Second World War Child joined the
Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in 1942 after finding that at , she was too tall to enlist in the
Women's Army Corps (WACs) or in the
U.S. Navy's WAVES. She began her OSS career as a
typist at its headquarters in
Washington, D.C., but, because of her education and experience, was soon given a position as a
top-secret researcher working directly for the head of OSS, General
William J. Donovan. As a research assistant in the Secret Intelligence division, Child typed over 10,000 names on white note cards to keep track of officers. For a year, she worked at the OSS Emergency Sea Rescue Equipment Section (ESRES) in Washington, D.C. as a file clerk and then as an assistant to developers of a
shark repellent needed to ensure that
sharks would not explode
ordnance targeting German
U-boats. Still in use today, the experimental shark repellent "marked Child's first foray into the world of cooking." During 1944–1945, Child was posted to
Kandy, Ceylon (now
Sri Lanka), where her responsibilities included "registering, cataloging and channeling a great volume of highly classified communications" for the OSS's clandestine stations in Asia. She was later posted to
Kunming,
China, where she received the
Emblem of Meritorious Civilian Service as head of the Registry of the OSS Secretariat. While she was in Kandy, she met
Paul Cushing Child, who was also an OSS employee. The two later married on September 1, 1946, in
Lumberville, Pennsylvania, later moving to
a house in the
Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Paul, a
New Jersey native who had lived in
Paris as an artist and poet, was known for his sophisticated palate and had introduced his wife to fine cuisine. He joined the
United States Foreign Service, and, in 1948, the couple moved to Paris after the
State Department assigned Paul there as an exhibits officer with the
United States Information Agency. She joined the women's cooking club
Le Cercle des Gourmettes, through which she met
Simone Beck, who was writing a French cookbook for Americans with her friend
Louisette Bertholle. Beck proposed that Child work with them to make the book appeal to Americans. In 1951, Child, Beck, and Bertholle began to teach cooking to American women in Child's Paris kitchen, calling their informal school ''
L'école des trois gourmandes'' (The School of the Three Food Lovers). For the next decade, as the Childs moved around Europe and finally to
Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1961, the three researched and repeatedly tested recipes. Child translated the
French into
English, making the recipes detailed, interesting, and practical. In 1963, the Childs built a home near the
Provence town of
Plascassier in the hills above
Cannes on property belonging to co-author Beck and her husband, Jean Fischbacher. The Childs named it "
La Pitchoune", a
Provençal word meaning "the little one", but over time the property was often affectionately called simply "La Peetch".
Avis DeVoto Avis DeVoto was an American culinary editor, book reviewer, and cook. In 1952, DeVoto received a letter from Julia Child, at that time living in Paris, responding to one of her husband Bernard's recent magazine columns on how he detested stainless steel knives; Child thought he was “100% right”. DeVoto's reply to the letter initiated the correspondence and lifelong friendship between the two women. DeVoto and Child would not meet in person until 1954, but during those first two years they exchanged around 120 letters, which were eventually compiled into a book,
As Always, Julia (2010). DeVoto served as an early reader and editor for Child's forthcoming cookbook,
Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and her editorial connections would help Child and her co-authors
Louisette Bertholle and
Simone Beck sign a contract with
Houghton Mifflin in 1954. When the publishing company rejected the book, DeVoto helped push for the book's publication by
Alfred A. Knopf.
Media career The three would-be authors initially signed a contract with publisher
Houghton Mifflin, which later rejected the manuscript for seeming too much like an encyclopedia. When it was finally published in 1961 by
Alfred A. Knopf, the 726-page
Mastering the Art of French Cooking was a best-seller and received critical acclaim that derived in part from the American interest in French culture in the early 1960s. Lauded for its helpful illustrations and precise attention to detail, and for making fine cuisine accessible, the book is still in print and is considered a seminal culinary work. Following this success, Child wrote magazine articles and a regular column for
The Boston Globe newspaper. She would go on to publish nearly twenty titles under her name and with others. Many, though not all, were related to her television shows. Her last book was the autobiographical
My Life in France, published posthumously in 2006 and written with her grandnephew,
Alex Prud'homme. The book recounts Child's life with her husband,
Paul Cushing Child, in
postwar France.
The French Chef and related books A 1961 appearance on a book review show on what was then the
National Educational Television (NET) station of Boston,
WGBH-TV (now a major
Public Broadcasting Service station), led to the inception of her first television cooking show after viewers enjoyed her demonstration of how to cook an omelette.
The French Chef debuted as a summer pilot series, on July 26, 1962. This led to the program becoming a regular series, beginning on February 11, 1963, on
WGBH, where it was immediately successful. The show ran nationally for ten years and won
Peabody and
Emmy Awards, including the first Emmy award for an educational program. Though she was not the first television cook, Child was the most widely seen. She attracted the broadest audience with her cheery enthusiasm, distinctively warbly voice, and unpatronizing, unaffected manner. In 1972,
The French Chef became the first television program to be
captioned for the
deaf, using the preliminary technology of open-captioning. Child's second book,
The French Chef Cookbook, was a collection of the
recipes she had demonstrated on the show. It was soon followed in 1970 by
Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume Two, again in collaboration with Simone Beck, but not with Louisette Bertholle, with whom the professional relationship had ended. Child's fourth book, ''From Julia Child's Kitchen,'' was illustrated with her husband's photographs and documented the color series of
The French Chef, as well as an extensive library of kitchen notes compiled by Child during the course of the show.
Impact on American households Child had a large impact on American households and
housewives. Because of the technology in the 1960s, the show was unedited, causing her blunders to appear in the final version and ultimately lend "authenticity and approachability to television." According to Toby Miller in "Screening Food: French Cuisine and the Television Palate," one mother he spoke to said that sometimes "all that stood between me and insanity was hearty Julia Child" because of Child's ability to soothe and transport her. In addition, Miller notes that Child's show began before the
feminist movement of the 1960s, which meant that the issues housewives and women faced were somewhat ignored on television.
Later career at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History In the 1970s and 1980s, she was the star of numerous television programs, including
Julia Child & Company,
Julia Child & More Company, and ''Dinner at Julia's
. For the 1979 book Julia Child and More Company'', she won a
National Book Award in
category Current Interest. In 1980, Child started appearing regularly on
ABC's
Good Morning America. In 1981, she founded the
American Institute of Wine & Food, with vintners
Robert Mondavi and
Richard Graff, and others, to "advance the understanding, appreciation and quality of wine and food," a pursuit she had already begun with her books and television appearances. In 1989, she published what she considered her magnum opus, a book and instructional video series collectively entitled
The Way To Cook. During the
AIDS crisis of the 1980s, Child went from holding
homophobic views to being a passionate AIDS activist, triggered by a close associate succumbing to AIDS. In the mid-1990s, as part of her work with the American Institute of Wine and Food, Child became increasingly concerned about children's food education. She starred in four more series in the 1990s that featured guest chefs:
Cooking with Master Chefs, ''In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs
, Baking with Julia, and Julia & Jacques Cooking at Home''. She collaborated with
Jacques Pépin many times for television programs and cookbooks. All of Child's books during this time stemmed from the television series of the same names. Child's use of ingredients like butter and cream has been questioned by food critics and modern-day nutritionists. She addressed these criticisms throughout her career, predicting that a "fanatical fear of food" would take over the country's dining habits, and that focusing too much on nutrition takes the pleasure from enjoying food. In a 1990 interview, Child said, "Everybody is overreacting. If fear of food continues, it will be the death of
gastronomy in the United States. Fortunately, the French don't suffer from the same hysteria we do. We should enjoy food and have fun. It is one of the simplest and nicest pleasures in life."
Julia Child's kitchen, designed by her husband, was the setting for three of her television shows. It is now on display at the
National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. Beginning with ''In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs,'' the Childs' home kitchen in Cambridge was fully transformed into a functional set, with TV-quality lighting, three cameras positioned to catch all angles in the room, and a massive center island with a gas stovetop on one side and an electric stovetop on the other, but leaving the rest of the Childs' appliances alone, including "my wall oven with its squeaking door." This kitchen backdrop hosted nearly all of Child's 1990s television series. ==Later years==