Women's History Month: Julia Child

Here's to JULIA CHILD!

She was born Julia Carolyn McWilliams in Pasadena, California.

At six feet, two inches tall, Julia played tennis, golf, and basketball as a child and continued to play sports while attending Smith College, from which she graduated in 1934 with a major in English.

Following her graduation from college, she moved to New York City, where she worked as a copywriter. Returning to California in 1937, Julia spent the next four years writing for local publications.

She joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) after finding that she was too tall to enlist in the Women's Army Corps or in the U.S. Navy's WAVES. She worked at the OSS Emergency Rescue Equipment Section (ERES) as an assistant to developers of a shark repellent needed to ensure that sharks would not explode ordnance targeting German U-boats. In 1944 Julia was posted to Kandy, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). She was later posted to China, where she received the Emblem of Meritorious Civilian Service as head of the Registry of the OSS Secretariat.


While in Ceylon, Julia met Paul Child, also an OSS employee, and the two were married September 1, 1946. Paul had lived in Paris as an artist and poet, was known for his sophisticated palate, and introduced his wife to fine cuisine. He joined the United States Foreign Service and in 1948 the couple moved to Paris when the US State Department assigned Paul there.

Julia repeatedly recalled her first meal in Rouen, France as a culinary revelation; once, she described the meal of oysters, sole meunière, and fine wine as "an opening up of the soul and spirit for me." In Paris she attended the famous Le Cordon Bleu cooking school and later studied privately with master chefs. Julia joined the women's cooking club "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 Julia work with them, to make the book appeal to Americans.

In 1951, Julia, 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, the three researched and repeatedly tested recipes. jULIA translated the French into English, making the recipes detailed, interesting, and practical.

Their book was first published in 1961: a 734-pager titled Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It 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.

Her first television show, The French Chef, premiered in 1963. She attracted the broadest audience with her cheery enthusiasm, distinctively charming warbly voice, and non-patronizing and unaffected manner.

In the 1970s and 1980s, she was the star of numerous television programs.

Julia '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.

In 2000, Julia received the French Legion of Honor and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000.