Maria Parloa

Written By Daisy Zeijlon

Written by Daisy Zeijlon

 
 

b. September 25, 1843 - d. August 21, 1909

Maria Parloa was one of the most influential culinary figures of the nineteenth century. Her work as a teacher, author and entrepreneur increased the cultural and financial value of culinary instruction and served as a career model many women have since followed. 

 

Bio

Born in 1843, not much is known about her earliest years. She was orphaned at a young age and worked as a cook in private homes and resorts for a number of years before enrolling in a teacher training course at Maine Central Institute in 1871 (MSU). She published the first of her eleven cookbooks, The Appledore Cookbook, the following year and in 1873 went to Mandarin, Florida to work as a cooking teacher (MSU). She gave her first public lecture on cooking some years later in New London, Connecticut (Lincoln), which helped propel her into her role as one the country’s most sought-after culinary instructors. She opened her own cooking school in Boston in 1877, became a founding teacher at The Boston Cooking School in 1879, and moved to New York City in 1882 to open her own school there. The New York Times announced the opening of her cooking school in New York City, introducing her as “Miss Maria Parloa, well known as an instructress in the culinary art” (“Miss Parloa’s”). In that same year she is described in Good Housekeeping as “of well-earned, world-wide fame” as a cooking teacher and author of “great popularity” (“Our Good Housekeeping Family”).

All the while she was a prolific writer and editor, contributing to Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal and American Home Kitchen, among other publications. She was present at The Lake Placid Conference in 1899 when the term “home economics” was coined and again in 1908, when the American Home Economics Association was formed (MSU). She was one of the first authors to introduce modern recipe formatting (ingredients followed by method) and one of the first culinary instructors to popularize standardized measuring cups and spoons (Elias 33-4). Still, Parloa has been overlooked in existing scholarship, appearing only as a footnote in the biography of domestic science. Casting her as a supporting actor ignores her formidable power as a nineteenth-century businesswoman. 

Womanhood & Entrepreneurship

Out of all the figures considered in this project, Parloa is perhaps the best personification of a fundamental irony of domestic science: it was a movement built on the idea that women belonged in the home, but it also functioned as a launching pad for many women to build careers outside of it. As a cooking teacher Parloa sat comfortably within a contemporary definition of womanhood. Teaching was one of the few professions considered feminine, and cooking was a skill that women—as current or future wives and mothers—should master (Shintani 34). However, she never married or had children, which was a clear departure from social convention for women of this era. In this sense, Parloa simultaneously propagated and distanced herself from the cult of true womanhood.

It is impossible to know why she chose not to marry, but it is not unreasonable to posit that her single status may have in fact been instrumental to her success as an entrepreneur. At a moment when male moguls were launching new empires in manufacturing and technology, avoiding the titles of wife and mother could have bolstered Parloa’s esteem. Put simply, downplaying her feminine qualities may have helped her career (as remains the case for many women today). 

Closing the Wage Gap

Nonetheless, Parloa was a leading entrepreneur who paved the way for culinary educators, writers and business owners who came after her. One of her most significant contributions to female entrepreneurship was her relentless assertion of her worth. While Laura Shapiro has framed her insistence on high fees as the source of The Boston Cooking School’s financial insecurities, I argue that her refusal to negotiate was a remarkable accomplishment that paved the way for culinary instruction to become a lucrative and prestigious field for women. When the school first approached her to teach, a typical cooking instructor was earning $10 per week (Shapiro 50). Parloa was charging $11 per lesson in 1879 and steadily increased her fee to $25 per class by the mid-1880s (Shapiro 50). By contrast, men at this time were earning an average of $30 per week (Shapiro 50). Eventually these fees led to her dismissal from the school, but the joke seems to have been on them: Parloa left Boston to start her own school in New York, become a part owner of Ladies Home Journal and participate in myriad lucrative product endorsements (MSU).

Maria & Martha

In short, Parloa established a career model that thousands of women have since followed. In 1910, a year after Parloa’s death, her student and mentee Mary J. Lincoln wrote in a feature titled “The Pioneers of Scientific Cookery” that the influence of “Miss Parloa…a pioneer in Boston, has extended to the present day. [She and fellow teacher Joanna Sweeney] were my teachers; the two principals who succeeded me were my pupils, and they in turn were followed by their pupils” (Lincoln). Thanks to Parloa’s example, Lincoln was able to charge the same rates as her by 1890 (Shapiro 56). Moving beyond the nineteenth century and into the twenty-first, Parloa’s influence is still evident. Look no further than figures like Martha Stewart and Ina Garten, who have created similarly influential (and profitable) culinary and media personas grounded in an upper class, Northeastern American aesthetic.   

Sources

Daisy Zeijlon
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