HSL Hosts "Fire and Freedom: Food and Enslavement in Early America" Exhibit

A special presentation by NYMC resident historian Edward C. Halperin, M.D., M.A. , chancellor and chief executive officer, was held on August 21. The exhibit highlights how meals can reveal how power was exchanged between and among different peoples, races, genders, and classes during the early colonial era. Dr. Halperin discussed the forms of evidence of the diets of slaves including ships' manifests, advertisements for runaway slaves, written memoirs of whites and African-Americans, bones uncovered underground and archeological flora and fauna data. The exhibition was developed and produced by the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health with research assistance provided by staff at The Washington Library at George Washington's Mount Vernon. The exhibit is now on display in the lobby of the School of Health Sciences and Practice lobby.