An Exhibition of Historic American Menus

Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden,
New York City

Early American menus from my collection are on display at the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum on East 61st Street in New York. The first of three rotating exhibits, this show includes an 1841 menu from the gentlemen’s ordinary at the Astor House, along with other rarities like a richly-lithographed banquet menu from La Pierre Hotel in Philadelphia in 1854 and the bill of fare from Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Ball, one of three known copies. The current installation runs through December.
The second exhibition will open in early January. Entitled “The American Excursionist (1870-1900),” it will illustrate some of the ways in which the post-war generations “kicked up their heels” in the years following the Civil War. During this era, a wide variety of vacation destinations emerged on the American scene. An interesting comparison can be made by a trio of breakfast menus from the 1890s. Originating from the Battle Creek Sanitarium, the luxurious Highland Park Hotel in Aiken, South Carolina, and the Wawona Hotel in Yosemite National Park, they neatly cover the spectrum of new travel experiences. In addition to those from grand hotels and resorts, this exhibit will include colorful menus from trains, boats, and transatlantic ships. 

Beginning in early March, the third installation will feature menus from New York during the Gilded Age. Reflecting many aspects of everyday life in the Empire City during the years 1867 to 1899, this exhibition will include beautiful menus from the city’s finest restaurants and hotels; many of these were handcrafted by the high-society stationers Dempsey & Carroll and Tiffany & Co. It will also include some scarce survivors from more modest places, such as the Central Park Casino, the Dorlon oyster bar in Fulton Market, and the dining pavilion at the Coney Island Jockey Club. 

Now through April 2013