Julia Child

Before the cookbooks and television, Child worked for the Office of Strategic Services during the Second World War, handling research and intelligence records. Cookery became a serious new course of study when she enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu in 1949; Mastering the Art of French Cooking followed in 1961 with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle. Her archive offers a clear sequence of wartime employment, formal learning and collaborative publication before television made the second profession familiar.