June 2, 1901 · S.S. Ventura · Oceanic Steamship Company · Dinner
S.S. Ventura was launched in 1900 specifically for the San Francisco–Sydney route. She and her sisters Sonoma and Sierra carried first- and second-class passengers as well as the Australia–New Zealand mail. Dinner aboard mixed Californian, Hawaiian, and Australian ingredients — the line was famous for fresh tropical fruit picked up at Hawaiian and Samoan ports.
The cover is a fine example of poster-style chromolithography from 1900. Heavy gold-coloured drapery frames a circular vignette of a sailing ship under full sail (despite the Ventura actually being a steamer). The cover acts as an aspirational image of the line’s romantic trans-Pacific route, rather than a literal portrait of the vessel.
Oceanic Steamship Company was founded in 1881 by John D. Spreckels, the San Francisco sugar magnate. The line operated regular passenger and mail service between San Francisco, Honolulu, Pago Pago (American Samoa), Auckland, and Sydney. The 12,000-mile round trip was one of the longest scheduled passenger routes in the world.
Visual style: Colour lithograph poster-style cover with drapery, sailing ship vignette, and gold lettering.
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.
