The 1930s are a fascinating moment to study food. Examining how ordinary people bought, cooked, ate, and thought about food can reveal previously hidden aspects of American life during a time of vast economic and social change. What America Ate’s website invites users to interact with and enhance the historical sources, while the digital archive allows users to approach American food in the Depression from three distinct angles. Learn more here.

The America Eats project was a Depression-era jobs creation program that sent writers and photographers across the country to chronicle American eating by region. Federal administrators had planned to publish the collected essays in a big reference book on regional American food, but the book was never completed because the program was abruptly terminated weeks after America’s entry into World War II. Learn more here.

Community cookbooks were cooperative, grassroots ventures with contributions from individuals sharing recipes for foods they already cooked and liked. Mimeographed in church basements or published in miniature print runs by charities or schools or clubs, community cookbooks were cheap and sometimes flimsy books that are precious sources today in part because they didn’t usually survive. Learn more here.

The digital archive contains a massive collection of rare advertisements, pamphlets, recipe leaflets, and food packaging materials produced by food companies during the Depression. Food marketing materials show how deeply technological and commercial forces were shaping American eating by the 1930s. Learn more here.