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Longone Center for American
Culinary Research
The Longone Center for American Culinary Research is an outstanding
resource with distinctive and important features. It is increasingly
recognized as a premier collection for the study of culinary
Americana. The Center consists of the Janice Bluestein Longone
Culinary Archive augmented by the rich Americana holdings of
the Clements Library, catalogued for
their culinary content.
Shaped by the donation of a library organized over a forty-year
period by Janice and Daniel Longone, the Center possesses
a coherent collection intended to define the American culinary
experience.
The Archive is notable for containing not only
most of the essential “high
spots” in the field, but strong holdings for related
areas of interdisciplinary study including:
• Homemaking, decorum, and etiquette
• Immigrant and ethnic voices
• Children’s cookery
• Regional foodways
• The cooking school movement
• The “great ladies” of 19th century
American cookery
• Health, diet, and vegetarianism
• Bakers and baking
• Food and the media |
• Charitable cookbooks
• Appliances and equipment
• Chefs, restaurants, hotels, and menus
• Industrialization of food production
• The history of food advertising
• War cookery—at home and at the front
• Beverages including wine, beer, spirits,
coffee, tea, and chocolate
• Markets and grocers
• Food and the arts |
The appointment at the Clements Library of a Curator of American
Culinary History, the first anywhere, was an important step
towards academic recognition of the field. Equally important
is a commitment to making the Center permanent, with endowments
for a full-time curator, symposia, lectures and exhibitions,
and funds for acquisition.
The enormous task of cataloguing the many thousands of 16th
to 20th century items in the Archive is in progress. To the
professional staff of the Clements have been added several
dozen volunteers, now in their fifth year of work (a total
of over 10,000 hours).
The Center plans a series of biennial symposia on American
Culinary History. The first will be in May 2005; the second
(May 2007) will focus on Regional and Ethnic Culinary Americana;
the third (May 2009) on Dining Out in America: Chefs and Restaurants. Additional
exhibitions and lectures are planned.
The dedication in May 2005 will formally inaugurate the Longone Center and define its resources. No other institution possesses the same combination of Americana holdings, committed direction, dedicated staff, and steady volunteer force that is shaping the
Center. This initiative, for which we solicit generous support, will provide a unique resource for culinary studies for the University community and scholars everywhere.
U-M
News Release | Honorary
Committee | Jan
Longone Bio
For further information and details contact
Jan Longone
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