The Theodore W. "Ted" Minah records and papers span the years 1941-1975, with the bulk of the materials ranging from 1946-1974. The collection is arranged into three series: Administrative Records, 1945-1975, Articles and Speeches, 1941-1975 and Correspondence, 1945-1974. Administrative Records are further arranged into three subseries: Blueprints, Daily Banquet Logs, and General Administrative Records.
Materials in the collection include administrative records, correspondence, work and purchase orders, food pricing, menus, financial and statistical reports, job descriptions, survey results, banquet logs, blueprints, union handbooks, black and white and color photographs, and other materials documenting the activities of both the Duke University Dining Halls and the Director of Dining Halls, as well as well as Ted Minah's affiliations with professional associations.
Theodore W. TedMinah, was the Director of Duke University Dining Halls from 1946-1974. Minah came to Duke at a time when it was necessary to convert the feeding operations from a war-time basis to that of feeding 5,000 students, and at a time where the situation of the dining halls was less than appealing. Over the next 28 years, Minah worked hard to serve the best quality food at as low a price as possible without incurring deficit to the University. During his tenure, he was responsible for many innovations to university dining services including establishing a food credit system, developing a program for student employees - where they recruited, trained and gave students opportunities to become head waiters and waitresses, and creating free-flow service counters which eliminated waiting lines in the cafeterias. Minah was also increased the capacity of dining halls to accommodate the growing number of students, including remodeling existing cafeterias into the University Room, Blue & White Room, and Cambridge Inn, and overseeing the construction of the award winning Gilbert-Addoms and Graduate Center dining halls.
Minah's career weathered the 1968 dining hall strike for "decent living wages" and several student food boycotts, including grapes (1969), lettuce (1972), and meat (1973). Despite these boycotts, Minah worked tirelessly to support and meet the needs of the students on both East and West campuses. In addition to his relationships with students, Minah also strongly supported his employees (a larger percentage of the employees were African American) by providing on-the-job training, finding summer jobs in North Carolina and out-of-state resorts, enabling them to combine vacation with extra income, and by providing the avenues for promotion into supervisory and cashier positions.
By his retirement in 1974, Minah had transformed the dining halls at Duke University from a small operation to an operation of 12 dining halls serving approximately 15,000 meals per day. Ted Minah died in 1991 at the age of 82.
