Dear Colleague message

Project: Recipe for America

Project Director: Lynda Kennedy

Dear Colleague,

We are delighted that you have expressed interest in participating in Recipe for America, the NEH Summer Institute at the New York Public Library. We are looking forward to welcoming 25 educators as Summer Scholars engaged in the exploration of immigration, American identity and its expression through that most accessible of subjects- food!

As the Director of Teaching & Learning, Literacy and Outreach here at the Library, I will be acting as project director for the Institute. Over the course of my career I have been involved in researching, developing, and implementing programs in the Education Departments of a variety of history-rich institutions, acted as a mentor to teachers through several Teaching American History grant projects and served as a faculty member in the MS Ed programs of Hunter College, CUNY and the Metropolitan College of New York. My work on using theresources of history-rich institutions to professionally develop history and social studies teachers hasbeen presented at the Organization of American Historians, the National Council for the Social Studies,and the American Educational Research Association.A diverse faculty of accomplished humanities scholars and educators, including Librarycuratorial staff who have deep knowledge of the humanities and social science collections in their care, have and will continue to work to prepare and deliver the Institute. Institute faculty will be comprised of history and cultural scholars recognized nationally in their fields, including Hasia Diner of New York University; Andrew F. Smith of New School University; Yohuru Williams of Fairfield University; Gotham Center for New York City History Director Suzanne Wasserman; and author Jane Ziegelman. Experts in pedagogy and instructional technologies will further support participants in connecting the content of the Institute, researchskills, and classroom teaching.

Scope of the Institute

Throughout our nation’s history, the stories of voluntary immigrant groups show similar patterns of initially gathering in ethnic communities for reasons of safety, familiarity, and support, followed by a gradual process of “becoming American” by moving out of the ethnic enclave – still carrying traditions of the ancestral home country – but taking on elements of other cultures, languages, and traditions in a way that is distinctly American.The role that the United States has played as a place of new life for myriad immigrant groupsthat have, in turn, shaped the nation is a major theme of U.S. history studied in schools nation-wide. National History standards highlight immigration as a key theme, as do state curriculum standards. The process of “becoming” American, of being both shaped by and helping to shape our nation, can be seen through many aspects of immigrant life, but none so readily or easily accessible for students as through their food cultures. Everybody eats – this is a notion expressed across geographic space and through time, and is a shared experience readily accessible to young people. It is this premise that facilitates a connection to the seemingly unfamiliar lives of 19th and 20th century immigrants, as well as to those who have continued to immigrate to the United States, who brought and continue to bring their distinctive culinary traditions to their new homeland.
The role that New York City has played in the story of United States immigration makes it the ideal setting for an Institute covering this content. In the crowded streets of 19th century and early twentieth century New York City, diverse cultural groups worked together and often lived in the same tenements. They shopped from the same pushcarts and stores. Recipes and foods from respective mother countries eventually intertwined and melded to craft new foodways and eating traditions. As part of the American History curriculum, teachers from across the country cover the role of New York City as gateway – from the early immigrant arrival point of Castle Garden to the opening of Ellis Island in 1892. NYPL’s Institute will be an opportunity for participants to refresh and hone their knowledge of immigration and immerse themselves in the Library’s wealth of primary source materials, including important items of ephemera that resonate particularly strongly from a pedagogical standpoint.The experience of working with source material, as well as assigned readings, in the places tied to their history cannot be underestimated. NEH Summer Scholars will walk through iconic immigrant neighborhoods, stand in the kitchen of a cramped tenement apartment, and experience the Ellis Island gateway as thousands did before. This experience of historic place, coupled with exploring documents, artifacts, and ephemera housed within the Library, will provide a much richer understanding of the content than what is possible from merely reading about it in a textbook.

Research shows that effective teachers require pedagogical knowledge as well as contentproficiency.To this end, the Institute will focus on three important aspects of professionaldevelopment: teacher as learner; teacher as researcher; and teacher as creator of educational experiences. The Institute has been planned to balance the delivery of new content knowledge with the practice of new research skills and classroom application, with time to work in small peer groups to develop new curriculum.

Overarching goals for Recipe for America Summer Scholars include:

● Increased content knowledge in United States history in relation to immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as its relevance to modern day;

● Better understanding of larger concepts of cultural identity and adaptation; and

● Increased skills in archival research, as well as increased usage of documents and ephemera in the classroom to promote historical thinking and digital media to take advantage of growing access to digital humanities archives.

Institute Session Overview

Section One: Mid-19th to Early 20th Centuries

The first week of the Institute will introduce the core themes of 19th and early 20th centuryimmigration, with a focus on Western and Eastern European groups that made their way into thegateway city of New York. Project staff will examine how these groups created their own neighborhood enclaves and how they interacted with and influenced each other, as well as wider “American” culture.The first week’s sessions feature anambitious schedule that builds the link between immigration, food, and the Library’s collections. TheInstitute kicks off with an orientation and overview by Project Director Lynda Kennedy, with Dr.Suzanne Wasserman (GothamCenter for New York City History) serving as opening speaker andproviding an introduction to 19th century New York that highlights the arrival of major immigrantgroups, their cultural interactions, and their impact on the City.Following a discussion of Dr. Wasserman’s presentation and the assigned readings, RebeccaFederman, Culinary Collections Librarian, and journalist and cultural historian Laura Shapiro,curators of the concurrent NYPL exhibition Lunch Hour NYC, will lead participants through theexhibition, highlighting themes of immigration, cultural identity, and food as represented in the artifacts,documents, and ephemera on display. The exhibition will serve as a reference point for Instituteparticipants to return to throughout their stay. The participants, led by Dr. Kennedyand thecurators, will develop a series of research questions based on materials and collections highlighted in theexhibition.The Institute’s next sessions continue the focus on 19th and early 20th century immigration.Participants will explore the effect Ellis Island had on immigrant populations processed there, and howthe facility set the stage for cultural sharing and assimilation. The Institute will visit Ellis IslandImmigrationMuseum and CastleClintonNational Monument, which served as an immigration stationuntil the opening of Ellis Island in 1892. A walking tour of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, witheducator, historian, and writer Joyce Mendelsohn will bring to life the changing populations and food ofthe neighborhood, a geographic area rich with a long immigrant history and still a nexus of interactionbetween modern-day immigrant groups. In order to better understand the living conditions of immigrantsduring this time period, participants will explore the Lower East SideTenementMuseum. Built in 1863, the Museum has its origins as a tenement house where thousands of immigrants began their newAmerican lives. Institute participants will tour the tenement and learn new ways for integrating the useof artifacts, architecture, and personal narrative into the social studies curriculum.The theme of changing neighborhoods, changing foods is also emphasized with the introductionof the Institute’s literature circle, during which participants will first explore the text Hungering forAmerica: Italian, Irish, and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration with co-director Janna Robin.Following the circle, the book’s author, Dr. Hasia Diner (New YorkUniversity) will lead participantsin a discussion about the historically important role food played, both previous to the great immigrationwaves of the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as once these populations established themselves. Dr.Diner will be followed by Jane Ziegelman, author of 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five ImmigrantFamilies in One New York Tenement, which looks at five immigrant families from the “elementalperspective of the foods they ate.”

The study of Manhattan’s Lower East Side continues later that afternoon as NYPL’s Geospatial

Librarian Matt Knutzen leads an exploration of the changing physical, demographic, and businesslandscape of that area using the on-site and digital resources of NYPL’s Map Collection. Teachers will be provided with a visual perspective of changes over time in one the most famously immigrantneighborhoods in the country. Week one will also focus on the teacher in the role of researcher, and practical tools thatparticipants can utilize when they return to the classroom. Maira Liriano (Milstein Division of U.S.History, NYPL) will provide an introduction to the Division’s primary source materials, and demonstratehow to conduct research on the influence of immigration on local cuisine and food patterns. HistorianDr. Edward T. O’Donnell, author of several books, including Visions of America: A History of theUnited States, will discuss how images can be used as visual guides to engage students. Summer Scholars willreceive an introduction to NYPL’s Picture Collection with curator Clayton Kirking, who will presenthighlights of the collection that speak to institute themes, including a selection of Berenice Abbott’s Changing New York photographs, images from the collection of Ellis Island Commissioner WilliamWilliams, and ephemera including illustrations from postcards, newspapers, and magazines.
Section Two: Moving from 19th to Mid-20th Century

Opening sessions of week two will continue to focus on building the Summer Scholars’ ability to conductresearch and give them time to explore in the collections. Institute participants will work in small peer groups, exploring the Manuscript and Archives Division and/or the Picture Collection. ThomasLannon (NYPL’s Manuscripts and Archives Division) will orient teachers to the Division’s holdingsand guide participants’ research, either in the working groups or as individual researchers. LiteratureCircle work will continue during the second week as well with ongoing discussion of the workRemaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration. Daily afternoonactivities will incorporate the ‘Teacher as Researcher’ component whenever possible. Dr. Megan Elias, Associate Professor of History at QueensboroughCommunity College of the City University of NewYork, will lead a discussion on the role of ephemera in food research. During another research session,participants will take a look at the history and evolution of eating “on the run” through an exploration ofLibrary materials concerning food-related pushcarts and automats (including the Horn & Hardart papersand menu and photography collections).

Also during week two, the Institute will examine sociological and industrial developments that

occurred in relation to food, particularly in the early- to mid-20th century. In its role as a great port city and railroad hub, New York City was a veritable boomtown and a major conduit for the shipping offruit, vegetables, and livestock to and from other locations as well as a major player in theindustrialization of food production. Joy Santolofer, adjunct professor at New YorkUniversity’s Food Studies Program, will build on these themes with a discussion about how the City’s burgeoningtransportation and technology industries impacted 19th century immigrant foods. Writer and editorAndrew F. Smith will discuss turning points in American cuisine/the urban food economy. Dr.Elizabeth Bradley will compare the differences between food eaten by those who aspired to the class and the concession food of entertainment venues such as Coney Island, which catered to youngimmigrant workers.

Although activities focus primarily on the large waves of immigration from European areas, it isimportant for participants to better understand other cultural groups who interacted with thisdemographic as well. These communities provide rich overlay to the Institute’s ongoing discussion of the evolution of American identity among immigrant groups. Attention will be given to the AfricanAmericans who lived alongside the European groups in “black and tan” neighborhoods such as FivePoints and who had been present in the City, contributing to its culture since the 1600s. Indeed, at the start of the Civil War there were more than 12,000 free black residents of New York City (not counting Brooklyn and Queens – which were not yet part of New York) In further exploration of these themes, Dr. Jessica Harris (Queens College/CUNY) will present a discussion of African and Caribbean foodways and their impact on immigrant New York. Thepresentation will be followed by on-site orientation to the collections of NYPL’s SchomburgCenter for Research in Black Culture in Harlem with curators Dr. Sylviane Diouf and Christopher Paul Moore. The SchomburgCenter is most the comprehensive public research library devoted exclusively to documenting and preserving the histories and cultures of people of African descent worldwide. Participants will be introduced to researching in the Center’s rich collections, with an emphasis on the role food has played within the African American community over time. Aspects of cultural diffusion represented by the blending of African, African American, and Southern foods into the wider American palate will also be explored. Summer Scholars will have time to conduct independent research at the SchomburgCenter during the final week of the Institute.

The Institute will also address the Chinese and Latino communities that were present in New York during the same time period, as well as later in the twentieth century. For example, more than6,000 Chinese-born residents lived in the eight-block area north of Manhattan’s Chatham Square by 1900.Food scholars and writers Dr. Nilsa Rodriguez-Jaca, Dr. Annie Hauck-Lawson, and AndrewCoe will present a dialogue focused on Asian and Latino foodways that will be facilitated by discussant Dr. Suzanne Wasserman. Following the panel discussion, participants will break into their peer groups for roundtable discussions with the panelists. At the close of week two, the Institute will delve deeper into the theme of immigrant neighborhoods and the evolution of cultural traditions with a presentation by Dr. Marci Reaven (New York Historical Society). This presentation will orient participants to the following week’s activities, which further themes of immigration, identity, and culture with a walking tour of JacksonHeights, one of the City’s current thriving immigrant neighborhoods.

Section Three: The Story Continues - Connections to Modern Immigration

Originally a planned community of model apartment complexes designed to lure populations outof crowded Manhattan apartments, the JacksonHeights neighborhood in Queens is now home to current waves of Asian and Latino groups. Dr Kennedy will introduce participants to the area’s multicultural communities that continue the tradition of preserving and mixing their home cultures with one another and with established “American” culture, all the while continuing the evolution of what it means to be American. With Dr. Hauk-Lawson, participants will discuss the patterns of first settlement, cultural transmission, and diffusion through food evident in the 19th and 20th centuries which is still with us today. The discussion of these themes will continue with Claire Tesh, Director of the CommunityEducationCenter for the American Immigration Council, a Washington, D.C.-based organization whose mission is to strengthen America by honoring its immigrant history.The Institute’s final week provides time for participants to work in peer groups on classroomunits, to engage as researchers in the Library’s collections, and to reflect and polish professionalpractice. These elements will contribute to the building of a community of practice focused on inquiry and collaboration. To this end, Dr. Kennedy along with Dr. David Locascio (LongwoodUniversity, Virginia) and Dr. Yohuru Williams (Fairfield University, Connecticut) will provide models of excellence in history/social studies teaching. They will work with participants to fold their newlyacquired content knowledge and their research into a unit plan that will support a humanities-richclassroom fostering student literacy and historical thinking along with content knowledge and research skills. Copies of Reading History: A Practical Guide to Improving Literacy by Janet Allen and Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts by Sam Wineburg will be made available to participants from the Library’s circulating collections and excerpts will be read and discussed. Participants will also receive a packet of materials covering approaches to curriculum design and unit planning. In the final session, participant work groups will each present their work and process to an invited audience of NYPL staff and tri-state educators for qualitative feedback and constructive commentary.

Resources for Summer Scholars at NYPL

The majority of participant experiences will take place at the New York Public Library’s renowned StephenA.SchwarzmanBuilding on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street in midtown Manhattan, but will be augmented by visits to external locations when appropriate. The SchwarzmanBuilding houses one of the world’s outstanding research collections in the humanities and social sciences and draws a global audience of researchers and scholars. For over a century, librarians and collection curators have sought out authoritative, popular, and ephemeral materials in the humanities, with an emphasis on literature, art, andhistory. Collections that will be made available to Institute participants for research include those of the Manuscripts and Archives Division, the Photography and Print Collections, the Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, and the Irma and Paul Milstein Division of U.S. History, Local History & Genealogy. Materials that may be consulted range from the correspondence, reports, and photography related to Berenice Abbot and William Williams, Commissioner of Immigration at Ellis Island in the early 20th century, to photographs and memorabilia of the Horn and Hardart Company, whose foodservice automats were a common New York City sight during the early- to mid-20th century. Summer Scholars will also receive instruction on using NYPL’s Digital Gallery (digitalgallery.nypl.org), an online database of more than 900,000 photographs, illustrations, maps, postcards, and other digitized materials from the Library’s collections.