New York, NY, October 11, 2002 -- Nearly all the menus in New York Eats Out come from a collection of more than 25,000 menus assembled by Miss Frank E. Buttolph between 1900 and 1924. Stored in some 400 boxes, they are housed in the Library’s General Research Division. About two-thirds of the menus are American, and more than half come from New York restaurants, most of them from 1890 to 1910.

Miss Buttolph is a somewhat mysterious figure. We know that she was born in 1850. We also know that she loved menus and The New York Public Library, and that, in the words of a New York Times reporter who interviewed her in 1906, she was “a tiny, unostentatious, literary-looking lady, whose bugaboo is a possible spot on one of her precious menus.”

In 1899 Miss Buttolph wrote to the Library’s director asking if he would be interested in acquiring restaurant menus. The answer was yes, and for the next quarter century, until her death in 1924, Miss Buttolph wrote to every restaurant she could think of, soliciting menus. If letters failed, she would march into the restaurant and plead her case in person. She also placed advertisements in trade publications like The Caterer and The Hotel Gazette. Occasionally, the newspapers took note of her project and ran stories about the odd woman whose mission in life was to collect menus.

After Miss Buttolph’s death, other menus found their way to the collection, donated in small batches, randomly. No one matched Miss Buttolph, however, in dedication and perseverance. As one writer put it in 1914, “Those whose privilege it will be in future years to look through these reminders of an earlier time, preserved in The New York Public Library, will be grateful for the thought that prompted the making of the Buttolph Collection.”

New York Eats Out press release

Support for this exhibition has been provided by Cascade Linen and Uniform Service.  Additional support has been provided by The Nash Family Foundation.

Support for The New York Public Library’s Exhibitions Program has been provided by Pinewood Foundation and by Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III. 

th: pro