[Cabinet Card Photograph of Mary Whitcher]

[Concord, N.H.: W.G.C. Kimball, Chase Block, 15 North Main Street, 1882. Cabinet card photograph (10.5 x 6 cm.). Photograph of Mary Whitcher by W.G.C. Kimball of Concord, N.H. Mary Whitcher was a member of New Hampshire's Canterbury Shaker community, a poetess, and the author of Mary Whitchers Shaker Housekeeper (1882), which is recognized as "the earliest cookbook in Shaker culinary literature, and the first to give bills of fare, or menus, for each day of the week together with 150 nutritious recipes for preparing a variety of fresh, natural foods. The book was not sold but was given, in accordance with the custom of the day, to those interested in the Shaker medicines advertised therein" (Amy Bess Miller, in the introduction to the 1972 facsimile edition of Shaker Cooking). The photograph is in fine condition, and contains a small contemporary ink inscription on the verso, "Mary Whitcher, Betsy Wright"