This 1915 advertisement from a community cookbook seeks to convince home cooks that cheap alternatives such as margarine or manufactured shortening should not be substituted for butter.
Community cookbooks are excellent resources for primary sources for the classroom. Most include recipes and advertisements. A community cookbook is a collection of recipes provided by community or club members, published and sold to raise funds for a club, church, or reform effort. Publication of this popular genre boomed after the Civil War and continues to be popular today.
From Benson Woman’s Club Cook Book, 1915. Courtesy of Library of Congress and Internet Archive