Fannie Merritt Farmer (1857 - 1915)

Born 23 Mar 1857 in Bolton, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States

Ancestors

Died 15 Jan 1915 at age 57 in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States

Biography

Fannie Farmer is Notable.

Fannie Merritt Farmer (23 March 1857 – 15 January 1915) was an American culinary expert whose Boston Cooking-School Cook Book became a widely used culinary text.

Fannie Farmer was born on 23 March 1857 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, to Mary Watson Merritt and John Franklin Farmer, an editor and printer. Although she was the oldest of four daughters, born in a family that highly valued education and that expected young Fannie to go to college, she suffered a paralytic stroke at the age of 16 while attending Medford High School. Fannie could not continue her formal academic education; for several years, she was unable to walk and remained in her parents' care at home. During this time, Farmer took up cooking, eventually turning her mother's home into a boarding house that developed a reputation for the quality of the meals it served.

At the age of 30, Farmer, now walking (but with a substantial limp that never left her), enrolled in the Boston Cooking School at the suggestion of Mrs. Charles Shaw. Farmer trained at the school until 1889 during the height of the domestic science movement, learning what were then considered the most critical elements of the science, including nutrition and diet for the well, convalescent cookery, techniques of cleaning and sanitation, chemical analysis of food, techniques of cooking and baking, and household management. Farmer was considered one of the school's top students. She was then kept on as assistant to the director. In 1891, she took the position of school principal.

During the last seven years of her life, Farmer used a wheelchair. Despite her immobility, Farmer continued to lecture, write, and invent recipes, giving her last lecture 10 days before her death. Her lectures were republished by the Boston Evening Transcript and were picked up by newspapers nationwide. Farmer also lectured to nurses and dietitians and taught a course on dietary preparation at Harvard Medical School. To many chefs and good home cooks in America, her name remains synonymous today with precision, organization, and good food.

Note: Her name was recorded as "Fanny" at birth.

Sources

• Massachusetts Vital Records, 1841-1910 Civil Registry Page: Vol. 107, p. 126

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Farmer

* Nelson, Randy F. The Almanac of American Letters. Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc., 1981: 94. ISBN 0-86576-008-X

• O'Connor, Thomas H. Eminent Bostonians. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.

* Farmer, Fannie M. The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. Little, Brown, and Company, 1908. Title page and page 607.

• Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/1764/fannie-farmer: accessed March 28, 2024), memorial page for Fannie Farmer (23 Mar 1857–15 Jan 1915), Find A Grave: Memorial #1764, citing Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA; Maintained by Find a Grave.