DH101 FINAL PROJECT
OUR ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
We must acknowledge the research that provided us with this extensive information on food, oysters and the environment in New York during this time. Below is a lot of our bibliography, annotated, that aided us in our research greatly.
Olver, Lynne. “Food Timeline — Traditional State Foods & Recipes.” The Food Timeline History Notes–state Foods. Accessed October 23, 2018. Retrieved From: http://www.foodtimeline.org/statefoods.html#newyork
The resource presents an extensive report on the types of food that are considered “local” to New York. This includes information on signature dishes, official state foods, diets, customary beverages…etc. It also examines cultures that contributed to New York food history (such as New Netherlands foodways, Native American influences, and lifestyle to do with food in New York dating all the way back to the 18th century. Since the author was a librarian at the Morris County Library, her evidence comes from books written by professional food critics that Olver links in her “recommended reading” section. This resource is very important to our research on the food data set because it provides an extensive overview of the foods in New York, what the people are used to (in terms of food), and even their lifestyles (mealtimes…etc) that would be instrumental in helping us figure out a narrative for our project. From this resource, we can grasp what the food norms were in New York, and correlate certain trends found in our data with this quantitative information.
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Franz, David R. “An historical perspective on mollusks in Lower New York Harbor, with emphasis on oysters.” Ecological Stress and the New York Bight: Science and Management. Columbia SC: Estuarine Research Federation(1982): 181-197. Retrieved From: http://life.bio.sunysb.edu/marinebio/bio371/references/82_franz.pdf
This article by Franz scientifically discusses the disappearance of benthic organisms and communities (especially that of oysters) during the 1920s at the lower New York harbor from an environmental perspective. It claims that by 1920, the oyster population had largely declined from harbor waters. This was caused by sewage outfalls, over exploitation of wild oyster stocks, over harvesting, chemical and industrial pollution as a result of population growth, and the practice of planting oysters for commercial harvest. The resource quantitatively examines the species richness of benthic organisms at the harbor and the decrease in its density since the 1800s which corresponds to the population and industrialization at the time. This resource is important because our research question is focused on the decline of oysters on menus, so this would provide clear and specific explanations as to why they have been scarce in the 1900s compared to before. It would also provide scientific evidence and comparison on the reasons why benthic organisms were in decline, which we could directly use as a narrative for our thesis and final project.
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Meiselman, Herbert L. “An Historical Perspective on Variety in United States Dining Based on Menus.” Appetite 118, (2017): 174-179. Retrieved from: https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S0195666316309709?token=73DB17CCB13F5666712FB50519585BC1E72029D32295A83C065A6008573963EBC742672F8CD533F77B9AF85D5D74DC2F
Meiselman’s peer reviewed article examines food in the earliest menus in restaurants and hotels across the United States during the early and mid-19th century, focusing on why variety of dishes and ingredients have declined. The author argues that variety decreases through time due to multiple reasons — one of which (related to the decline of oysters), is because of environmental issues which make them become increasingly expensive items on the menu as they become more scarce. The reduction in variety is also due to food industrialization that aims to streamline production, causing the homogenization of food and menus. The article actually utilizes sources from the same dataset provided by the New York Public Library that we are working on. Meiselman’s article is important information because the study of dietary variety demonstrates a change in sociocultural climates across time that would be instrumental in providing a deeper narrative for our project. Specifically, it gives concrete explanations for why certain items have been disappearing from American menus — due to cultural, social, and economical changes — which add on to the knowledge we have so far of oysters declining due to environmental issues.
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Hurley, Andrew. 1994. Creating ecological wastelands: “oil pollution in new york city, 1870-1900”. Journal of Urban History 20, (3) (May 01): 340, https://search.proquest.com/docview/1297904575?accountid=14512 (accessed October 24, 2018).
Andrew Hurley provides a few contentions for the creation of New York’s ecological deserts in his study. Andrew Hurley outlines many sources of toxic waste during the “second industrial revolution” from rotting flesh from nearby sausage factories and feces from nearby dog pounds. In addition, there was near constant toxic run-off from oil refining, chemical production, glue making, and fertilizer manufacturing nearby as well. Hurley argues that petroleum refineries were the biggest contributor to New York’s ecological wastelands. However, the amount of pollution became so rampant that it sparked public outcry and political upheaval across New York City. And, Hurley contends, that since change was clogged behind tiers of government bureaucracy, the companies continued quietly dumping and unregulating their toxic run off. The sources Hurley builds upon are from years of local New York News Articles, censuses, novels, and research articles. One of his biggest case studies was on the highly polluted Newtown Creek, a prime run-off zone for Petroleum companies along its banks. Newtown Creek is a small body of water that seemingly has little significance on our research question on the mass die off of New York Harbor oysters. That is, until one realises that Newtown Creek, empties into East River, which then dumps into the New York Bay (aka. New York Harbor): a once reliable breeding ground for New York oysters. Our thesis knows that the oysters died from polluted conditions of New York Harbor. But where did this pollution come from? Hurley’s articles answers this question and provides accounts for the egregious desertification of New York Harbor.
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Kamp, David. 2010. Nurturing New York’s Oysters. New York Times (1923-Current file), Jun 30, 2010. https://search.proquest.com/docview/1458406724?accountid=14512 (accessed October 24, 2018).
In David Kamps, “Nurturing New York’s Oysters” He talks about the recovery process of oysters in 2010. He establishes the culture revolves around the oysters along the coasts of the New York Harbor, specifically Urban Assembly New York Harbor School. The article talks about the the method that go into bringing oysters back to life in New York Harbor and the oyster’s impact upon its own ecosystem. David Kamps receives his sources from primary sources he interviews such as oyster farmers, and the students of Harbor School. This source is significant because paints and image of the culture of oyster consumption long after New York Oysters became inedible. Kamps talks about how the oyster industry adapts to the fact that now oysters from New York Harbor are still inedible by ordering shipments from hundreds of miles away instead. In addition, Kamp also paints a picture of oysters being a keystone species and the literal key to bringing back life to New York Harbor from reef oyster beds and natural water filtration. This will help us conclude our research question. We have plenty of sources that detail the past but have yet to obtain a source that illustrates the present day situation. This article is recent enough to fulfill the latter’s role.
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WALDMAN, J. (2013). Heartbeats in the Muck: The History, Sea Life, and Environment of New York Harbor, Revised Edition. New York: Fordham University: 20-22 Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt13x0bf4
In this research article Waldman talks about the history of oysters when they were abundant in in good health. During the 1880’s, oysters were so abundant that, they were all you could eat for only 6 cents. In fact the shells would pile up so much that they were turned into a form of limestone and used to build the houses near the harbor. The research article goes on to recall that Manhattan Pearl Street was actually a street paved in oyster shells. Waldman draws from other written novels detailing archival information on New York Oysters from the 1700’s to 1800’s, culinary news articles from the New York Times, and other research articles illustrating pollution levels and restoration attempts. This resource is important because it contains rare images of oyster fisheries that I believe would well-supplement our project. In addition, this resource aids our thesis by providing a historical foundation in detailed accounts. We can use these past accounts to begin to understand the oyster condition before the rise of pollution in New York Harbor. It paints a before image when most of our article deal in after-the-fact.
DePaola A, CA Kaysner, J Bowers, and DW Cook. 2000. “Environmental investigations of Vibrio parahaemolyticus in oysters after outbreaks in Washington, Texas, and New York (1997 and 1998)”. Applied and Environmental Microbiology. 66 (11): 4649-54. Retrieved from: https://aem.asm.org/content/aem/66/11/4649.full.pdf
DePaola writes research on the outbreak of cholera in New York, Texas, and Washington oysters. She argues that New York, Long Island oysters had the highest amount of reports of cholera outbreak with over 16 cases of illness than Texas and Washington. This resource is important because though it focus on temperature of water and cholera, it gave us a number of illness cases to go off of. We need to make a case for the fact that New Yorkers absolutely could not consume oysters or risk repercussions and this article perfectly outlined the idea. The research was conducted using volunteers and biochemical tests to identify the bacterium in samples. These numbers are important because kind of raw seafood exposed to water that is polluted with sewage and toxic waste is a breeding ground for cholera bacterium. This is exactly the conditions we still see in New York Harbor, and these 16 cases show that the oysters are still unsuitable for consumption. This helps our thesis because we can talk about oysters and pollution all day, but why should we care? This article cements the idea that human lives are actually at risk due to the pollution of a once staple and delectable creature.
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Scott, Geoffrey I., and David R. Lawrence. “The American Oyster as a Coastal Zone Pollution Monitor: A Pilot Study.” Estuaries 5, no. 1 (1982): 40-46. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1352215.
In this article, the researches present findings about how oysters react to environmental changes and argue that oysters could be pollution monitors in coastal zones. Their evidence directly comes from investigations — they compared the Condition Index [(dry meat weight)(100)/(internal cavity volume)] of oysters from polluted habitat and unpolluted habitat. The result shows that the oysters from the unpolluted habitat have a significantly and consistently higher Condition Index than those from polluted habitat. This research article is important because it indicates oysters’ sensitivity to environmental changes. Also, it can greatly help our research project by offering more concrete scientific evidence of oysters’ ties with their environment. Indeed, the research results of this article can be also cited by us to indicate and explain a potential decrease or even complete disappearance of oysters from menus in New York during a certain period of time in history.