Feb. 20: Humanities Washington Speaker Discusses History of Washington Apples

About the event

Why do so many apples in the grocery store look the same? And why do so many come from Washington? Humanities Washington speaker and WSU graduate Amanda Van Lanen will answer these questions and more at a 3 p.m. lecture on Thursday, Feb. 20, in Holland Library’s old lobby adjacent to the Dimensions Lab. It is co-sponsored by WSU Libraries and the Common Reading Program.

Titled “Big Apples, Big Business: How Washington Became the Apple State,” the presentation explores how Washington became the top apple-producing state in the country and transformed apples into an industrialized commodity. Following the talk, Carolyn Ross, food science professor and director of the WSU Sensory Science Center, will host an apple tasting.

Chair of the humanities division and history professor at Lewis-Clark State College, Van Lanen is the author of The Washington Apple: Orchards and the Development of Industrial Agriculture. In the book, she traces the origins, evolution, and environmental consequences of the state’s apple industry.

Van Lanen earned a master’s degree (2004) and a doctorate (2009) in history at WSU. She said since the beginning, WSU has supported the apple industry through innovative research.