ASEH 2015: Canned Food and Environmental Law

I've just returned home from the always-fantastic American Society for Environmental History annual conference. This year, it was held in Washington, D. C., and I had the opportunity to present some of my research, from my book-in-progress. My title slide:

My session was devoted to environmental law in the 1970s, and the various papers came together really well, looking at environmental law from the perspectives of government, business, and citizens. It was a pleasure.

But I also had the chance to catch up with old friends, and to listen to a lot of fascinating papers, some from my favorite scholars, some from those who are up-and-coming. There were a lot of great food-themed papers and panels. Just a selection, including mine:

• Anna Zeide, Oklahoma State University, Regulating Processed Food: The Canning Industry's Responses to Environmental Law in the 1970s
• Laura Ann Twagira, Wesleyan University, ‘We Farmed Money’: Landscape Change, Women’s Food Production, and Marketing in French West Africa, ca. 1944-1960
• Nadia Berenstein, University of Pennsylvania, History & Sociology of Science, Contains Natural and Artificial Flavors”: The Nature of Flavor Chemistry in the postwar US
• Maya Weinstein, IBM, Artisanal meets Industrial: the DIY High Fructose Corn Syrup Kit
• Joshua Specht, University of California-Berkeley, The US Army Beef Scandal and the Rise of Industrial Food Production
• David Roth Singerman, Rutgers University, Frozen Herring and Gilded Age Governance
• Helen Zoe Veit, Michigan State University, Little Omnivores: Children’s Food in the 19th Century
• Raechel Lutz, Rutgers University, Still Life with Vitamins: Mural and Meaning at the 1939 New York World’s Fair
• Christian Steenstrup Warren, Brooklyn College, CUNY, Codfish, Cows, and Chemicals: An Un-natural History of Vitamin D Fortification in the United States 
• Jonathan E Robins, Michigan Technological University, ‘A strong, lusty and vigorous young giant’: Vegetable Fats and the Transformation of Global Food Industries, 1850-1950
• Bryan McDonald, Pennsylvania State University, Ezra Taft Benson and the Birth of the World Food Network in the 1950s 
• Chad Ludington, North Carolina State University, To Terroir or not Terroir: A Global History of Cheddar Cheese
• Michelle Mart, Pennsylvania State University-Berks, Shifting Values, Changing Laws: The Embrace of Organic Foods in the United States
• Matthew Booker, North Carolina State University, Oyster Panics: Placing Responsibility for Food Safety in the 20th Century 

Until next year!