Refined Taste: Sugar, Confectionery, and Consumers in Nineteenth-Century America

American consumers today regard sugar as a mundane and sometimes even troublesome substance linked to hyperactivity in children and other health concerns. Yet two hundred years ago American consumers treasured sugar as a rare commodity and consumed it only in small amounts. In Refined Tastes: Sugar, Confectionery, and Consumers in Nineteenth-Century America, Wendy A. Woloson demonstrates how the cultural role of sugar changed from being a precious luxury good to a ubiquitous necessity. Sugar became a social marker that established and reinforced class and gender differences.

Wendy A. Woloson is bibliographer for the program in Early American Economy and Society and acting curator of printed books at the Library Company of Philadelphia.