Welcome to the National Bread Museum's
About - The Project
Created by Donna Kozak, Founder
The National Bread Museum of Grain-Baking-Bread Culture, currently an online museum, was established as a Nebraska Nonprofit Corporation in 2019, and is a complex of three museums:
<---the National Bread Museum of Grain-Baking-Bread
Culture (NBM-GBBC) - the Artifacts.
Currently there are sub-divisions of the 1) Baking Mill, Recipes, & Basics, and the
2) Library & Ephemera Archive which has the 2a) Cookbook Culture
section; --->
<--- the Tins of Taste Museum – Currently 25 countries are represented by 4,000+ commemorative, food-related tins – one significant collection is 800+ German Lebkuchen tins;
the Cultural Heritage & Immigration Museum – with a few Ethnic Bakeries so far. --->
The core emphasis is "Where in the world?" geography of Americans' ancestral heritage, cultural artifacts, and the melting pot of baking influences.
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This museum project is a voice from all of our grandmothers
of many generations, asking us to not forget them,
& how they prepared the way for us to enjoy the life we have today❣
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The Bread Museum foundation of the NBM-GBBC began as a historical research and preservation project to primarily collect treasured artifacts related to the home baking development of "bread culture" (about 1850-1999) and to document their use. In our history, without the substance of grains to eat, people wouldn't have survived, and the country wouldn't have advanced the way it has. And the central focus comes back to the "home baker."
A "bread culture"-based museum is founded on the theme of "Ag/Grain-Milling-Flour-Bread/Baking." God's good grains, first mentioned in Genesis, are found around the world and have been a source of life sustenance since the creation of man. The first bread museum was founded in 1955 in Ulm, Germany, to pay homage to the over-arching subject of bread culture. Since then, over 90 subject-related bread museums have been established on land in countries throughout Europe and western Asia which are currently recognized in the European-based Atlas – Bread Museums in Europe and Beyond (breadculture.net). In addition, one other is recognized in the Atlas, and that is this online National Bread Museum in the USA, and the only one not on land (at least at this time, & hoping that changes soon).
The artifact collection includes 1 - 2,000* objects as well as a few thousand books and ephemera items. (*A thousand artifacts including a few ag & of other occupations related to the world of bread culture, but with the vast majority for home baking, are from the collections gleaned in the German flohmarkts of the 1988-1991 days . . . at the time that the Berlin Wall came down. Most of these artifacts are the same which you'd find in some of the Bread Museums of Europe -- rarely seen in the USA in any public venue.)
Advancing during the 1850-1999 era, the development of all aspects of home baking progressed at an amazing rate with women, primarily, creating stay-at-home careers, raising families, and creating what became known as "the heart of the home" during many times, an 18-hour workday. Ask yourself how many of your past grandmothers can you name? This museum is their voice speaking to you of their lives.
In addition, it's mostly women to whom we are indebted to, for their significant role of the written word through recipes, books, and the advancement of baking information in newspapers, periodicals, and all sorts of additional ephemera during this 1850-1999 era. Many of these creative female pioneers who wrote about food, had home economics or journalism degrees, and had enormous influence on the health of our nation. Then it was the women in the kitchens throughout the land who took that information and were also creating and developing, and then that, also, went into print with recipes of baked goods, savory and sweet. The Cookbook Culture section will either provide a walk down memory lane, an opportunity to share memories with younger family memories & tell your own stories, or provide the foundation for learning, research studies, and/or open doors to unrealized history behind what we have today.
Today, our country's grain-based foundation still supports much of what we eat today. But changes are moving so swiftly in the 21st century that we are quickly losing our history of artifacts and information which represent many generations of our grandmothers' lives. We don't want to forget to whom we owe gratitude. The National Bread Museum is being established to give honor and a tribute to all of our grandmothers related to their contribution of home baking. They are usually an unrecognized and forgotten segment of our society for the extremely significant role they played in the growth of this nation.
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The Tins of Taste Museum component is established to introduce people to several educational subjects:
The World of Art (via Lithographed Tins);
Advertising, Marketing, & Selling Related Mostly to Food, Plus a Few Other Products;
Calligraphy & Design Work;
the History of Various Food Products in the USA and some Worldwide;
the World of German Lebkuchen;
Literature, Cultures, Occupations;
U.S. & World Geography and History.
To date (end of 2024) there are some 4,000+ tins in the Tins of Taste Museum collection. About half are mostly from countries throughout Europe (where the collection began in 1982, the 2nd day we were in England for my husband's 6-year military tour with the SR-71 Blackbird), and half from the United States. By 1988, I had a group of tins from Scotland that had Shortbread, a few German Lebkuchen (which I learned about a few years earlier), and the rest a mix from throughout England either filled or empty when I bought them. Leaving England in 1988, I packed up 400 tins to mail to myself in Germany, our next military assignment. (Military moves provide a certain weight allowance, and "overweight" was double the cost per pound vs. mailing through the postal system. Also, you don't know the weight of household goods until it's all packed & taken away! I didn't want that gamble.)
Going to Germany & the flohmarkts became a different story because of all the old Lebkuchen tins . . . I collected at least 350 of them out of another 500 in those 3 years. Back home during the 1990s, many companies in the U.S. sold their candy-cookies-& many other food-related products in a tin. Boy Scouts & the huge popcorn tins seemed to have continued, but most of the others changed packaging by the mid-2000's decade which I had predicted back in 1994.
Tins of Taste (once on the land) will be a unique museum, both in the content of the tins, and the 1st known for this art genre in this country. It could also give many others in this country a place to possibly have their treasured food-related tin collections become part of this historical preservation project for the enjoyment and benefit of future generations 😊. I know that many who've had a heart attachment through their years of collecting, have a hard time seeing something like that be torn apart, broken up, sold off, etc. They believe, as I do, that all of our years of putting a specific collection together, usually never holds a value of hoping for a monetary return. Rather, it's become a love by a precious commitment to have collected a segment of our country's history which could not be acquired again. They are gratified with having become a historian of a specific treasured subject area of our country's past, and would like to see their efforts & the collection preserved.
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The Cultural Heritage & Immigration Museum component is established for the purpose of a tribute to all the home baking women immigrants from around the world who had an influence in the diversity of our recipes and baked goods through the 1850-1999 era. Their baking of specific cultural and ethnic foods, & other traditions, has kept their history of family ancestry alive, passing it on down from generation to generation in this new homeland. Also, the many programs that could be offered through this museum component can bring people of a community together to help our international neighbors assimilate into our American culture. Nothing does it better than exchanging cultural recipes and sharing what everyone bakes!
It's sad to think that most public school graduates in the past 20+ years don't learn the countries of the world in geography anymore (if they even have that class). It seems as if the 50 states & the capitals are also missing from their knowledge in 4th & 5th grades! Also, they do not know the cultural objects which identify people groups around the world. Therefore, another focus of this museum is to change that, or at least present students with activities of learning the globe and basic cultural artifacts. Like us, I'm sure a great number of people have "souvenirs & objects" they collected during travels, and they, too, are wondering what to do with them (important and meaningful at the time and place of purchase). This can be that depository so countless others in our community and country can benefit by learning about worldwide people groups and their countries and cultures.
Today, the world has come to our doorstep & we at least need to know some identities of our local neighbors' cultures.
It's extremely beneficial that we Americans help our international neighbors assimilate into our American culture. They're waiting for us to knock on their door with an invitation. People desiring legal immigration pay around $6,000 & go through a 1.5-year process to get their permanent residency green card in order to come here! Then it's 5 years before they can become a citizen, if they choose to do so. That's why the desire to "be an American" is extremely meaningful. So we can begin the friendship by baking bread together 🤗.
About the Founder
Where do I start? One thing in almost 80 years of life has led to another, and another, then another! "How this bread museum idea came about" is a result of many influences in my life.
I'd say that the heart-related roots of becoming a collector of home baking history artifacts began with growing up on a Wisconsin dairy farm, and later, having & wanting to keep a close connection with ancestors both alive and deceased. As I got older, the yearning grew to want to have some artifacts to keep which represented their era & lives. I learned that these items become the stories of people's lives, to pass on to future generations. I had been in 4-H eight years which began my "semi-formal" baking education. As a stay-at-home mom, I've made 100s - (1,000s?) of recipes from scratch during the past 57 years of marriage, and being curious, I always wanted to travel the world. That began with a credited independent research project in college in political science, in 1967, on a Quarter Abroad to Europe, along with independent travel to 12 countries. So in 1982, when my husband got his next military assignment to work in England, words cannot express my excitement!
It was there that a friend showed me the Country Living magazine which came out in 1978. Looking at all the pages of people's collections, I saw 100s of items I grew up with during the farm days. Now they were collectibles and keepsakes! It stirred my heart to also wish I could be a keeper of the days past, especially of the home baking artifacts of yesteryear. But I was now in England, and when it came to being able to buy old collectibles, the price was "very dear" in English terms (i.e., pricey and financially beyond what I could, or was willing to pay).
So all of that set the stage for what was to come when we were moved to Germany in 1988. And I should say to the younger people reading this, that one of the main factors throughout my years was that I took advantage of many opportunities which usually appeared before me only one time. And that's what happened when my husband came home from a German Volksmarch one day (he did almost 100 our first year, a 10 km organized & marked walk or run, & you received a medal, pin, stein, plate, etc.) and told me he just passed an outdoor "flea market." Within minutes I was out the door, but when I got there (1-2 p.m.), they were all closing up (German culture). I found out where another flohmarkt was the following weekend (beginning about 7 a.m.), & from there the 3rd where a hawker was selling the beloved, monthly booklet ($1-below)! Had I missed the 2nd (to find out about the next one), or the 3rd (the booklet), none of the flohmarkting future would have existed!
Getting to live in Germany for three of our nine years in Europe was the highlight for the core collections of now creating the National Bread Museum. In the six years we lived in England, I had seen so much historic culture of the past, preserved in museums, castles, National Trust and other historic homes and buildings, and sometimes -- all the buildings/homes in an entire town, that I always gave thanks to all the people through time who saved, collected, and preserved! In real life the "old stuff" is priceless in order to tell about our history in a way we can't learn from books, the T.V., etc., but only by "boots on the ground," and "to see & hold in hand." And the "old stuff" I found in the German flohmarkts during those years did not disappoint!
In fact, Germany had and still has so many flohmarkts that there was (still is?) a monthly pamphlet of the schedule throughout the entire country, and a magazine or two at the news agent shop in the local hauptbahnhof (train station). For over 2.5 years (1988-'91), I went to 1-5 outdoor flohmarkts a week in my local area around Wiesbaden and had the time of my life bargaining for the oldest of home baking artifacts that I just loved finding. Every piece represented someone's life, purpose, and family. I felt so thank-ful that I could be the next beneficiary to preserve that treasure of someone's time in the past - - usually the artifacts were from the late 1800s to WWII.
Sometimes there was an unusual tool, or another cultural object that spoke of the life of a related occupation in farming and growing grains, or milling, or the cooper, the wheelwright, etc. These also intrigued me. Sometimes I could see the story of the person's life in the object -- how worn down a mallet was, or a tool repaired and wired together because they couldn't afford another (or another wasn't available!). But at other times it was the art-design-love of the maker . . . a heart carved into a husband's hand-carved item for his wife to use in the kitchen, or a tiny design of beauty in a piece of metal. And most of the artifacts I was able to buy were so old &/or unusual, that I had never seen them before in anyone's home or farm during my previous 42 years. They came before my time. So many wooden items had been hand made or hand carved, and metal hand forged, etc.
So that's how the "hunt for" and "serious" collection of artifacts (and always Lebkuchen tins) began in Germany's flohmarkts in 1988-'91. At first it was just a personal interest to keep and preserve items of an age past. I was thankful I could do it and that I had a storage room. (Oh, yes, if you read above about me mailing tins from England to myself in Germany, for the next move back to the U.S., I mailed myself 1,000+ pounds, 35-40 boxes @ $2/# to hopefully not be overweight, as the mover's shipping weight was $4/#!! So in actuality, in the inventory books I should add $2 per each of 1,000 artifacts on to its flohmarkt cost😄! Having this collection has been pricey in both time and $$$ since then - like storage!) But I always felt as if I was called to be a keeper, to collect and enjoy having these artifacts for only a short while. I believed that "someday" they were to ultimately be given as a gift to a public venue for historic preservation, education, research & study, enjoyment, memories, and more. It would be in thanksgiving to the Lord for the opportunity I had, to contribute to our country's history by helping to remember our grand-mothers' lives regarding our home baking history. Beyond me, others were to be given the same opportunity to learn by, appreciate, and enjoy these historical artifacts. We often hear about "what one person can do, what difference one person can make." So for me (and my supportive husband and family), this is what I/we can do to show that gratitude. But in the early 1990s, I had no idea what and how that "would - should - could" happen. I just figured time will tell.
It was about 1997, that I learned of bread museums in Europe and got to go back in 2000 & 2010 to check out a dozen. When seeing them, I immediately knew it was that venue that needed to be established in the United States for all of us. It would be how the artifacts I had, could be historically preserved for the educational benefit of our home baking history, for our future generations! Also, we didn't have a bread museum like these, but yet we have a 400-year history of living off of grain and supplying much to the world! One primary reason I loved seeing these museums is that my collection holds as least one of each, if not more, of many items that are in those European bread museums I visited in four countries.
So thus began the long road ahead of eventually needing to teach myself how to build a website so I could present the bread museum / bread culture idea to all Americans who could, & especially would, financially help fund, and in many other ways help me establish the project. Thank the Lord for John who told me about Webnode (this website host), and those who created the idea and company of Webnode!
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The Future
Now I'm at the point where there's a need to find those who will help with the necessary funding to establish this project on the land, and for those who'll be needed to help create, & eventually take over & run the project & programs. If you're reading this, I wonder if you're one of those who is needed - who can help - has the time or money - talent or ideas? I believe this is "our" gift, yours and mine and everyone who has a grandmother, working together, giving a gift of gratitude to our grandmothers through whom we have life. It's our tribute to remembering them. I've always believed that if 1 million of our 340 million population each give $25 to help preserve their grandmothers' legacies, OR 2.5 million each give $10, OR one philanthropic person funds the entire projected amount to begin, we could see this rise up in short order.
As I've already mentioned, this online website for the United States has been recognized as a significant bread museum in the world of bread culture, i.e. listed in the European-based
Atlas - Bread Museums in Europe and Beyond at breadculture.net . . .
the cornerstone website in the world, calling awareness to and giving gratitude for
God's good grains - grandpas who grow - grandmothers who bake - and the goodness we're given.
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P. S. 2026
I'm writing this at the end of 2024, and in another year we'll be entering our country's 250th year anniversary based on the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It'll also be a bit over 400 years since the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620. What a tribute it would be if, in the name of all generations of grandmothers who had a significant part of their life attached to raising families with their home baking during these past centuries, the doors to the National Bread Museum of Grain-Baking-Bread Culture could open for all of us in 2026.
As to what "one person can do," I can only do so much. Until now, this project has been developed and funded 99.9% solely by me alone. I've been told to create a "NEED" page with some specifics for help, so that's next on the agenda. If you're still reading, you may know a lot more about how to move forward than I do. Therefore, if you're asking yourself if there's a way for you to volunteer to help, or can offer suggestions, please send an email to me, Donna, at breadmuseum@aol.com.
Thank you very much.
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For the Curious - Wondering . . .
One thing many who are reading this are probably wondering about is money . . . how could I do what I did with one paycheck, raising a family of four, and me being a stay-at-home (an oxymoron) mom. The answer is that all of my flohmarkting paid for itself because of the blessing of a consignment shop I had access to in Germany. The first month of purchases was "out of our pocket," (from our family money), but after that, to get to the magnitude of the collections I amassed because of the treasure trove of what was available to buy in those days, I believed it needed to pay for itself. Fortunately, almost all of the "Bygones of Yesteryear" I was willing to part with, sold month-by-month. Then it was a matter of staying within "X" amount of earned hundreds each month to recycle right back into the flohmarkts. When, and if, the money ran out, I was done for the month. It was a continual, repetitive cycle.
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~ If possible, go ask your grandma or great-aunt or someone else you know in the Baby Boomer generation for a couple of her favorite recipes, and if she'll handwrite them on cards for you. And don't ask her to print. If you don't know cursive, ask her to help you learn to read her handwriting. 😅 ~
This is the "About page" for the National Bread Museum. You can continue to:
(1) Bread Culture Artifacts ---> Artifacts for Food Grains/Ag ---> Home Baking Artifacts
(2) The Baking Mill; (3) Stone Oven Bakery & Eatery; (4) Library or Cookbook Culture Archive;
(5) Tins of Taste Museum & Art-on-Tin Study Center;
(6) Cultural Heritage Center & Immigration Museum;
(7) A Glimpse into the Past; (8) Grandma's Legacy
(9) Archiving Omaha's Grain History
HOME --- RECIPES & BASICS