In 1866, Malinda Russell self-published
A Domestic Cookbook: Containing a Careful Selection of Useful Receipts for the Kitchen. The book holds the distinction of being the first known, cookbook published by an African American, and the first book to offer culinary advice by an African-American woman (
The House Servant’s Directory by Robert Roberts and
Never Let People Be Kept Waiting, a hotel management textbook by Tunis G. Campbell, precede it). But it’s remarkable for other reasons, too. Russell published it as a free woman living in Paw Paw, Michigan, as a fundraising effort to return to Tennessee, where she was born and raised. As Toni Tipton-Martin describes in her 2015 book