The American Menu

San Francisco,  1853 In late 1852, the clipper Golden Eagle embarked on her maiden voyage from Boston to California.1 While rounding Ca...

New York City ca. 1892 Women were a popular motif on cigar boxes in the late nineteenth century, often depicted as angels, warriors, or...

Florida, Georgia & New Jersey  1885  After the Civil War, much of the country’s wealth was used to expand the railroads and build ...

1939-41  In 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt declared that Thanksgiving would be held on the third Thursday of November, instead of th...

New York City,  1906  After walking through Herald Square on election night in 1907, artist John Sloan noted in his diary that the che...

New York City,  2012   Eleven Madison Park is currently ranked as the tenth best restaurant in the world. 1 Despite this achiev...

New York City, 1890  Chauncey Depew was very busy on Monday, February 17, 1890. In addition to being the president of a railroad, De...

This article was first published in the 2010 summer issue of Gastronomica. It is posted here as a prelude to the essay titled “Chauncey Dep...

West Point, 1884-1887 When the Class of 1888 graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in June of that year, there were so few cadets t...

New York City 1863 In the 1966 comedy The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming , a Soviet submarine accidentally runs agroun...