Endowment honors culinary historian Janice B. Longone

June 24, 2026

The Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive will receive permanent curatorial support through an endowed librarian position named for the woman who founded it.

The Janice B. Longone Librarian for Culinary History is supported by a $1.5 million estate gift from Daniel T. Longone, U-M professor emeritus of chemistry who died in 2024, in honor of his wife Janice (Jan), who died in 2022. The Longones were longtime donors to the university, supporting the U-M Library, the Clements Library, Michigan Athletics, and Michigan Public Radio, among others.

Jan Longone’s lifelong project to collect, preserve and share the history of American foodways shaped her namesake culinary archive, which is part of the U-M Library’s Special Collections Research Center. The new endowed position will ensure ongoing and dedicated leadership for the collection she built and championed. Juli McLoone, its current curator, will inaugurate the new role. 

The endowment will ensure the archive's continued impact and foster the burgeoning interdisciplinary exploration of this important sphere of American life and society. 

“In the 11 years I’ve worked with the collection, interest on campus has exploded," McLoone said. "Where I once hosted a few food-focused classes a year, we now often have ten or more classes each semester that make use of the culinary archive."  

These classes come from disciplines ranging from anthropology to English Literature, American Studies to Art & Design. The archive, McLoone observed, has something for almost everyone.

“Jan Longone understood that culinary history is human history.  It is a record of culture, migration, labor, commerce, scholarship, creativity, and community,” said Lisa Carter, university librarian and dean of libraries. “This extraordinary gift ensures that her vision will continue to thrive at Michigan. With Juli McLoone’s leadership, the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive will remain a vital resource for students, scholars, professional chefs, and food entrepreneurs, home cooks, and the interested public for generations to come.”

The collection spans the 18th to the early 21st centuries, with particular strengths in 19th- and 20th-century cookbooks, charity cookbooks, African American cookbooks, immigrant cookbooks, manuscript cookbooks, food-related advertising ephemera and restaurant menus, and books related to the history of wine and viticulture. Current collecting efforts focus on documenting American foodways and the cultural, social, and economic practices surrounding what people eat and how they eat it, with particular focus on the foodways of 20th century immigrant communities, regional cooking, Native American cookbooks, special diets such as vegetarian and vegan cooking, and handwritten recipe notebooks and card boxes. 

Until her death at age 89, Jan Longone remained actively involved in guiding the growth of the collection and promoting its use by students, scholars, and anyone interested in the history of food and drink.

Daniel T. Longone's gift will honor her legacy while fortifying and sustaining one of the nation’s most distinctive culinary history collections.

Read more about Janice Longone, the collection, and Juli McLoone’s thoughts on the collection in a 2022 remembrance.