Helen Claire Duprey Bullock was born in
Oakland, California. In the 1920s and 1930s, she worked at the
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation as an archivist. Her first book
The Williamsburg Art of Cookery was published in 1938 and helped launch the study of American culinary history as a field. In the 1940s, Bullock worked for the
Library of Congress and catalogued the papers of
Thomas Jefferson and
Abraham Lincoln. Bullock was an honorary member of the
American Institute of Architects and an honorary trustee of the
United States Capitol Historical Society. Described by the
New York Times as "the nation's leading authority on open-hearth cooking," Bullock was a historical consultant for several cookbooks including
The American Heritage Cookbook, the ''First Ladies' Cookbook
and Mary and Vincent Price Present A National Treasury of Cookery'', all published in the 1960s. Her papers are held at the
Schlesinger Library at
Harvard University. == Publications ==