Food History at the Rubenstein Library

The collection contains clippings, flyers for events and facilities, guides and handbooks, memoranda and correspondence, newsletters, menus and prices, and recipes and other materials concerning Duke University's Dining Services.

Minah was the Director of Duke University Dining Halls from 1946-1974. Over his 28 years at Duke, Minah worked hard to serve the best quality food at as low a price as possible without incurring deficit to the University. By his retirement in 1974, Minah had transformed the dining halls at Duke University from a small operation to an operation of 12 dining halls serving approximately 15,000 meals per day. Materials in the collection include administrative records, work and purchase orders, food pricing, menus, financial and statistical reports, job descriptions, survey results, banquet logs, blueprints, union handbooks, black and white and color photographs, and other materials documenting the activities of the Duke University Dining Halls and the Director of Dining Halls.

The Chronicle provides excellent coverage of campus dining issues. All of the issues of the student newspaper have been digitized and are text searchable.

Minah, the Director of the Duke Dining Halls from 1946-1974, was deeply involved in race-related labor issues on campus. In addition to shedding light on the day-to-day activities of Dining Services, his papers also shed light on administrative responses to labor activists' concerns.

The Dean of Duke Chapel oversees the operation of the chapel and plays an integral role in connecting the academic and spiritual lives of the university's students, faculty, and staff. Spiritual life is often connected to food and consumption. The Dean's records, therefore, touch upon food culture and food labor on Duke's campus. The collection, for example, contains materials detailing food and labor-related boycotts such as the "Lettuce Boycott" in 1972.