Taste in the city: depictions of food consumption in urban America, 1880-1920

From 1880 until the enforcement of Prohibition in 1920, depictions of food consumption evolved as a newly significant genre of American art. As restaurant dining became increasingly popular and the social norms governing food changed rapidly, the dining table functioned as a space for the negotiation of class, ethnicity, and identity. In the contexts of increased immigration, shifting class structures, and tumultuous urban environments, depictions of food consumption served essential sociocultural functions. Artists and viewers utilized depictions of food to justify and internalize difference, often working to combat change. The proliferation and diversification of food imagery during this period is evidence of changing tastes, for both food and imagery. Depictions of restaurant dining, food labor, ethnic restaurants, and other venues for food consumption served as spaces for the negotiation of change and the performance of class, identity, and status.