On the Menu: Historical Menu Cards (State Library Collection)

This dataset comprises 2,403 images of historical menu cards from the Menükarten-Sammlung of the Berlin State Library, mostly spanning the period from 1880 to approximately 1913. The collection offers a rich visual and cultural archive of dining culture across Europe, capturing the evolution of public restaurants, elite hospitality, and bourgeois social life during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The cards originate from diverse contexts: royal and imperial courts (including Kaiser Wilhelm II’s court), private celebrations (weddings, club dinners), major public events (e.g., the opening of the Nord-Ostsee-Kanal and Cologne Cathedral), luxury hotels (e.g., Frankfurter Hof, Hotel Schweizerhof), and transatlantic cruise ships. Many feature intricate designs and illustrations.

Dataset Structure

The dataset consists of a single compressed zip file with directories which are named using the unique identifier PPN of each digitised item. Furthermore, a .csv file containing metadata for each item is provided. The .csv file contains, in the first column, the PPN of each individual digitised item. The metadata for each work has been extracted from METS/MODS files describing the contents and structure of a digital object published in the digitised collections.