Juliet Corson (1841–1897)

Juliet Corson was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She worked as a librarian and later wrote for the New York Leader and the National Quarterly Review.
In 1873, she became a secretary at the New York Free Training School for Women, and began to study and experiment on healthy and economical cooking. She read cookbooks by European experts and absorbed their principles of skill, flavor, and economy. This inspired her to found the New York Cooking School in 1876, and to write the books The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-day Cookery (1877) and Twenty-Five Cent Dinners for Families of Six (1878). She had planned to teach poor and working-class students, charging them only what they could afford to pay. However, middle-class ladies also arrived for lessons, making it New York's first successful cooking school. Miss Corson wrote the Sunday household column in The New York Times from 1875 to 1880, and published numerous further cookbooks. She continued to serve as superintendent of the school until 1883, when she had to shutter it due to her failing health. Despite intervals of illness, she continued to write and lecture throughout the United States. In many cities, such as Philadelphia and Oakland, her efforts led to the creation of cooking courses in the public schools. She was an advocate of French cooking, and in 1881, the French government asked to adapt her methods to its own educational system.