September 27, 1888 · Norddeutscher Lloyd, Bremen · Dinner — Bremen to America Service
This menu predates NDL’s famous express liners by nearly a decade. Crossings in 1888 took ten to twelve days. First-class dining was already elaborate — French in style despite the German ownership — but speed and route reliability were still NDL’s main selling points over luxury.
The embossed gold cover with its sailing-ship medallion and decorative ribbon banners reflects the high-Victorian printing aesthetic of the 1880s. Heavy embossing, gold ink, and rectangular layouts with framed central images were standard for premium commercial stationery of this decade.
1888 was a pivotal year for NDL: the company had just finished modernizing its fleet for express service. The Bremen–America route had become Germany’s primary western emigration channel — between 1880 and 1914 NDL alone carried more than two million emigrants to the United States.
Visual style: Embossed gold lettering on cover with sailing-vessel motif.
What you receive
- Three print sizes: 8×10, 11×14, 16×20 inches (300 DPI, ready for any home printer or framing shop).
- Two versions of each size: a pure print (no added text) and a museum print (with a small caption: restaurant or ship, year, and source).
- A 1–2 page PDF with the menu’s historical context.
- One ZIP file, instantly downloadable after checkout.
About the source
This menu is preserved in the Buttolph Collection of Menus at The New York Public Library and is in the public domain in the United States. The Menu Press has curated, digitally restored, and reformatted the work for modern printing.
