Dr. Annessa Babic of the New York Institute of Technology will present the results of her research as conducted during her tenure as Resident Scholar at the OSU Libraries. An abstract of her presentation is as follows:
Susan Strasser’s Waste and Want provides a compelling history on the use and abuse of products, particularly with its focus on the piles of trash modern society creates. While this current trend of focusing on environmental concerns is important, it circumvents a vital avenue of consumer research. Namely, rising safety concerns with respect to food during the 1970s and 1990s, which coincided with larger national movements such as the environmental and feminist movements.
The labeling of food products began with grassroots initiatives as empowered women’s groups, homemakers, and concerned consumers alerted their favorite magazines and companies that the bug spray killed the cat and packaged foods were not packing a healthy punch. Thus, campaigns for quality control and safety standards not only worked and gained momentum, but also deeply involved women and their activism as it coincided with the environmental movement and the heyday of Women’s Liberation, continuing those movements into the late 20th century. The rise of the foodie, brewing, and anti-junk food culture has paved unique grassroots pathways of taste and safety across the American landscape.
This research investigates the connections between activism movements between the 1960s and 1990s, and changes in American foodways (the way Americans ate, thought about, and regulated their food). At OSU, the research has focused on food labeling and the culture of creation, per se, with a particular focus on beer and breweries. Pacific Northwest breweries, instilling local pride and the protection of economies, crops, and land space, parallel grassroots campaigns for limiting access to junk food in schools and school breakfast programs, food labeling as a social protective measure, and the rise of local food, shopping, and the larger foodie culture.