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New Hampshire,
1881
Tilden Ladies’ Seminary in West Lebanon, New Hampshire was a progressive institution established in 1855 when most female boarding schools focused on activities like needlework and music. Two pieces of ephemera from 1881 provide a rare glimpse of this school and a guest lecturer named Maria Parloa, one of the country’s first celebrity chefs.
New York City,
1906
The Waldorf Hotel was built with women in mind. Proprietor George Bolt’s wife, Louise, was herself a hôtelière who supervised its interior design, adding homey touches she thought would appeal to women. Astonishingly, when the Waldorf Hotel opened in 1893, it did not have a bar, then a male sanctuary at such establishments. The hostelry finally acquired one in 1897 when it was connected to the Astor Hotel and renamed the Waldorf-Astoria. One of the most popular features of the enormous hotel was its crystalline Palm Garden which proved to be an ideal setting for the latest customs of “lunching out” and having “afternoon tea”. What is more, the management tried to create a hospitable environment for women. In addition to employing the standard rule that the customer is always right, the staff was instructed to “never speak abruptly to a woman guest nor be indifferent to her complaints.”1 An account book from the social season of 1905-1906 shows the hotel was successful in attracting all manner of women’s groups, including Sorosis, the first professional women’s club in the United States. A look at three of their luncheons reveals the degree to which the hotel wanted to retain the business of this prestigious association.
Oakland,
ca. 1880
Novelist Gertrude Stein returned to the United States in 1934 after a 30-year absence. While crisscrossing the country on a speaking tour, the celebrated Parisian expatriate visited Oakland to see the farm she grew up on and the house where she once lived. After learning that her childhood home had been razed and the farmland developed, Stein famously wrote “there is no there there.” The significant places in California that helped define her no longer existed. The Stein family had moved to Oakland in 1880, when she was six, and lived for the first year at the Tubbs Hotel. Situated just east of Lake Merritt, the 200-room hostelry had some prominent guests in its day.1 Former president Ulysses S. Grant and his wife dined there in 1879 while on the final leg of their trip around the world. And author Robert Louis Stevenson stayed at the Tubbs Hotel from March to April 1880, the same year the Stein family was in residence. Nevertheless, a table d’hôte menu from the period reveals that it was a middling establishment where the meals were basically the same as those at other hotels in its class. Indeed, there was “no there” in the dining rooms of American hotels where the standardized cuisine reflected few regional influences.
Paris,
1878-1923
French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted this portrait of a waitress at one of the Établissements Duval, a small chain of low-cost Parisian restaurants. The first location opened in 1854 when a butcher named Pierre Louis Duval started using meat scraps to make broths.1 The Établissements Duval were often called “Bouillons Duval” or “Établissements de Bouillon” in reference to this signature dish. However, the restaurants were best known for their women servers who wore black dresses, half hidden by aprons and snow-white bibs, and caps.2 In 1881, the Baedeker guidebook advised travelers that the servers were “soberly garbed, and not unlike sisters of charity.” Similarly, a journalist at the New York Times noted the “neat, nun-like uniforms” reminded him of what the cooks wore in the kitchen of the House of Commons.3,4 Three menus recall these restaurants that were once an integral part of the Parisian scene.
Budapest,
1914
The departure of the steamship on September 12, 1914 was a memorable sight, as 126 American Red Cross nurses stood in their white caps and gray uniforms along the rails where the sea wind blew open their red-lined capes, creating a line of scarlet on the side of the vessel. World War I had erupted a little over a month earlier and now they, along with 30 surgeons and boxes of medical equipment, were sailing from New York on what was called a “mercy mission.” Striving to stay neutral, the United States deployed the American Red Cross to provide medical aid to both sides of the conflict in Europe. Once on board, they were organized into units that would establish military hospitals in seven locations—Paignton, England; Pau, France; Kiev, Russia; Kosel and Gleiwitz, Germany; Vienna, Austria; and Budapest, Hungary.2 A battered menu bears witness to this largely-forgotten expedition that embodied a humanitarian ideal which was ahead of its time.
Flint, Michigan
1882-1887
The American custom of having afternoon tea is often traced back to the late nineteenth century when the upper classes in New York began adopting their version of the British ritual. However, long before this, average women were using the term “five o’clock tea” to describe some of their get-togethers. This is evidenced by a surprising discovery of nine enigmatic menus from the mid-1880s—a rare find, as menus were seldom printed for meals in private homes.1 These mementos were apparently saved by a woman who belonged to a small circle of friends. Although the menus contained the names of the participants, the use of nicknames and initials made it difficult to determine where the social events had taken place. Nevertheless, through trial and error, it was eventually determined that the women lived in Flint, Michigan, then a town of about 9,000 people. The menus offer a glimpse into the everyday social life of middle-class Midwesterners, with one in particular highlighting the entrepreneurial spirit that would soon drive the nation forward.
The White House
1961-1963
Flashbulbs popped on the night of the Pre-Inaugural Gala as Jacqueline Kennedy emerged from a townhouse in Georgetown into the swirling snow. She was dressed in a shimmering, winter-white satin gown designed by Oleg Cassini, marking the country’s first glimpse of Jackie in her role as First Lady. Her appearance revealed the grace, elegance, and unique style that she would bring to the White House.
Iowa, New York & Connecticut,
1886-1888
Two corn cobs were walking along, and the first cob noticed that they were being followed by another cob. The first cob whispered to the second, “Don’t look now, but I think we are being followed by a stalker.” This was the type of corny joke that made the rounds at the corn-themed suppers that became popular in the late 1880s.1
Church suppers were commonplace occurrences during the nineteenth century, both as social gatherings and a way for women's groups to raise money. Around 1886, church groups across the country began to use corn as a theme for their suppers. The short-lived fad seemingly came out of nowhere—it was not confined to the Corn Belt in the Midwest nor related to the harvest season.
