Rural History Roundtable
Photograph: Large group eating meal after raising barn, Stephen Sylvester Main collection, University of Guelph Library, Archives, and Special Collections, Agricultural History (XA1 MS A230 #214)
The Rural History Roundtable is a speaker series that has been in operation since 2002. It hosts scholars of international repute and provides a venue for graduate students to present their latest research. It is vertically intergrated drawing into its fold undergraduates, graduates, post-docs, faculty, archivists, alumni, and other members of the public.
All are welcome to attend!
Our third Rural History Roundtable for 2026-27 will take place Thursday, November 12 from 3:30-5:00pm EST. The presentation will be in virtual format only, meaning it will take place live online via Zoom. To receive the Zoom meeting info on the day of the talk, please register for a free ticket at Eventbrite. Attendees are encouraged to register at least two hours prior to the event to ensure they receive the Zoom link before it starts.
Presenter: Dr. Jennifer A. Jordan (Professor, Sociology, Urban Studies, and History, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
Title: "Beer Ghosts: In Search of Lost Hops and the Women Who Grew Them"
Jennifer Jordan will discuss her new book, Beer Ghosts: In Search of Lost Hops and the Women Who Grew Them.
Water, malt, yeast, and hops: these are essential ingredients of beer. Hops, specifically, play an outsized role in determining its flavor and aroma. In this talk, Jennifer Jordan will discuss her new book, Beer Ghosts: In Search of Lost Hops and the Women Who Grew Them, turning to a brief but pivotal moment in the nineteenth century when Wisconsin produced much of the hops grown in the U.S.
Until the early twentieth century, the work of picking hops was a time-consuming process that could only be done by hand, one cone at a time. In nineteenth-century Wisconsin, that work was performed almost exclusively by white women and girls (with important exceptions), who traveled to hop farms in droves as summer came to a close and the harvest began. At the height of the boom in the 1860s, farmers and their families laid out beds and prepared food for tens of thousands of seasonal laborers, and hosted parties and dances well into the night. Despite the scale of Wisconsin’s hop boom (and subsequent crash), the industry left behind little trace aside from a few remnants in local records and archives, which form the backbone of this book.
For more on the book which the presentation draws from: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo271049878.html
Questions? Please contact:
Dr. Ben Bradley
ben.bradley@uoguelph.ca
Dr. Rebecca Beausaert
rbeausae@uoguelph.ca
For a list of past Rural History Roundtable speakers, see here.
