The Washington Women’s Cookbook

Edited by Michelle Gale

The Washington Women’s Cookbook: Good Eats and Votes for Women features a collection of recipes, essays, profiles, interviews, and art from Pacific Northwest women about the intersections of food, community, and feminism, as well as a more inclusive history of the American suffrage movement.

The original 1909 Washington Women’s Cookbook

The book is inspired by the original Washington Women’s Cookbook, which was published in 1909 by the Washington Equal Suffrage Association as a fundraiser during the 1909 to 1910 suffrage campaign. It was one of many in a long-standing tradition of charity cookbooks. The original book included recipes and homemaking tips submitted by women from around Washington State.

Our 2020 edition

While our book is a nod to the past, the mission of our edition explicitly rejects the tactics used by many of the white suffragists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as they were largely exclusionary to women of color, and some white suffragists actively fought against voting rights for African Americans. Instead, we’ve included a history of American suffrage that is intersectional and inclusive, as well as profiles and portraits of some lesser championed suffragists.

Our book was released in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, and our goal was (and is) to encourage women to vote not only in their own self-interest but in the interests of all women and marginalized folks. We aimed to make a book that is inclusive of women with diverse backgrounds and experiences. We saw this project as a way to connect with women in our communities and amplify different voices around common themes of food, community, and women’s rights.

And, like the original, the sale of our book is a fundraiser.

Over $10k raised and donated

Through the sale of our book we’ve raised over $10k and have donated to organizations including the National Women’s Political Caucus of Washington, the Na’ah Illahee Fund, and the Black Farmers Collective.