The American Menu

Boston,  1885  Menus designed exclusively for children first appeared in department stores and railroad dining cars in the 1920s and were mo...

Boston,  1875-1885  Almost everyone living in large cities ate in a restaurant from time to time during the late nineteenth century. Unless ...

1842 & 1925 Charles Dickens was enthusiastically fêted when he visited the United States in 1842 and 1867-68.  For many years afterward,...

Wilmington, Delaware 1911 This postcard marks the second day of a trapshooting competition at the DuPont Gun Club on  July 11,  1911. The re...

1864-1938   O ne of the underlying themes of American ephemera is the expansion of the middle and upper classes. Over time, higher incomes a...

Los Angeles,  1971  The  front  of this large menu from 1971 features the word “om” in Devanagari script. Underneath is a description of thi...

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...