Chew on This: Interpreting Food in Massachusetts History Presenter Profiles
2015 Mass History Conference Speaker/Moderator Bios
Chew on This: Interpreting Food in Massachusetts History
Kathleen Barker is the Assistant Director of Education and Public Programs at the Massachusetts Historical Society, where she creates and implements professional development programs for K-12 teachers and their students. She is currently completing a PhD in world history at Northeastern University.
Tom Beardsley is the historic site manager at the Old Manse, a Trustees of Reservations’ property located in Concord. Before arriving at this venerable historic house, Tom worked as a museum education/program consultant for the Connecticut Humanities Council, and taught a wide range of US and British history courses in several colleges across that state. He is a native of Yorkshire, England, and prior to arriving in the US, he was a mechanic in the coal and railway industries, a trade union official, a taxi driver, a building site laborer, and as a racecourse bookie. Tom has a PhD in US history from the University of Leicester (UK), a MA in US history from the University of Connecticut, and a BA dual honors degree in politics, and economic and social history from the University of Sheffield (UK).
Jessica Bitely is the Director of Preservation Services at the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC). As part of the Preservation Services team, she coordinates training programs, facilitates outreach efforts, and works to share preservation information with individuals and organizations in the US and abroad. She works with cultural heritage organizations throughout the US, and has presented on a wide range of preservation topics ranging from caring for personal collections to digital disaster planning (and everything in between). Jessica received her MLIS with a concentration in Archival Management from Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science.
Pleun Bouricius is the Director of Grants and Programs at Mass Humanities, where she has worked since 2007. Pleun is responsible for the grant program; guides grant applicants through the application process; and also manages the Massachusetts History programs and projects. She holds a PhD in the History of American Civilization from Harvard University, where she taught American history, American literature, and women’s studies.
Claire Carlson is the Education Program Coordinator in the Department of Museum Education and Interpretation at Historic Deerfield. Claire manages the Open Hearth Cooking and Domestic Arts program which includes planning and implementing interpretive foodways programs, classes, and demonstrations for multiple museum audiences. She is also member of the Colonial Chocolate Society.
Ian Cheney is an Emmy-nominated and Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmaker. He grew up in Massachusetts and Maine and received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Yale University. His films and collaborations include Two Buckets (2006), King Corn (2007), The Greening of Southie (2008), Big River (2009), Truck Farm (2010), The City Dark (2011), The Melungeons (2012), and The Search for General Tso (2014). In 2011 he and longtime collaborator Curt Ellis received the Heinz Award in recognition of their work using humor and innovative programming to engage people about sustainable food. A co-founder of FoodCorps and a director/producer at Wicked Delicate Films LLC, he is currently a 2014-2015 Knight fellow at MIT.
Rob Cox, the head of Special Collections and University Archives at UMass Amherst since 2004, has had a checkered past including stops at the William L. Clements Library of the University of Michigan and the American Philosophical Society. A former molecular paleontologist, he has a PhD in History from Michigan and is author of four and half books on topics ranging from the American Spiritualist movement to the history of chowder.
Andrea Cronin is an Assistant Reference Librarian at the Massachusetts Historical Society. She assists researchers in creating research strategies and identifying manuscript collections relevant to their work. She writes for the Massachusetts Historical Society Beehive blog on various foodie topics including molasses, sugar, rum, cake, eggs, and fish. She holds her BA in History from the George Washington University and her MLS from Simmons College School of Library and Information Science. She is currently working on a MA in History at Salem State University.
Brian Donahue is an associate professor of American Environmental Studies on the Jack Meyerhoff Fund and the director of the Brandeis Environmental Studies program. Donahue teaches courses on environmental issues, environmental history and sustainable farming and forestry. He holds a B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. from the Brandeis program in the History of American Civilization. He co-founded and for 12 years directed Land’s Sake, a nonprofit community farm in Weston, Mass., and was director of education at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas. Donahue is the author of “Reclaiming the Commons: Community Farms and Forests in a New England Town” (1999), which won the 2000 Book Prize from the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities. His book The Great Meadow: Farmers and the Land in Colonial Concord (2004) won the 2004 Marsh Prize from the American Society for Environmental History, the 2005 Saloutos Prize from the Agricultural History Society and the 2004 Best Book Prize from the New England Historical Association. His primary interest is the history and prospect of human engagement with the land.
Bethany Groff Dorau is the author of A Brief History of Old Newbury (History Press), and the North Shore Regional Site Manager for Historic New England, based at the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in Newbury. She serves on the boards of the Newburyport Preservation Trust and the North of Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau. She was the recipient of the Pioneer in Preservation Award from the Essex National Heritage Commission in 2005 and the North of Boston CVB Leadership Award in 2007. She has an MA in History from the University of Massachusetts, and has published articles in the New England Quarterly and Historic New England Magazine. Bethany lives in Newburyport with her family.
Michael P. Dyer is Senior Maritime Historian at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. He has been working with primary source maritime documents for over twenty years, has written numerous articles, crafted several exhibitions and cataloged many collections. He is currently working on a book, The Art of the Yankee Whale Hunt.
Robert Forrant is a Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and a board member of the Lawrence History Center. On the editorial board of Mass Benchmarks, a joint publication of the UMass President’s Office and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, he is editor with Jurg Siegenthaler of The Great Lawrence Textile Strike of 1912: New Scholarship on the Bread & Roses Strike (2014) and co-author with the Lawrence History Center’s Susan Grabski of Lawrence, Massachusetts and the 1912 Bread & Roses Strike (2013). In 2012 he worked extensively on a variety of programs dedicated to the centennial anniversary of the Bread and Roses Strike. Currently he is leading a UMass Lowell effort to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Recent publications include: The Big Move: Immigrant Voices From a Mill City, with Christoph Strobel (2011) and Metal Fatigue: American Bosch and the Demise of Metalworking in the Connecticut River Valley (2009). He has participated in numerous projects funded by the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Lowell National Historical Park.
Debra Friedman, Senior Vice President of Visitor Experience, oversees the Museum Program department which includes education, interpretation, and visitor services. She supervised the renovation and reopening of the lodging complex and now oversees both the lodging and culinary divisions. She has been a part of OSV since 1981, when she became the Lead Interpreter for Historic Foodways. Ms. Friedman worked as Coordinator of Special Events and was responsible for developing a number of popular programs including “Dinner in a Country Village”, Christmas Traditions by Candlelight and an expanded July 4th program. She co-edited the 3rd edition of the Old Sturbridge Village Cookbook. She has been a major part of a number of collaborative efforts with other institutions, including the Worcester Arts Council’s CultureLEAP, partnerships with Killingly High School, Ellis Tech High School and Woodstock Academy as well as Connecticut Radio Information Systems (CRIS) and Taleblazer with MIT. Ms. Friedman is a member of the executive board of the Worcester Cultural Coalition. She has served as a member of the board of directors of the Association of Living History, Farm and Agriculture Museums.
Beth Gallaway, MSLIS, Director at the Grafton (MA) Public Library, is a member of the Digital Commonwealth and the winner of 2 SHRAB grants.
Jayne Gordon is the new and first Director of Education for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. She retired in 2014 from her position as Director of Education and Public Programs at the Massachusetts Historical Society. She previously served as Executive Director of both the Thoreau Society and the Alcotts’ Orchard House, and as Director of Education and Interpretation at the Concord Museum. A resident of Concord, Jayne regularly teaches and lectures about aspects of the town’s history, drawing on her experience working as a staff or board member, consultant or partner with almost all of Concord’s historical organizations over the past forty years. Jayne is currently working on consulting projects for Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area, the Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library, and Boston National Historical Park; she is on the boards of the Drinking Gourd Project and the Friends of Minute Man National Park.
Elizabeth Hoover is an Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies at Brown University where she teaches courses on environmental health and justice in Native communities, indigenous food movements, Native American museum curation, and community engaged research. Elizabeth received her MA in Museum Studies and PhD in Anthropology at Brown University. She is currently working on a book manuscript “’The River is In Us;’ Fighting Toxins in a Mohawk Community,” which is an ethnographic exploration of Akwesasne Mohawks’ response to Superfund contamination and environmental health research. Her second book project “From ‘Garden Warriors’ to ‘Good Seeds;’ Indigenizing the Local Food Movement” explores Native American farming and gardening projects around the country: the successes and challenges faced by these organizations, the ways in which participants define and envision concepts like food sovereignty, and importance of heritage seeds.
Carla D. Martin has taught Chocolate 101 at Formaggio Kitchen in Cambridge, a variety of topics at the Northwest Chocolate Festival (the biggest fine chocolate festival in North America), and lectured at local historical societies. She has also done guided tastings, pairings (e.g. with wine or coffee), and pop-ups (with chocolate-inspired menus) for private institutions and individuals. An award-winning educator, she is currently developing a curriculum on fine cacao and chocolate for the general public. Currently, Martin teaches on chocolate and food politics, black ethnic diversity, and race and technology African and African American Studies at Harvard University. She received her Ph.D. in African and African American Studies from Harvard University in 2012. Find her online at BittersweetNotes.com and @carladmartin.
Angel Mendez came to Red Tomato in 2002 as our Warehouse Manager, after holding positions as Warehouse Manager for Boston Baby Superstores and T.V.I. for seven years. While working at Red Tomato, Angel earned a Bachelor’s degree in Finance and Accounting at Northeastern University. He is now the Director of Operations, handling trade logistics, financial management and internal IT systems. Angel says, “My journey here at Red Tomato has been an extreme learning experience. I have learned so much about agriculture and the politics that surround it. I love every aspect of the business.” Angel spends free time enjoying his family and summer mornings in his garden, which he calls his farm.
Anne Moore is a Special Collections Librarian in the Special Collections and University Archives at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She holds an Archives Certificate from Simmons College, an MLIS from the University of Western Ontario and an M.A. in History from the University of Guelph. She has published in the area of LGBT library services; however, her current research is focused on women in agriculture and horticulture in New England. Anne is currently working on a book chapter on Lorain Jefferson, one of the early female faculty members at M.A.C. in the Department of Agricultural Economics. In the past 3 years, Anne has presented at the Agricultural History Society (2013 Banff, Alberta and 2014, Provo, Utah) and at the Rural Women’s Studies Association (Fredericton, NB 2012 and San Marcos, TX 2015) on Lorian Jefferson and the New England Division of the Woman’s National Farm & Garden Association. She has also been a board member of the Valley Women’s History Collaborative; a group focuses on the second wave feminist history of the Connecticut River Valley.
Rachel Onuf is the Roving Archivist for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She also teaches Archives and Preservation Management courses for Simmons College School of Library and Information Science and works as a consultant for a range of collecting repositories. Much of this work involves preservation planning and collection assessment, and is grounded in her experience in various research libraries, including the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. She worked as an archives analyst for the Archivists’ Toolkit and taught workshops on how to use the AT for several years. Now she is involved in developing the training tools for ArchivesSpace and is presenting workshops on how to use this new collection management tool. Rachel earned her MILS, with a concentration in archives, from the University of Michigan, and a MA from the University of Virginia, with a focus on the 19th-century South.
Laura Orleans is the Executive Director of the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center and founding director of the Working Waterfront Festival. She holds an M.A. in folklore from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Ms. Orleans brings over 20 years of experience in public folklore. During the past fourteen years she has conducted extensive documentation of ethnic and occupational communities in New Bedford with a focus on maritime culture and has amassed an archive of over 100 oral history interviews with individuals in the commercial fishing community. She has developed and implemented numerous public programs as a consultant to the National Park Service, Whaling Museum, City of New Bedford and New Bedford Area Chamber of Commerce. She was the Principal Investigator for two National Park Service ethnography projects.
John H. Ott is the former Executive Director of the Scottish Rite Masonic National Heritage Museum and Library, Lexington, MA serving from 1999-2007 when he retired. Under his guidance the National Heritage Museum became one of the most innovative museums dealing with exhibitions and research on American history and culture. Ott is a graduate of Eastern University with a B.A. in American History and the State University of New York, College at Oneonta with a M.A. through the Cooperstown Graduate Program in American Museum Administration. His 37 year museum career includes positions as Executive Director at Hancock Shaker Village, an outdoor history museum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts; the Atlanta Historical Society in Atlanta, Georgia; and the B & O Railroad Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. In 2009, he served as the Interim Executive Director of the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Andover, MA. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, MA, a member of the Collections Committee at Old Sturbridge Village and is currently the President of the Groton Historical Society. Ott is also acting historian for the Massachusetts Agricultural Club established in 1840.
Kaleigh Paré is the Collections Specialist at the EcoTarium, a natural history museum in Worcester, MA. Established in 1825 as the Worcester Natural History Society, the EcoTarium is the second oldest natural history organization in the country. In 2014, the EcoTarium received a grant to participate in the Massachusetts Roving Archivist Program. Kaleigh worked with Archivist Rachel Onuf to begin processing the EcoTarium’s historic archives. Kaleigh received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Bates College in anthropology and history and her Master of Liberal Arts degree in museum studies from Harvard University. She has worked with museum collections at history, science, and children’s museums in Massachusetts, Maine, and Alaska.
Folklorist Millie Rahn, while in graduate school at the Memorial University of Newfoundland in the early 1990s, saw firsthand the devastating effects of the northern cod fishery moratorium on the lives of individuals, communities, and occupational and provincial culture–on land and sea–that had endured for centuries. On returning to Massachusetts, she began developing programs in Lowell, Boston, Cambridge, and in coastal Maine documenting foodways and their place in families, communities, and the physical and cultural landscape, often focusing on urban ethnic and immigrant traditions. Millie’s research and oral histories have been used in public programs, public policy, and/or place-based education. She has presented numerous foodways demonstrations at regional festivals and conducted workshops for teachers, historical societies, and heritage-based organizations in New England and beyond. Millie also teaches courses in ethnography and in foodways in the graduate Heritage Studies program at Plymouth [NH] State University.
Emily Redman is an Assistant Professor of the history of science at UMass Amherst. She is currently working on a book manuscript on the social and political history of K-12 mathematics education reform in the 20th century U.S. At UMass, Redman offered two separate courses with an emphasis on our historical relationship to the science and technology of food. An ardent advocate of the social and health benefits of home cooking and a recent transplant from the “foodie” culture of the San Francisco Bay Area, Redman is interested in how local and national cultures surrounding food and eating have developed since the Cold War era.
Lenora Robinson is an Archival Librarian who has been focused on learning local histories. She received a Master’s of Public Administration in 2011 and a Master’s of Library Science in 2012. She has been working at public and academic libraries, historical societies and museums since. She is currently working on a variety of projects along the south coast of Massachusetts with Mattapoisett Historical Society Museum and Carriage House, Westport Historical Society and the New Bedford Whaling Museum. Her project with the New Bedford Whaling Museum involves exploring, interpreting and cataloging account books and business records of local merchants and whalers originating from the Kendall Whaling Museum collection.
Rachel Sayet, Mohegan, received her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in Hotel/ Restaurant Management and her masters in anthropology at Harvard University. Currently an employee in the Mohegan Library in the tribe’s Cultural Department, Rachel attends conferences, organizes events with Native authors, runs a weekly storytime and, most recently, she has been working with the tribe’s health department to promote indigenous food at Mohegan. She has worked as a personal chef and in various restaurants. Rachel is thrilled to have been able to combine her two passions and backgrounds in food and culture in her most recent paper entitled “A Celebration of Land and Sea: Modern indigenous Cuisine in New England” in which she interviewed powwow cooks, home cooks, museum educators, and others from the Mashpee Wampanoag, Narragansett, Mohegan, and Abenaki tribes. Rachel first presented this work at the Dublin Seminar’s “Foodways of the Northeast II: A Second Helping” Symposium at Historic Deerfield and the paper will be published in their conference proceedings. Rachel also has a food blog called “Uni Will Never Be Bacon” where she shares photos and stories about Native food and other gourmet specialties.
Lorén Spears, Narragansett, has a wonderful family that includes her husband and three children. She is involved in her tribal community and has served as a Tribunal Judge, on Tribal Council, led the Youth Council and established a Youth Art Show. Mrs. Spears graduated from the University of Rhode Island with a Bachelor’s of Science in Elementary Education. Lorén received her Masters in Education from the University of New England. She spent 14 years teaching underserved youth in Rhode Island public schools. Lorén was the founder of Nuweetooun School and taught for seven years empowering Native youth. She recently served as an adjunct professor at the University of Rhode Island teaching a Native literature course. As Executive Director of Tomaquag Museum, Lorén shares with the public the traditional knowledge passed down to her from her Elders including traditional cooking, beadwork, language, basketry, weaving, traditional dance, music, and oral history.
Cathy Stanton is a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at Tufts University and an active public historian. Her 2006 book, The Lowell Experiment: Public History in a Postindustrial City, was the winner of the National Council on Public History Book Award. She has served for many years as a consultant for to National Park Service, where she has conducted studies of groups associated with park resources. Her most recent research for the NPS focuses on a seasonal cottage community on one of the Boston Harbor Islands. Her other current research and public history work focuses on agricultural history and heritage in dialogue with “local food” activism. With Michelle Moon, she is co-authoring a book for Left Coast Press on how historical interpretation and sites can contribute to the ongoing reinvention of food systems.
Gregor Trinkaus-Randall is the Preservation Specialist at the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners. He was instrumental in developing dPlan: an Online Disaster Planning Tool. He is Co-Chair of COSTEP Massachusetts (Coordinated Statewide Emergency Preparedness). In 2012, he was awarded the George Cunha and Susan Swartzburg Preservation Award from ALCTS PARS. In 2013 he was honored with the New England Archivists Distinguished Service Award. He has spoken widely and consulted on preservation, disaster preparedness, archival, and security topics. He has run numerous workshops for librarians and archivists. He is a member of the Academy of Certified Archivists, the Society of American Archivists, the Midwest Archives Conference, and is a former President of the New England Archivists (1995-1996) and of the Society of American Archivists (2011-2012). He was elected a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists in 2006. He is the author of Protecting Your Collections: A Manual of Archival Security and contributed a chapter on security to Archival and Special Collections Facilities: Guidelines for Archivists, Librarians, Architects, and Engineers (SAA, 2009).
Electa Kane Tritsch has spent 30 years in field of cultural resource management and interpretation, and holds degrees from Harvard University and Boston University. She is director of Oakfield Research, a consulting firm strongly focused on New England heritage landscapes and rural working lands. Among recent Oakfield projects was a town-wide farming survey for Groton Massachusetts, including history, public awareness campaign, and future planning. Electa is also creative director of Oakfield Productions, a small video production team working with community access television. The team’s newest project, TRACKS IN TIME, is an ongoing documentary series exploring the historic landscapes of Massachusetts.
Bill Wallace is the executive director of Worcester Historical Museum (WHM), which is currently celebrating its 140 anniversary. (Contrary to public opinion, he has not been there quite that long!) In addition to the museum and library at 30 Elm Street, WHM also owns and operates Salisbury Mansion, Worcester’s only historic house museum. Beyond the excitement of Worcester history, Wallace is a cemetery enthusiast and a fan of Mickey Mouse!
John D. Warner, Jr. (Jack) has served as the Archivist of the Commonwealth since 1996. A native of Massachusetts, Warner received a BS in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and an MA in History from Boston College. He taught at Newton North and Watertown High Schools, and completed a PhD in American History from Boston College and a MLIS from the University of Rhode Island. Warner is an Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Jack is also a Master Chief Boatswain’s Mate (E-9), U.S. Coast Guard Reserve, and a veteran of the Global War on Terrorism.
Hayley Wood is a Senior Program Officer at Mass Humanities, where she has worked since 1998. She is editor of The Public Humanist blog featuring the work of over 100 Massachusetts scholars and writers, and she oversees the Family Adventures in Reading Program, a reading and discussion program for children and their caregivers held in public libraries statewide. She is a painter and puppet maker with a particular commitment to community-based art making.