The Religion of Health

New York City & Chicago
1904-1911

In the early twentieth century, there was a growing awareness that physical fitness and diet played an important role in achieving good health. The new movement was aligned with vegetarianism which was then reemerging in the United States, as shown below by the vegetarian menu from the first annual banquet of the Brooklyn Physical Culture Society in 1904. There is a revealing list of toasts on this menu, including one to “The Religion of Health” given by Bernarr Macfadden, an early advocate of vigorous exercise, vegetarian diets, and fasting.1 Macfadden promoted his ideas in the popular magazine Physical Culture which became the cornerstone of his publishing business and other enterprises. Marking an early point in his long career, two menus reflect the loose connection between vegetarianism and the cult of physical fitness.

The Laurel

New York City
1903-04

The Gobbler's Dream: Signing the “Vegetarian Pledge” (1904)

The Laurel was probably the best vegetarian restaurant in New York at the turn of the last century. Situated on West Eighteenth Street, just a couple of blocks from Union Square, it was named after the bay laurel whose aromatic leaves were used extensively in vegetarian cooking. Technically, it was a lacto-ovo vegetarian restaurant, as shown by the dairy products and egg dishes on the menu below. Dating from 1903, this daily menu offers a wide selection of dishes, quotes from the Bible and the Anglo-Irish poet Oliver Goldsmith, and some beliefs about health and nutrition.1 Along with a banquet menu from the following year, it reflects the foodways and philosophy of vegetarianism at this point in its evolution in the United States.

New Years Day, 1885

Iowa, New York & Kansas

Many of the major news stories in 1885 were about big things—the long-awaited Statue of Liberty arrived from France; the Washington Monument was finally completed; and the ten-story Home Insurance Building was erected in Chicago, the first skyscraper using structural steel in its frame. It was also the year that Jumbo the Elephant was killed by a locomotive while crossing the railroad tracks, three years after showman P. T. Barnum brought the beloved circus animal to the United States amidst great fanfare. Three menus from New Years Day in 1885 portend none of the things that would come to pass that year, revealing instead some of the social customs and foodways that were associated with how the holiday was celebrated, the small details of everyday life that enrich our understanding of the larger events that comprise much of recorded history.

The Great American Delicacies

Washington, D.C. & San Francisco,
Christmas, 1890

Two menus from Christmas Day in 1890 reflect regional differences in cuisine at a time when local styles of cooking were not always evident. Despite being held on opposite ends of the country, the dinners also featured some of the same dishes, such as Diamondback terrapin and Canvasback duck. Described as “the great American delicacies” by British novelist Frederick Marryat in his 1839 Diary in America, these classic game dishes were often served at lavish dinners during this time of year, prepared in traditional ways that transcended regional variations and foreign influences.

Hopper’s Places

Chris’s Grill
San Francisco, 1940

Working from drawings of ordinary restaurants in New York, Edward Hopper painted Tables for Ladies in his studio near Washington Square in 1930. The photo on the following menu from Chris’s Grill and Coffee Shop in San Francisco is reminiscent of the commonplace eatery portrayed on this large canvas now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with the grapefruits lined up along the bottom of the window display.

The Landing of William Penn

La Pierre House
Philadelphia, 1854

William Penn atop Philadelphia City Hall

This November makes it 329 years since the entrepreneurial Quaker William Penn stepped ashore, founding the city of Philadelphia. In the early nineteenth century, Americans knew more about the landing of William Penn than they did about the Pilgrims who supposedly disembarked at Plymouth Rock, something that only later became ingrained in the national consciousness.

The Newsies

Chicago, 1900

“…The works of religion and charity have everywhere been manifest. Our country through all its extent has been blessed with abundant harvests. Labor and the great industries of the people have prospered beyond all precedent…”

— President William McKinley,

Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, 1900

Woolf’s clothing store, situated on State Street across from the luxurious Palmer House in Chicago, closed early on November 28, 1900. It was the day before Thanksgiving and it was on this day each year that Woolf’s hosted a holiday dinner for the poor. Unseasonably cold, the temperatures were dropping into the teens that afternoon as the store clerks sprang into action. In what had become a well-orchestrated ritual, they began storing away the goods so that the counters could be removed from the center area of the main floor, making room for the tables that would be covered with marbled oilcloth and decorated with flowers, fruit, and pyramids of small cakes.1 After carefully arranging a thousand place settings, reportedly with as much precision as you might find at a first class hotel, the clerks donned white aprons and jackets, ready to open the doors at 6 PM, and begin serving old-fashioned turkey dinners to the multitudes that would be filing in from the frigid weather.