Anna Zeide

Anna Zeide, Associate Professor

Department of History
429 Major Williams Hall, 220 Stanger St.
Blacksburg, VA 24061
zeide@vt.edu

Anna Zeide is an associate professor of history at Virginia Tech. She is also the founding director of the Food Studies Program in the College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences. She studies food as a way of understanding environmental change, dynamic cultural practices, consumer behavior, technology, health, and justice.

Her first book, Canned: The Rise and Fall of Consumer Confidence in the American Food Industry (University of California Press, 2018) won a James Beard media award in 2019.

She co-edited Acquired Tastes: Stories About the Origins of Modern Foods (MIT Press, 2021), wrote the forthcoming US History in 15 Foods (Bloomsbury Press, 2023), and is working on a history of food waste and a family history project.

Principal Areas of Research Focus

Food Studies
Environmental History
Consumer & Business History
20^th-century United States
History of Agriculture

Education

Ph.D. in History of Science, Medicine, & Technology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
M.A.Ed. in Science Education, Washington University in St. Louis
B.A. in Biology and Environmental Studies, Washington University in St. Louis

Publications

Books

Canned: The Rise and Fall of Consumer Confidence in the American Food Industry (University of California Press, 2018)

Journal Articles

“Grocery Garbage: Food Waste and the Rise of Supermarkets in the Mid-Twentieth Century United States” History of Retailing and Consumption 5 (April 2019): 71-86.

Book Chapters

“Marion Harland, Tastemaker: How One Woman’s Influence Helped Build an Industry,” in Acquired Tastes: Stories about the Origins of Modern Food, eds. Benjamin R. Cohen, Michael Kideckel, & Anna Zeide (forthcoming with MIT Press).

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