COLLECTION DESCRIPTION
A collection of over 10,000 menus, providing evidence of the manners, mores, and food habits of earlier times.
Many menus include prints or half-tones of historic people and places. They may also include featured speakers, detail organizational leadership, and provide biographical sketches of the famous and infamous, including Theodore Roosevelt, Wilbur and Orville Wright, and Oscar Hammerstein. They may dramatize historical events, such as a "luncheon to the California Promotion Committee on the occasion of the resumption of the hotel business in the burned district after the earthquake and fire on 18 April 1906"; the opening of the first tunnels of the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad Company under the Hudson River; and a dinner in honor of Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot. Prohibition era menus indicated the availability of spirits to their clientele by tucking a small insert into the spine cord of the menu.
Also menus collected by Charles N. Pinco.
Also, menus collected by Ruth Wood Green from hotels and nightclubs in the 1940s.
Dates
- 1851-[ca.1990]
Creator
- Cornell University. Library (Organization)
Language of Materials
Collection material in English
ORGANIZATIONAL HISTORY
The core of the collection was assembled by Oscar Tschirky (1866-1943), known throughout the world as Oscar of the Waldorf. As maitre d'hotel of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City, from 1893 to 1943, he began a lifelong hobby of collecting menus, some of which were for functions he himself arranged, but most of which were of historical, gastronomic, or artistic importance. Upon his death, his menu collection, papers, and personal memorabilia were donated to Cornell University. The Hotel School Library has continued to add to the collection.
Extent
35.3 cubic feet. (35.3 cubic feet.)
Abstract
A collection of over 10,000 menus, providing evidence of the manners, mores, and food habits of earlier times.
Physical Description
Menus.
General
- Contact Information:
- Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections 2B Carl A. Kroch Library Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 (607) 255-3530 Fax: (607) 255-9524 rareref@cornell.edu http://rmc.library.cornell.edu
- Compiled by:
- J. Parker
- Date completed:
- September 2001
- EAD encoding:
- Martin Heggestad, May 2003
- Date modified:
- Kristen Reichenbach, October 2018
SAMPLE LOCATIONS
- Astor House, NYC
- Delmonico's, NYC
- Waldorf-Astoria, NYC
- Arena, NYC
- San Francisco, CA
- Sherry's, NYC
- Carlton Hotel, London, England
- Bellevue-Stratford, Philadelphia
- Eastman Hotel, Hot Springs, AR
- Algonquin Club, Boston
- Municipal Ferry Terminal, SI+
- Bozanta Tavern
- Grunewald Hotel, New Orleans
- Bancroft Hotel, Worcester, MA
- Biltmore Hotel, NYC
- Hamilton Hotel, Washington, DC
- Les Halles Centrale, Paris, France
- Raleigh Hotel, Washington, DC
- Dinners and dining.
- Gastronomy.
- Menus -- England -- History -- 19th century.
- Menus -- England -- History -- 20th century.
- Menus -- France -- History -- 19th century.
- Menus -- France -- History -- 20th century.
- Menus -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
- Menus -- United States -- History -- 20th century.
- Menus.
- Restaurants.
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Compiled by J. Parker
- Date
- May 2003
- Language of description
- Undetermined
- Script of description
- Code for undetermined script
- Box: 28 (Mixed Materials)
- Box: 29 (Mixed Materials)
- Box: 30 (Mixed Materials)
- Box: 31 (Mixed Materials)
- Box: 32 (Mixed Materials)
- Box: 33 (Mixed Materials)
- Box: 34 (Mixed Materials)
- Box: 35 (Mixed Materials)
- Box: 36 (Mixed Materials)
- Box: 37 (Mixed Materials)
- Box: 38 (Mixed Materials)
- Box: 40 (Mixed Materials)
- Box: 41 (Mixed Materials)
- Box: 42 (Mixed Materials)
- Box: 39 (Mixed Materials)
- Box: 36 A (Mixed Materials)
Repository Details
Part of the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections Repository
2B Carl A. Kroch Library
Cornell University
Ithaca NY 14853
607-255-3530
607-255-9524 (Fax)
rareref@cornell.edu