The American Menu

New York City,  1948  The Dairy Restaurant is a fascinating new book by writer and cartoonist Ben Katchor. Jewish dairy restaurants attract...

New York City,  1882  Menus are generally the only documents that speak to how people dined outside the home in the nineteenth century. Yet,...

Savannah, Georgia  1896-1907  The message inscribed on the back of this postcard from the De Soto Hotel in Savannah, Georgia closes with the...

Washington, D.C.,  1859  One of the last glittering events of the antebellum era occurred in February of 1859 when a ball was held for Briti...

The South and West  April 14 – May 15, 1891   In the spring of 1891, two years after being in office, President Benjamin Harrison embarked o...

New York City,  1905  John W. Gates (1855-1911) was a steel magnate, financier, and gambler. He became widely known as “Bet-a-Million” Gates...

New York City,  1906  The Waldorf Hotel was built with women in mind. Proprietor George Bolt’s wife, Louise, was herself a hôtelière ...

New York City, 1906 This manuscript account book, bearing a typed label reading “Property of Mr. Oscar,” recently came into the collec...

Oakland,  ca. 1880 Novelist Gertrude Stein returned to the United States in 1934 after a 30-year absence. While crisscrossing the cou...

Paris, ca. 1928 Willis Morgan was among the several hundred thousand African-American soldiers sent to France during the First World W...