Fourth Boston Food Fair. Under the auspices and personal management of the Boston Retail Grocers' Association, Mechanics' Building, Huntington Ave., Boston, October 2 to October 28, 1899

Boston: F.M. Porter Co, 1899. Quarto, stapled in wrappers (24 x 17.5 cm.), 80 pages; 1 plate. Illustrated, black & white and chromolithograph plate. Advertising. FIRST EDITION. The "Official catalog, musical program, list of exhibitors" for this fourth congress of members of the Boston Retail Grocers Association. The association was founded in 1881, and held its first food fair that year. Photographic portraits of the senior members of the Association are included, as is a description of Miss Nellie Dot Ranche of Chicago who was brought in for the occasion to run the Domestic Science Programs. It's interesting that the committee reached out to the Midwest at this moment when Cooking Schools in Boston were on the rise, and very visible. The copious advertising displays a range of categories of goods one would find in a grocery of the turn of the 19th century: coffee, cocoa, mustard, Havana cigars, root beer, Ceylon tea, French Coca Wine, virgin olive oil, nut meats, and salt as well as household goods, including: thread, collars, washing liquids, bluing, ink. Also represented are goods and services aimed at the grocers and retailers: boxes and bags, promotional printing, specialized contracting, refrigeration, etc. Tiny bit of spotting to green and gold-printed gray wrappers, otherwise fine. [OCLC locates just one copy (Winterthur)].