On this day the Fannie Farmer Cookbook was published. It immediately transformed the culinary world by introducing "standard, level measurements" such as the cup and teaspoon. Before this recipes called for a "nut of butter", or "two fingers of water".

Farmer was raised and educated in Medford, Massachusetts. As a teenager she suffered paralysis from a stroke and was confined to a wheelchair, from which she learned to cook assisting her mother. She enrolled in the Boston Cooking-School, graduating in 1889, and stayed on as assistant director until taking over in 1894.

She began her own school, Miss Farmer's School of Cookery, to train homemakers and amateur chefs, gaining a national following as a writer and lecturer. She spent her later life promoting the health of a good diet to hospitals and the public.