Restaurant Republic: The Rise of Public Dining in Boston
Kelly Erby
Abstract
Restaurant Republic examines the nascent restaurant landscape in Boston in its entirety, from the most plebian of eateries to the extremely elite and refined. Focusing on the rise of commercial dining in one specific city provides the opportunity to systematically explore the varied networks of public dining venues that catered to distinct groups of Americans. The story of why Americans embraced dining out and the wide variety of ways in which they began to do so is an important one. Restaurants were a major part of a growing trend in urban public venues dedicated to consumer leisure in the ni ... More
Restaurant Republic examines the nascent restaurant landscape in Boston in its entirety, from the most plebian of eateries to the extremely elite and refined. Focusing on the rise of commercial dining in one specific city provides the opportunity to systematically explore the varied networks of public dining venues that catered to distinct groups of Americans. The story of why Americans embraced dining out and the wide variety of ways in which they began to do so is an important one. Restaurants were a major part of a growing trend in urban public venues dedicated to consumer leisure in the nineteenth century. Along with theatres, department stores, and hotels, restaurants provided a public stage at a time when, still fresh from their revolution, Americans were eager to enter into the public sphere and define themselves as a people. But perhaps more than these other public commercial spaces, restaurants were also sharply differentiated. Thus, the study of restaurant dining in this period provides an opportunity to cast new light on how Americans attempted to balance the revolutionary ideal of egalitarianism against a growing capitalist consumer culture that both reflected and contributed to social hierarchy.
Keywords:
Food,
Culinary History,
Boston,
Nineteenth Century,
Consumption,
Restaurants,
Gender,
Class,
Race and Ethnicity,
Immigration
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2016 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780816691302 |
| Published to Minnesota Scholarship Online: May 2017 |
DOI:10.5749/minnesota/9780816691302.001.0001 |
