Sarah Tyson Rorer

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Sarah Tyson Rorer (1849–1937) was an American food writer and a pioneer in domestic science. She is often called the first American dietitian.

She was born on October 18, 1849, in Richboro, Pennsylvania, to a pharmacist father and Elizabeth Sagers. She learned cooking in East Aurora, New York, and later in Philadelphia at the New Century Club. She planned to become a pharmacist and studied at Philadelphia Women’s Medical College, but when the club needed a cooking teacher she stepped in. After finishing school, she taught cooking and dietetics at the New Century Club.

In 1882 she started the Philadelphia Cooking School, offering cooking classes, a chemistry class, and lessons on making good meals for both the sick and healthy. She ran the school for 18 years and reached about 5,000 students. She gave many cooking demonstrations, including at the Pennsylvania Chautauqua, where she served as president of the women’s auxiliary.

Rorer’s demonstrations at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair were especially famous, where she directed the East and West pavilions. She wrote for magazines and newspapers, including Table Talk, Household News, Ladies’ Home Journal, and Good Housekeeping. She was editor and part-owner of Table Talk from 1886 to 1892, editor of Household News from 1893 to 1897, and worked with Ladies’ Home Journal until 1911 when Good Housekeeping hired her.

She wrote 32 cookbooks under the name Sarah Tyson Heston Rorer. Her readers were mainly white, middle- and upper-class housewives. She also directed the Pennsylvania Chautauqua School of Domestic Science. Although not a vegetarian herself, she wrote a successful vegetarian cookbook, Mrs. Rorer’s Vegetable Cookery and Meat Substitute, showing how to cook three meatless meals a day.

In 1871 she married William Albert Rorer; they separated around 1896 and had three children, two of whom survived her. During the Great Depression she relied on her sons and her students for support. She died on December 27, 1937, at her home in Colebrook, Pennsylvania, at age 88. Her cookbooks became standard texts.