American Food -- a new historical resource

A major collection of items on the history of American food is now on display at the University of Michigan:

The Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive at the Clements Library on the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor contains thousands of items from the 16th to 20th centuries - books, ephemera, menus, magazines, graphics, maps, manuscripts, diaries, letters, catalogues, advertisements, and reference works. It is a work in progress, and material is being added and catalogued daily.

The Archive will be introduced to the public with an exhibition from May through September 2005. The May opening will be accompanied by a symposium on American Culinary History. Further details will be available soon.

Visit the archive site here.

Johnny [R. W.] Apple, who describes himself as an "omnivore," does a nice writeup on it in the NYT here.

Now here's a book/dissertation just waiting to be written:

Sarah Tyson Rorer (1849-1937), the Philadelphia cookery writer and teacher who prescribed daily drafts of fresh air as the cure for almost everything, is another major focus of the collection. In addition to more than 100 books by Mrs. Rorer and her students, Mrs. Longone has assembled issues of the magazines she founded and edited, copies of all the columns that she contributed to the Ladies' Home Journal, which had a circulation of 13 million at the time she wrote for it, recipes that she developed, and advertisements for food products that she endorsed and for food manufacturing companies that she established.

Go to it guys. Start writing those travel grant applications today!