1890s Vintage Menu Prints

The Gilded Age at its zenith — ocean liners, grand hotels, and the Trans-Mississippi Exposition

By the 1890s, the printed menu had become an art form in itself. Hamburg-Amerika, Norddeutscher Lloyd and Cunard competed on the North Atlantic with chromolithograph cards depicting their fleets in vivid color. New York’s Waldorf-Astoria opened in 1893 and immediately set the standard for American society dining. The decade culminated in the Trans-Mississippi Exposition (1898) and the early Pan-American Exposition preparations.

The 1890s are the second-largest decade in our archive, with strong representation across ocean liners, Manhattan hotels, and emerging railroad dining service.

Browse adjacent decades: 1880s  ·  1900s  ·  1910s  ·  1920s