Tea at the Blue Lantern Inn: A Social History of the Tea Room Craze in America

by Jan Whitaker

The Gypsy Tea Kettle. Polly's Cheerio Tea Room. The Mad Hatter. The Blue Lantern Inn. These are just a few of the many tea rooms - most owned and operated by women -- that popped up across America at the turn of the last century, and exploded into a full-blown craze by the 1920s. Colorful, cozy, festive, and inviting, these new-fangled eateries offered women a way to celebrate their independence and creativity. Sparked by the Suffragist movement, Prohibition, and the rise of the automobile, tea rooms forever changed the way America eats out, and laid the groundwork for the modern small restaurant and coffee bar.

In this lively, well-researched book, Jan Whitaker brings us back to the exciting days when countless American women dreamed of opening their own tea room - and many did. From the Bohemian streets of New York's Greenwich Village to the high-society tea rooms of Chicago's poshest hotels, from the Colonial roadside tea houses of New England to the welcoming bungalows of California, the book traces the social, artistic, and culinary changes the tea room helped bring about.

Anyone interested in women's history, the early days of the automobile, the Bohemian lives of artists in Greenwich Village, and the history of food and drink will revel in this spirited, stylish, and intimate slice of America's past.

Genres: Nonfiction, Tea, History, Food, Historical, Cooking, Cookbooks

192 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2002

About the author

In a sense I backed into writing books via a postcard collection. After years of collecting postcards of restaurants and tea rooms, I wanted to learn more about them and began sending around a proposal for a book on tea rooms. I love doing research and visiting libraries and archives. When I published Tea at the Blue Lantern Inn: A Social History of the Tea Room Craze in America in 2002 it had not yet become possible to do historical research online like it is now so I had to really search for anything about old tea rooms from the teens and 1920s. My next book, on the social history of department stores (Service and Style: How the American Department Store Fashioned the Middle Class) had a chapter on tea rooms in it too. Both books were illustrated with postcards and menus that I had collected.
My most recent books is The World of Department Stores (2011) and is beautifully illustrated and designed. In this case, though, the picture editors were in Paris!
The book "that got away" may be the one I'd love to do now, on the social history of American restaurants. Alas, I don't think there's a place for it under the new realities of publishing! So in the meantime I am consoling myself with my blog "Restaurant-ing through history." I have to say that I love handling the editorial, illustrating, and writing roles all at once, as well as hearing from people from all over the world.

Reviews

[Melody Schwarting · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you pick up Tea at the Blue Lantern Inn based on its cover, you won't be disappointed. Whitaker has collected so much memorabilia and ephemera of tea rooms, and her book is chock full of charming signs, advertisements, and photographs from the tea room craze.

Whitaker revives the "vivacity, modernity, stylishness--and playful silliness" (2) of tea rooms, going beyond today's image of them as somewhat stuffy and antiquated. She marks the rise of the automobile, prohibition, and women's suffrage as key factors in the rise of tea rooms: women would drive together to tea room destinations thanks to their new freedoms. Prohibition changed the image of the restaurant, making it less scandalous for women to open eateries, and easier for proprietors to start dry establishments, since they no longer had to open their doors with an expensive repertoire of alcohol.

Whitaker has chosen a severely understudied aspect of material culture and women's social history to study here, and her efforts are deeply appreciated. The next time I dine in a tea room, I'll certainly think of women in the 1910s-1930s more than the 19th century, which is today's stereotype of tea rooms, and remember the ladies who gloried in tea rooms together in those decades.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I originally bought this because I thought it seemed quaint but it's actually a really meaty history of tea rooms, which I didn't realize helped spawn the craze for "chicken and waffles" in the 1920s. It was one of the first business ventures for a lot of liberated women after World War I. Really well-written and well-researched book with interesting historical photographs of tea rooms. I didn't know that Greenwich Village's bohemian background featured a lot of tea rooms. Recommended.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's very anecdotal which gets a little old in the second half (mainly I was disappointed that it didn't mention MINE - The window Garden in Cincinnati). It offers many insights into womens' lives in the early 20th century. We take so much for granted: women today can easily walk into a restaurant unescorted but it used to be unthinkable. Also I had no idea that tea rooms in Greenwich Village were quite the bohemian thing to the point that they became tourist attractions.

[Brianne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting book, but I found it to be quite dry. Whitaker went into great detail in describing the tea rooms, their menus and their names (sometimes a little too much detail for me). I was also interested in the social aspects and changes that brought about the "tea room craze," and I just felt that I didn't get as much of that as I wanted.

Overall, it was interesting and there is some good information (bonus bibliography in the back!), so I'd recommend this if you're curious about the subject matter.

[Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book wasn't quite what I expected in a few ways, but Whitaker's obviously meticulous research does shine throughout. While the title makes the book out to be a history of tea rooms in America, the focus was clearly on tea rooms in urban areas, with a short foray into roadside tea rooms. Whitaker does a good job of showing how tea rooms, a predominately women-owned business which catered to female clientele, influenced the male-dominated restaurant business and reflected the changing role of women in America during this time period. She also does a wonderful job of removing the "authorial voice" from commenting on a time period when so few were equal citizens, stating these inequalities as fact but not dwelling on them.

The book was a little hard to read in places. The constant name-dropping of so many tea rooms was dizzying, especially with no context to understand their significance. Also, Whitaker is prone to making statements without providing any verifying context. However, Whitaker's history does give a good basis for understanding the extreme variety in establishments that refer to themselves as tea rooms today. The photographs of historical tea rooms and their menus and advertisements were a big bonus. I wish this book had been a bit more national in scope, referenced a longer time frame, and backed up its claims in a more transparent way; but my expectations may have set me up for disappointment. Nonetheless, definitely worth checking out for anyone interested in tea-related history or social history in America.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-researched, well-written, and easy to read social history of tea rooms in America. The author correlates the rise in popularity of tea rooms with the improvements in women's rights and opportunities during the first half of the twentieth century.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really fascinating look at the culture of tea from the tea room perspective that goes beyond the stereotypical assumptions of what a tea room embodied and how they impacted the hospitality, menus and restaurant businesses.

[Cara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating.

[Stella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating history of American tea rooms, but unfortunately bogged down by a dull listing of every tea room that is an example of each point the author makes.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very much enjoyed this book. I love tea and tea rooms. It was great to read about their history.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

My husband got this book some years back since he was researching tea. Since I enjoy drinking tea and visiting tea rooms plus love reading about history, I thought I would give this book a try. The book is attractive, with a lovely cover and inside are many illustrations and photos. The book is also well researched, lots of information. Although the book is only 180 pages, it took much longer to read than I thought. I am glad I read the book and it was interesting and informative, but the book became tedious at times. Many pages are paragraph after paragraph of many lists of tea rooms and their owners all over the United States. There is no way to retain all the names and information so reading the book is at times less than satisfying and drawn out. I wish the author had spent more time talking about some of the particular tea rooms in more depth rather than covering a little bit about so many of them. In addition, for those lovers of tea, the book spends very little time talking about the drinking of tea in tea rooms. It appears that tea itself was not given a lot of thought in these tea rooms. The emphasis was more on the building, the decor and food. I would also have liked more discussion about the food served. The author does talk more about the food served towards the end of the book, but not throughout the book.

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an enjoyable read about the history of the tea room in America. I picked up this book at the library because I enjoy drinking tea and going to teas. I learned a lot about tea rooms and how the tea room paralleled events in American history, such as Prohibition. Background on the event was given and how the tea room evolved in terms of the event. Many tea rooms came to be as roadside restaurants when car travel became popular. It was a place where people could get a meal while traveling. The book was written as an informational book but was easy to read. The writing style gave the information in a easy to understand language.

[Donna Jo Atwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little history of US tea rooms in the first half of the 20th Century. There is brief mention of the one I was familiar with--Younkers Tea Room in Des Moines, IA. I have fond memories of riding the train to DM and attending one of the Saturday noon fashion shows there. Don't remember actually drinking any tea there.

[Krystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and approachable look at the "tea room craze" in America in the 1920s and how it's continued to affect expectations whenever Americans visit a restaurant. If nothing else, I now am really hungry for a decent afternoon tea meal.

[Relyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

With a title like this, how could I not love it? Then, add a fabulous cover... and you still have a dud of a book. Well, maybe if I really, really loved tea.

[Drusilla · Rating 1 out of 5]

Christmas gift. Would have found much more interesting in a condensed version.