Using the Rare and Manuscript Collections
Special Collections Material
- Rare and Manuscript Collections on Food, Wine & Culinary HistoryThe Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections offers outstanding research materials on the history of food, wine, gastronomy and restaurants.
- Rare Cookery Book CollectionThe Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections contains more than 3,000 rare cookery books dating from the 15th century onwards.
- Not by Bread Alone: America's Culinary HeritageSelected highlights from the Rare and Manuscript Collection are featured in the electronic exhibition (Cornell University Library: Ithaca, NY, 2002). Explores the influences and inventions that have shaped American food habits over the past two hundred years.
- HEARTH, Home Economics ArchiveOnline texts from Home Economics
- Hotel School Menu CollectionThe Nestle Library collects menus from a wide variety of restaurants; everything from fine dining to quick service. Finding Aid - https://rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/htmldocs/RMM06452.html
- Waxman Trade Card CollectionThis collection of advertising trade cards about food and related subjects (ca. 1870-1900) provides insight into many aspects of late nineteenth-century life.
- Hotel School Cookery Subject GuideLists and links to top resources available at the Nestle Library in Statler Hall.
Menu collections from other institutions
- NYPL What's on the menu
- Menu Collection - Los Angeles Public Library
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A database of menus from Los Angeles, other cities, steamships, airlines and banquets.
- The National Restaurant Association Menu Collection
The collection was donated to Johnson & Wales University Library by the National Restaurant Association. Many of the menus featured were part of their menu design contests in the 1980s and 1990s.
- Culinary Institute of America
Select menus from CIA restaurants and events from the 1960s to 2000s; and historical menus from around the world from 1855-1923.
- Louisiana Menu and Restaurant Collection
Louisiana and New Orleans restaurant menus from the 1930s to the present.
Advertising databases and Cooking magazines online
- Ad AccessOver 7,000 U.S. and Canadian advertisements covering five product categories - Beauty and Hygiene, Radio, Television, Transportation, and World War II propaganda - dated between 1911 and 1955.
- The Advertising ArchivesThe Advertising Archives is the largest and most comprehensive resource of its kind in Europe and includes 50,000 searchable online ads. You must register independently to see enlarged images.
- Internet Archive - Cooking MagazinesCooking magazines from the 21st century
- Internet Archive: Cookbooks and Home EconomicsThe Cookbook and Home Economics Collection includes books from the Young Research Library Department of Special Collections at UCLA, The Bancroft Library at The University of California, Berkeley, and the Prelinger Library.
Profile

Maureen Morris
Contact:
106 Olin Library
mm342@cornell.edu
mm342@cornell.edu
Subjects: American Indian & Indigenous Studies, Anthropology