Bread for soldiers in 1821 manual

General Regulations for the Army included instructions for quartermasters to inspect the bakery and officers were to read articles on "Baking" in..... encyclopaedias. Printed in Phila.

Thanks to all those in the military and veterans.

Baker's peels and huge hoop skirts - George Cruikshank sketch 1850

In 1850 the dresses had become so large that the gentlemen had to serve the wine or jelly on a baker's peel... according to satirist George Cruikshank.

WWI and WWII bakers and cookery schools

A World War I recruiting poster. Enlist as a group and serve with your "pals" in a Company of Bakers. For experienced or trainees up to 45 years old.

A World War II school in the desert in Egypt used ovens out of petrol tins and oil drums. Both images from Library of Congress.

The hard life of bakers in Victorian London

Starting at 11pm to make the dough, nap on flour sack over the kneading board (on the trough). wake at 2am, start kneeding and forming the dough then bake loaves in oven. When all that was done (in extreme heat), the bakers had to change clothes and go out on the street to sell the bread.

Salem's "Old Bakery" and bean pots

The Old Bakery of Salem, Mass. was originally built in 1683 as a home by Benjamin Hooper, a cordwainer, became a bakery from c1865 at 23 Washington Street and moved in 1911 to the House of Seven Gables complex.

Large scale pasta production in 1767

A Frenchman, Paul-Jacques Malouin (1701-1778) wrote a detailed (over 300 pages) book Description et détails des arts du meunier: du vermicelier et du boulenger - about the pasta maker and baker - with marvelous images.  The hard manual labor was eased somewhat by rotating a pole connected by rope to the pasta press bar and by jumping up and down on a pole to knead the dough (similar to 1638 biscuit break).

Crimean War steamers Abundance (bakery) and Bruiser (flour mill)

The famed cook Alexis Soyer (1810-1858) wrote Soyer's Culinary Campaign (1857) about his experiences to improve the cooking and baking for the British Soldiers during the Crimean War (1853-56).  Floating bakeries on ships were described at length; from "working of the flour" to 15+ thousand rations baked each day.  More on floating mills HERE

Baker's cart guard dogs

The little dogs under the cart to the left, did not pull the cart, but would protect the contents by wildly barking while the baker delivered his bread.  The image is by the British artist WH Pyne, 1827 and the write up below about terriers in New York is from an 1872  magazine.