voting machines were first officially used in 1892. By 1930, they were in use in virtually every major American city, and by the 1960s well over half of votes in U.S. elections were cast on these machines.

These days, Washingtonians don’t have to use mechanical levers to cast their votes. Mail in voting was made available as a permanent part of our election process in 2005.

Election day is November 3rd this year and EHC encourages everyone to make their voices heard.

Fact Sheet Courtesy of the Washington Secretary of State

Fact Sheet Courtesy of the Washington Secretary of State

Resources:

The History of Elections and Voting in Washington. (n.d.). Retrieved September 08, 2020, from https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/timeline/index.htm Washington Secretary of State

Bird, W. L., Jr. (2004, July 16). The Gear and Lever Voting Machine. Retrieved September 08, 2020, from https://americanhistory.si.edu/vote/votingmachine.html

Historical, Political, 1956 Presidential Election Voting Machine, Instruction Model. (n.d.). Retrieved September 08, 2020, from https://www.georgeglazer.com/wpmain/product/historical-political-1956-presidential-election-voting-machine-instruction-model/

The Colman Diaries

In 2005, Eastside Heritage Center was given a set of diaries. The Colman Diaries, as they are now known, are a rare treasure and a glimpse into the life of a woman who history might have forgotten otherwise. Written by Clarissa Colman and spanning nearly 30 years, they tell the story of her life on the Eastside.

James Colman

James Colman

Her early years are accessible to us largely through census records. Born Clarissa Denison in New York in 1832, married to James Colman in Iowa in 1859, and living in King County, WA by 1880. It isn’t until the tragic murder of her husband that Clarissa begins her journal. Nearly a year after his death, Clarissa records all she can remember of the period immediately leading up to his murder and the court cases that followed. After the State Supreme Court overturns the conviction of the suspected killer, she processes her grief in the pages of her diary.

“This is the 30th anniversary of my wedding day. Three years on the 8th since James was murdered & still that man Miller is living here on the lake, in sight of our place. I wonder how much longer I shall have to wait for justice. Oh:: Lord, how long.”
— Friday February 15th, 1889

Over the years she records her daily life as a widow and a mother. She cooks, manages their household, and takes note of the weather. She sells goods to the local stores, invests in property in Seattle, and successfully sues a railroad company. She mourns the loss of a grandchild and struggles with estrangement from her youngest son. In her writings we’re able to see a whole, complex person. A woman who is exceptional and ordinary; her story both familiar and remarkable.

2003151135.jpg

These diaries are a primary source, a document that contains observations and insights recorded firsthand by people of the time. These are the cream of the crop when it comes to historical research. Documents like these inform us as historians about the impact that major historical events have on real people. They give context to facts. For example, in 1889 Clarissa describes seeing fire and smoke from the direction of Seattle. She was witnessing the Great Seattle Fire from the shores of Lake Washington.

“The big smoke we saw was Seattle in flames. The whoe [sic] business part is burnt. Dan Murphy came down this morning for hay ^ told us.”
— Friday June 7th, 1889

While she never intended for her words to be read by strangers, her work has allowed us a peek into life on the Eastside at the turn of the last century.

Special thanks to the Fawcett family for the donation of these Diaries.

Resources:

Colman Diaries. 2005.017 Gift of Clarissa Fawcett, Robert Fawcett, George Fawcett, and Greg Fawcett in memory of Clarissa Colman and James Colman.

Ancestry.com

Grindeland, S. (2006, August 5). 1800s diary tells of murder mystery, life on Eastside. The Seattle Times, pp. A1, A13.

Your Stories Make History

Future generations will want to know about how the communities on the Eastside persevered and changed over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. They will wonder about the closed schools, empty workplaces, and regulated parks. Researchers and historians will examine how we socialized, and what we envisioned the future to be like after quarantine. What we save now will decide how this time is remembered. So, we’re asking for your stories.

20200421_154834.jpg

Please consider saving and donating items relating to the COVID-19 pandemic to EHC. We collect and preserve all types of materials relating to the heritage of the Eastside. Some ideas of what we’re looking for include:

●       audio recordings

●       videos

●       photos

●       homemade face masks

●       diaries, journals, letters

●       signs posting park closures, "do not gather" notices, or other social distancing directives

●       direct mail pieces related to COVID-19

This list is just a starting point. We want to know what you think represents the experiences of the Eastside.

If you’re interested in helping us document this historic time, please email us at collections@eastsideheritagecenter.org.

Thank you!

Rolled Textile Racking

Eastside Heritage Center has a collection of 120 oversize textiles, which includes handmade quilts, institutional banners and flags, and other oversize home textiles. This collection has been stored at our off-site storage facility in archival boxes for many years. Folding textiles and storing them in boxes is not an ideal long term storage option. Current industry best practices recommend storing flat textiles rolled onto archival tubes with a tissue paper barrier, when they cannot be stored flat.  

To ensure the long-term safety of the collection, EHC decided to rehouse the textiles. We applied for two grants through 4 Culture to build a rolled textile rack and were awarded funds!

20181220_142239.jpg

First, our collections staff disassembled and removed the existing shelving unit and prepared the space for installation. We used a low-cost racking option that uses materials you can find at the local hardware store. (Links to the resources we used are at the end of this article) Two terrific volunteers, Steve and Tim, helped install the racking at our storage facility. With the racking prepared, we were able to move on to the rehousing of the quilt collection.

Last fall we hired two interns to help with this project. Under their care, each textile was unfolded, vacuumed and cleaned as necessary, photographed, and its record was updated in our database. Then it was rolled around an archival tube, using methods recommended by the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation. Once the textiles were rolled and stored on the racks they were tagged with an identification tag. So far, the interns have processed over 50 textiles.

20181222_090843.jpg
20190102_165745.jpg

Suspending the tubes on racking will prevent damage to the textile fibers that can be caused by folding and stacking in boxes. By installing a wall mounted racking system, collections storage space and shelving units will be freed up for storage of other collections items. Each wrapped roll will be tagged with a hanging photo id tag, which will help prevent unnecessary handling. It will be easier for collections staff to monitor the condition of the textiles, identify items for exhibit or research, and safely remove them from storage without having to handle other items in a box or repeatedly fold and unfold a textile.

This, like most collections work, is ongoing. We have successfully filled the existing racking and are making plans for more. Grant funds and private donations are the main way we are able to undertake projects like this one.

This project was funded by 4 Culture.

This project was funded by 4 Culture.

20190223_092612.jpg