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Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:2: n. pag. © American Folklore Society 2017

Culinary Collections News
The William G. Lockwood and Yvonne R. Lockwood Collection of 
National, Ethnic, and Regional Foodways Joins Michigan State 
University Libraries, Special Collections 

By: Yvonne R. Lockwood

Longtime foodways researchers and former editors of Digest, Yvonne R. 
Lockwood and William G. Lockwood, recently donated their 50-year collection 
of food and foodways books to the Michigan State University Libraries, 
Special Collections. The William G. Lockwood and Yvonne R. Lockwood 
Collection of National, Ethnic, and Regional Foodways consists of some 
4,500 books, reflecting the Lockwoods’ ethnographic research and interest 
as anthropologist and folklorist in ethnic, immigrant, and regional cuisines. 
The specific strengths of this collection are on Finnish, Chinese, and eastern 
European—especially Yugoslavian—foodways. Most of the collection is in 
English; however, many volumes are in the languages of the cuisine described.

Primary among the reasons for choosing the Michigan State University 
Libraries are the existing culinary collections that span more than five centuries 
and include cookbooks from every continent, but with very little duplication 
in the Lockwood donation. Also the program Feeding America: the Historic 
American Cookbook Project (http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks) 
exemplifies the Libraries’ strong and valued commitment as a public resource. 

The Libraries’ emphasis prior to the Lockwood donation was on the cooking 
of the Americas, contemporary food movements, American regional and 
ethnic traditions, foodways of the Caribbean, Latin America, and South 
America, and cooking influences from West Africa and the African diaspora. 
An important part of this collection is the Michigan Cookbook Collection 
with more than 2,000 cookbooks compiled by church groups, charities, and 
community organizations in Michigan since the mid-nineteenth century. 
The Libraries’ holdings also include personal manuscripts and a wealth 



Lockwood, Yvonne R. 2016. “Culinary Collections News.”  
Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:2: n. pag. © American Folklore Society 2017

of culinary ephemera. See the Libraries’ “Cookery & Food Collection” 
home page at: http://www.lib.msu.edu/spc/collections/cookery/.


