About the Project
About the Project
Recipes Resurrected is a project developed by Master's student researchers in the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in collaboration with SILS Teaching Assistant Professor, Elliott Kuecker. The project analyzes archival materials from the Southern Historical and North Carolina Collections at University of North Carolina's Wilson Special Collections Library, with support for source discovery from the North Carolina Collection Research and Instruction Librarian, Sarah Carrier.
This project was created through student-driven interests in archival materials of everyday life, particularly recipe cards and cookbooks. Cookbooks and related materials from the Southeast United States are rich sources for scholars working in the humanities and social sciences who study daily rituals, representations of culture, and more. If "food is a text upon which the history and values of the southern people are written" (Davis and Powell, 2014, p. 12), then the archived evidence of the life of food --and food's role in lived experience-- deserve illumination through close study and synthesis. In this project, each researcher spends a semester closely studying aspects of food within their selected area of North Carolina regional cuisine through the cookbooks, recipe cards, and other food sources in the archives. They then use secondary sources to help unfold the significance of these ingredients, curating a new page to this collaborative and growing exhibit.
Researchers
Kayla Cavenaugh is an early-career archivist curious about visual art and natural and medical history. For her contribution to Recipes Resurrected, she is digging into historic advertising and visual representations of North Carolina foodways. She earned her master’s degree in library science at UNC Chapel Hill and interns with Duke University Medical Center Archives. Previously, she worked with Z. Smith Reynolds Library Special Collections & Archives at Wake Forest University and the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Originally from Wilmington, her love of North Carolina food comes from her grandparents, whose recipes can be found in a community cookbook printed by the Devon Park United Methodist Women & Friends.
Colette Harley is a second year MLS student at UNC Chapel Hill, focusing on special collections and archives. Prior to starting at SILS, she worked in fine art, university administration and other odd jobs. Currently, she is the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture Technical Services intern at the Rubenstein Library at Duke University, where she arranges and describes archival materials. She holds a Bachelor of Liberal Arts from Sarah Lawrence College, focused on history, writing and German.
Belle Kozubowski is a founder of this project and project designer. She researched Western North Carolina, authoring Tourism and Food in Western Carolina and Selected Western NC Recipes. At UNC-Chapel Hill she completed her master’s degree in library science with a concentration in archives and records management. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in mass communication and psychology from UNC-Asheville. Belle has served as a Graduate Digitization Assistant for NC State University’s Special Collections Research Center. In this role she focused on digitizing a wide variety of materials and attaching pertinent metadata to increase accessibility. She currently serves as Project Archivist at the Auburn Avenue Research Library in Atlanta, Georgia. In addition to her education, Belle is an avid home cook and baker, and growing up in Raleigh has cemented her love for Southern foodways. If you are interested in contacting Belle, her email is bellekozubowski@gmail.com. She is always looking for new recipes and food history tidbits!
Simone Gillespie is a project founder and project designer. She researched North Carolina food advertising, authoring Through Time and Taste: Advertising NC Foods, NC Food Advertising Through the Years: A Timeline, and Shelf Space as Advertising: A Gallery. Growing up in Johnston County, North Carolina, a county with deep agricultural roots, guides Gillespie's natural interest in Southern foodways. At UNC-Chapel Hill she completed a master’s degree in library science in the Spring 2024. Her research and archival interests center on LGBTQ+ history, sports history, Americana, community archives, and educating the public about archival and special collections access. She holds a bachelor’s degree in both history and English from UNC-Chapel Hill. She has interned with the North Carolina Museum of History, State Archives of North Carolina, and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in the Giamatti Research Center.
Katie Grotewiel is a researcher and project designer from Richmond, Virginia. She will complete her master’s degree in library science with a specialization in Archives & Records Management and a Diversity Advocate certificate at the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English and Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. While at UNC, Katie has engaged in archival research in the Southern Historical Collection at Wilson Library in Chapel Hill. Katie held an internship in Special Collections at the State Archives of North Carolina in Raleigh and library positions at UNC. Katie’s diverse research interests include reparative description, marginalia in circulating materials, archives of popular culture, and cultural heritage outreach and education.
Jillian MacKinnon is a founder of this project and project designer. She researched and authored the Piedmont chapter, including the Agriculture and Piedmont Foodways page and a gallery of Selected Piedmont Recipes. She completed her master's degree in library science at UNC-Chapel Hill, with particular interests in place-based education, Southern foodways, and music history. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, NC. Hailing from Central North Carolina, her connection to the state and passion for home baking inspired her to develop this digital project centered specifically around regional foodways. While at UNC, Jillian served as a Graduate Assistant for the Southern Historical Collection, the source of many of the archival materials featured in this exhibit. She currently serves as the Digitization and Description Archivist at the State Archives of NC. If you are interested in contacting Jillian, her email is jillianmackinnon13@gmail.com.
Adriana Quijano is a founder of this project and a project designer. She researched and wrote Coastal North Carolina: Recipes from the Archives and Fishing: An Introduction to Coastal Carolina. She completed her MSLS at the UNC-Chapel Hill's School of Information and Library Science in spring 2024. With a prior degree from UNC-Chapel Hill in Anthropology and Public Policy, and a minor in Art History, she brings a multidisciplinary perspective to her studies. She interned at the North Carolina State Archives, where she enhanced finding aids and assisted in appraisal report preparation. Adriana has a particular interest in Archives and Records Management and aspires to pursue a career in museum work. If you are interested in contacting Adriana, her email is adrianaq99@gmail.com.
Ashley Rockenbach is pursuing her Master's of Library and Information Science at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a concentration in archives and records management. She researched and contributed to the Western North Carolina chapter of this project. A historian by training, she has long been interested in the ways that everyday domestic life can tell a story about place and belonging. She joins this project out of a deep appreciation for local history and a desire to help connect people to historical resources about their community. Prior to UNC, Ashley earned a BA in US History from the University of California, Riverside, and a PhD in African History from the University of Michigan.
Faculty Coordination
Elliott Kuecker is a Teaching Assistant Professor in SILS at the UNC-CH where he teaches in the archives and record management track and coordinates the Masters of Professional Science in Digital Curation and Management. Before coming to SILS, he worked as a librarian and archivist at several universities. He researches in the fields of archival studies, childhood studies, qualitative inquiry, and related areas. He helped design and organize this project, and runs it yearly as a faculty sponsor.
Research Assistance
Since 2015, Sarah Carrier has worked as a Research and Instruction Librarian at Wilson Special Collections Library, UNC-Chapel Hill. There she supports research related to the history, people, and culture of North Carolina, engaging with a wide variety of communities on campus and beyond to meet their needs. She especially enjoys providing instruction to undergraduates and K-12 groups. Her passion is local histories and genealogy research using archives. Sarah has a master's degree in information science received in 2008 at the School of Information and Library Science, UNC-Chapel Hill, and she has spent her career in academic libraries at Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill. For this project, she assisted students in finding archival materials from the North Carolina Collection at Wilson Special Collections Library.
References
Davis, D. A., & Powell, T. (Eds.). (2014). Writing in the kitchen: Essays on Southern literature and foodways. University Press of Mississippi.