The Hunger Museum (2023)
The Hunger Museum tells the story of the last 100 years of hunger and anti-hunger public policy in the United States, alongside the cultural touchstones that accompany that history, demonstrating that with a robust government response we can end hunger — and almost did. Political winds and policy changes reversed that victory, leading to an over-reliance on an already overwhelmed charitable food network — but that does not need to be our future.
Through six galleries of historical content, The Hunger Museum explores the political, economic, and cultural influences of the time, revealing the expansion and dismantlement of the American social safety net over the last century and how, with this history in mind, we can forge a path forward to end hunger.
As Lead Historian on the project, I worked closely with the team at Loyal Design to design to develop all of the galleries and interactive features and, with support from my colleague Peter Chesney, wrote the text and curated the artifacts. The result was one of the most expansive digital projects I’ve ever worked on, one which offers a dynamic and immersive approach to advocacy and storytelling. Read more at hungermuseum.org
A Project of MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger
The Hunger Museum is a project of MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, a national organization fighting to end hunger among people of all faiths and backgrounds in the United States. Their strategic initiatives focus on communities that are at particular risk of hunger and are often overlooked — this includes military families, veterans, Native Americans, single mothers, LGBTQ seniors, and the people of Puerto Rico.
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, MAZON reached out to me for support creating what they imagined at the time to be an interactive timeline. Through months of collaboration, I came to understand the ways that their foundational values — of tzedek (pursuing justice) and b’tselem Elohim (respecting the inherent dignity of every person) — coincided with the emphases of my existing research. As a result, the project proved to be very generative, prompting me to engage more deeply with new scholarship about workers in informal and underground economies and organizing efforts led by welfare recipients, domestic workers, and the unemployed.