Restrictions to Access

Use of audio cassettes may require production of listening copies.

This collection contains additional born digital materials that are not available for immediate or same day access. Please contact Research and Instructional Service staff at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu to discuss options for consulting these materials.

Restrictions to Use

No usage restrictions.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Marcie Cohen Ferris Sound Recordings #5177, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Marcie Cohen Ferris of Chapel Hill, N.C., in October 2005 (Acc. 100236), May 2007 (Acc. 100659), February 2008 (Acc. 100907), October 2015 (Acc. 102261), August 2018 (Acc. 103413), and January 2019 (Acc. 103561).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: Nancy Kaiser, February 2006

Encoded by: Nancy Kaiser, February 2006

Since August 2017, we have added ethnic and racial identities for individuals and families represented in collections. To determine identity, we rely on self-identification; other information supplied to the repository by collection creators or sources; public records, press accounts, and secondary sources; and contextual information in the collection materials. Omissions of ethnic and racial identities in finding aids created or updated after August 2017 are an indication of insufficient information to make an educated guess or an individual's preference for identity information to be excluded from description. When we have misidentified, please let us know at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Ferris, Marcie Cohen.
• Food habits--Southern States.
• Jewish cooking.
• Jews--Southern States.
• Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience.
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill--Faculty.
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Carolina Center for Jewish Studies.

• Cohen Family Papers (05178)

Marcie Cohen Ferris (1957- ) was born in Blytheville, Ark., to Jerome and Hudda Cohen. Ferris received her B.A. from Brown University in 1981, her M.A. from the College of William and Mary in 1985, and her Ph.D. from George Washington University in 2003. In 2004, she joined the American Studies faculty at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, where she regularly taught seminars exploring the history of the Jewish experience in the American South, American Jewish women, and the meaning of food in American culture. She also served as the associate director of the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies. Before moving to Chapel Hill, Ferris worked in the field of museums, public history, and oral history for over twenty years in Maine, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Mississippi. She is married to William (Bill) R. Ferris.

The collection consists of sound recordings of guest speakers from a fundraising event hosted by the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies (CCJS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and from interviews conducted and classes taught by Marcie Cohen Ferris, a now retired American Studies faculty member and associate director of the CCJS. The recordings discuss the CCJS, the history of Jews in the South, and the practice of Jewish history research.

Additions to the collection consist of Marcie Cohen Ferris's professional and personal papers that document her dissertation and later research for scholarly publications, teaching, and museum exhibit work; academic training; lectures on campus; and board and committee work for the Center for Jewish Studies, the Jewish Heritage Foundation of North Carolina, and the Southern Jewish Historical Society. Personal papers document her youth and school years, the Cohen family in Blythville, Ark., and her marriage to William (Bill) R. Ferris.

Materials include research files on foodways and the Jewish experience in the South, with copies of recipes, interview transcripts, copies of archival and published sources among handwritten notes, journals, and photographs of Jewish sites in South; professional and personal correspondence, photographs, and scrapbooks; yearbooks from Blytheville public schools; and ephemera, such as pamphlets, posters, and programs from events at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, museums at which Ferris worked, and relating to her books, Shalom Y'all and Matzoh Ball Gumbo.

• Audio cassettes (C-05177/1-8)
• Photographs (IB-05177/1-6, OP-PF-05177/1)
• Oversize papers (OPF-05177/1-2, OB-05177/1)