Americanon: An Unexpected U.S. History in Thirteen Bestselling Books by Jess McHugh

One of the books in our library is my mother-in-law's copy of Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book. The volume show the stains and wear of fifty-nine years of hard use. 

Laura prided herself on her abilities in the kitchen, especially as a baker of cookies and pies. Any family gathering she would have two pies to choose from, served a few hours after a big dinner.

After reading the chapter on the Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book in Americanon, I took the cook book from the shelf and discovered Laura had a first edition!

The Picture Cook Book would have saved me loads of trouble as I learned to cook. Everything a new cook needed to know could be found in these pages, starting with the basics of measuring.

Jess McHugh writes that Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book was only outsold by the Bible, earning it a place in her list of books that form the American Canon, books that formed American's identity while enforcing the status quo of the white, European, upper class.

Betty Crocker was a fictional creation used to sell products and educate homemakers, but she became a friend in need to millions of her fans who wrote her revelatory letters. Her advice aided women through depressions and war rationing. And she promoted General Mills products, such as Bisquick, which was always in my mom's kitchen.

Other books in the 'canon' were as ubiquitous in American homes, inspiring and informing readers. The people who wrote these books did not always live in alignment with what they preached. The values Americans discovered in the books were traditional, not progressive. Women were domestic goddesses, immigrants were to be Americanized, LGBTQ were sick criminals, and people of color were ignored, marginalized, or downright thrust into racist stereotypes.

The most modern popular books are the self-help books that sell a kind of religion of the self, proposing that it is in our power to be healthy, wealthy, and happy. (Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography had a heavy dose of  such advice, as well.) The authors of these books had personal hobby-horses to promote. Many were unqualified to give medical, sexual, financial, or mental health advice. 

The language we speak and the spelling we use, our agreed upon social interactions, even our sexual life, have been based upon these books. For better, and often definitely for worse, they formed our national identity and character.

I received a free galley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Books in the Americanon include

• The Old Farmer's Almanac
• Webster's Speller and Dictionary
• Benjamin Franklkn's Autobiogrpahy
• The McGuffrey Reader
• A Handbook to American Womanhood by Catherine Beecher
• Etiquette in Society, in Buisness, and at Home by Emily Post
• How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnagie
• Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book
• Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) ny Dr. Reuben
• 1980s Self Help Books

Americanon: An Unexpected U.S. History in Thirteen Bestselling Books
by Jess McHugh
PENGUIN GROUP Dutton
Pub Date June 1, 2021 
ISBN 9781524746636
hardcover $28.00 (USD)

from the publisher

Surprising and delightfully engrossing, Americanon explores the true history of thirteen of the nation’s most popular books. Overlooked for centuries, our simple dictionaries, spellers, almanacs, and how-to manuals are the unexamined touchstones for American cultures and customs. These books sold tens of millions of copies and set out specific archetypes for the ideal American, from the self-made entrepreneur to the humble farmer.

Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Webster's Dictionary, Emily Post’s Etiquette: Americanon looks at how these ubiquitous books have updated and reemphasized potent American ideals—about meritocracy, patriotism, or individualism—at crucial moments in history. Old favorites like the Old Farmer’s Almanac and Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book are seen in this new way—not just as popular books but as foundational texts that shaped our understanding of the American story.

Taken together, these books help us understand how their authors, most of them part of a powerful minority, attempted to construct meaning for the majority. Their beliefs and quirks—as well as personal interests, prejudices, and often strange personalities—informed the values and habits of millions of Americans, woven into our cultural DNA over generations of reading and dog-earing. Yet their influence remains uninvestigated. Until now.

What better way to understand a people than to look at the books they consumed most, the ones they returned to repeatedly, with questions about everything from spelling to social mobility to sex? This fresh and engaging book is American history as you’ve never encountered it before.