HIS 301: Food in American Culture

Selected Historic Cookbooks from the Library of Congress, with links to online versions.

An on-line resource providing a growing data base of bibliographic materials for researchers in the field of food history and, more generally, food studies. It is meant to help ensure the circulation of information to the increasing number of scholars working in these fields. The bibliography (presently version 3.2) contains some 18,750 records in 8 different languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese and Dutch). Special attention has been devoted to areas that are not usually covered by on-line library catalogues: articles appearing in journals, papers printed in conference proceedings, etc.

Approximately 45,000 menus dating from the 1840s to the present, The New York Public Library’s restaurant menu collection is one of the largest in the world, used by historians, chefs, novelists and everyday food enthusiasts. Trouble is, the menus are very difficult to search for the greatest treasures they contain: specific information about dishes, prices, the organization of meals, and all the stories these things tell us about the history of food and culture.

Menus from a wide variety of restaurants; everything from fine dining to quick service.

Database of menus stored in the Rare Book Room of the Central Library, with some images of the actual menus.

More than 1.2 million digitized images from the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC), including photographs, fine and popular prints and drawings, posters, and architectural and engineering drawings. While international in scope, the collections are particularly rich in materials produced in, or documenting the history of, the United States and the lives, interests and achievements of the American people.

Sixty-six different collections, including Selected Civil War Photographs, 1861-1865; Chicago Daily News Photographs, 1902-1933; Edward S. Curtis's North American Indian Photographs, Ca. 1900; Daguerreotype Photographs, 1839-1864; William P. Gottlieb Photographs from the Golden Age of Jazz 1938-1948; and three collections on Women’s Suffrage, 1850-1938. Some overlap with the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog.

The Digital Gallery provides free and open access to over 700,000 images digitized from the The New York Public Library's vast collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs and more.

Digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. This site provides access to 267 monograph volumes and over 100,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints.

Searchable database of websites for research in the Humanities; includes a large section of primary and secondary material about European History.

Best of History Web Sites contains annotated links to over 1200 history web sites as well as links to hundreds of quality K-12 history lesson plans, history teacher guides, history activities, history games, history quizzes, and more.