Chew on This: 11th annual Mass History Conference explores the history of food in Massachusetts

2015 bannerWhen: Monday, June 1, 2015 | 9:00 am – 4:30 pm

Where: Hogan Campus Center, College of Holy Cross, Worcester, Mass.

Online registration is open. Visit www.masshumanities.org.

Click here for directions.

At this, the eleventh annual Mass History Conference, conference organizers will welcome the many small historical organizations and practitioners preserving, interpreting, and deepening the exploration of Massachusetts history.

You are what you eat! Or are you? At this year’s conference, we will explore the meaning and availability of food in Massachusetts History: what we grow, what we eat, food and identity, scarcity and quality. We will once again present a program that is chock-full of excellent hands-on examples of, and workshops in, the best practices in public history. We are planning workshops on topics like doing food demonstrations; conducting oral histories that focus on food and identity; and using public history in reinventing the food system. The conference will also include sessions on 20th century food production; archives with cookbook and other food-related collections; the history of and current strategies for feeding the hungry in Massachusetts cities and towns; multicultural food ways and local practices; how to interpret account books; Native American food practices; and interpreting agricultural landscapes.

This year’s conference, Chew on This: Presenting the history of food in Massachusetts, will feature a keynote address by filmmaker Ian Cheney, creator of The Search for General Tso, a 2014 documentary film about Chinese food in America, and co-founder of Food Corps.

Conference organizers are happy to welcome the 2015 MA SHRAB Forum to the Mass History Conference! MA SHRAB is holding two free sessions in the afternoon to which any Mass History Conference participant may attend. If you would like to ONLY attend these two SHRAB sessions, register for free on the MA SHRAB Forum Registration Page.

The Mass History Conference, widely celebrated as the best networking and skill-sharing opportunity for historians of our state culture, is co-presented by Mass Humanities, New England Archivists, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, the University of Massachusetts Amherst Public History Program, Massachusetts State Historical Records Advisory Board (MA SHRAB), the University of Massachusetts Boston Public History and Archives Track, and the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston.

Online registration is open. Visit www.masshumanities.org.

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