TURNING THE TABLES: AMERICAN RESTAURANT CULTURE AND THE RISE OF THE MIDDLE CLASS, 1880-1920 by Andrew Peter Haley BA, Tufts University, 1991 MA, University of Pittsburgh, 1997 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2005 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Andrew Peter Haley It was defended on May 26, 2005 and approved by Dr. Paula Baker, History, The Ohio State University Co-Dissertation Director Dr. Donna Gabaccia, History, University of Pittsburgh Co-Dissertation Director Dr. Richard Oestreicher, History, University of Pittsburgh Dr. Carol Stabile, Communications, University of Pittsburgh Dr. Bruce Venarde, History, University of Pittsburgh ii © Andrew Peter Haley iii TURNING THE TABLES: AMERICAN RESTAURANT CULTURE AND THE RISE OF THE MIDDLE CLASS, 1880-1920 Andrew Peter Haley, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2005 This dissertation examines changes in restaurant dining during the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era as a means of understanding the growing influence of the middle- class consumer. It is about class, consumption and culture; it is also about food and identity. In the mid-nineteenth century, restaurants served French food prepared by European chefs to elite Americans with aristocratic pretensions. “Turning the Tables” explores the subsequent transformation of aristocratic restaurants into public spaces where the middle classes could feel comfortable dining. Digging deeply into the changes restaurants underwent at the turn of the century, I argue that the struggles over restaurant culture—the battles over the French-language menu, the scientific eating movement, the celebration of cosmopolitan cuisines, the growing acceptance of unescorted women diners, the failed attempts to eliminate tipping—offer evidence that the urban middle class would play a central role in the construction of twentieth-century American culture. Economic development in the late nineteenth century created the necessary conditions for the growth of a professional and managerial class, but it was consumption that shaped these urbanites into a coherent class. Lacking the cultural capital necessary to emulate the elite, the middle class distanced themselves from an aristocratic culture they deemed too French and came to patronize restaurants—some featuring ethnic iv cuisine—that reflected their own cosmopolitan values. Ultimately, this patronage created a middle-class culture that challenged traditional notions of public dining. Taking issue with cultural theorists who argue that class hierarchies are unassailable, I contend that the collective purchasing power of the middle class effected a cultural coup that changed future generations understanding of national identity, gender and ethnicity. The emergence of a middle-class consuming public had far-reaching ramifications. Not only did the middle classes demonstrate their agency in choosing to patronize restaurants that catered to their tastes, but they also established an institutional basis for asserting their cultural influence. In the nineteenth century, the middle classes imitated the rich; in the twentieth century, the middle classes became the nation’s cultural arbiters. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................. ix NOTE ON LANGUAGE AND PUNCTUATION............................................................ xi PROLOGUE ..................................................................................................................... xii Chapter 1: “The true status of a nation’s civilization”: An Introduction............................ 1 From Producers to Consumers........................................................................................ 2 The Importance of Culture.............................................................................................. 5 Understanding Culture.................................................................................................... 8 Culture and Consumption as Class ............................................................................... 12 Locating Restaurants..................................................................................................... 19 The Story....................................................................................................................... 23 Conclusions................................................................................................................... 24 Chapter 2: “Terrapin à la Maryland”: The Era of the Aristocratic Restaurant ................. 26 An American Aristocracy ............................................................................................. 27 The French Aristocratic Restaurant .............................................................................. 31 Conclusions: Social Darwinism and Cultural Capital .................................................. 55 Chapter 3: Playing at “Make Believe”: The Failure of Imitation ..................................... 63 The New Middle Classes .............................................................................................. 65 Cult and Culture of Imitation........................................................................................ 72 “Ordinary Mortals”: The Failure of Imitation .............................................................. 83 The Middle Classes Speak............................................................................................ 94 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 103 Chapter 4: “Roast meats, 15 cents; all sorts of vegetables, 5 cents”: The Rise of the Middle-Class Restaurant................................................................................................. 108 Growth ........................................................................................................................ 110 Middle-Class Restaurants ........................................................................................... 112 “American” Restaurants.............................................................................................. 119 An Economic Revolution............................................................................................ 129 Conclusions................................................................................................................. 133 Chapter 5: “Taste it once you will not be disturbed by the smell”: Colonizing the Ethnic Restaurant ....................................................................................................................... 138 Foreign Food............................................................................................................... 141 The Inexpensive Dinner.............................................................................................. 146 A Middle-Class Institution.......................................................................................... 153 Culinary Adventurism................................................................................................. 159 The Restauration ......................................................................................................... 162 Conclusions................................................................................................................. 169 Chapter 6: A Protest against Gastronomic Ostentation: Middle-Class Agency and the Transformation of the Aristocratic Restaurant ............................................................... 173 New Scale, New Economies....................................................................................... 177 Simplifying the Aristocratic Menu ............................................................................. 179 Beyond the French Dinner.......................................................................................... 190 Changing the Language of Dining.............................................................................. 204 vi Conclusions................................................................................................................. 216 Chapter 7: Deaf, Dumb and Blind: Democratizing Restaurant Service ......................... 222 Gratuities..................................................................................................................... 223 The Tipping Evil......................................................................................................... 227 Technological Utopias ................................................................................................ 236 Conclusions................................................................................................................. 246 Chapter 8: Satisfying their Hunger: Women, Respectability and the Democracy of Dining ......................................................................................................................................... 252 Nineteenth-century Aristocratic Restaurants and Women.......................................... 257 Middle-Class Women ................................................................................................. 285 Conclusions................................................................................................................. 309