This comes over the transom from Today in History. Legend has it that on this day in 1904, Charles E. Menches filled a pastry cone with two scoops of ice-cream and thus is responsible for the conical icon we celebrate today. The history of ideas, however sweet, is more complicated than that, as the cast of characters who claim to have invented the ice cream cone include a number of other confectioners present at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. Does the waffle cone have even earlier precedents? Read more about the history of the ice cream cone, and peruse related materials in the Library’s collections, including Thomas Jefferson’s recipe for vanilla ice cream, in Today in History. For further reading, consult the nearly 31 flavors of Selected Internet Resources–Ice Cream compiled by the Science, Technology and Business Division.
The sheet music collections in American Memory provide a number of songs with