TEA AT THE BLUE LANTERN INN

Food writer Whitaker carves out a niche—a very small niche—in history: the rise and decline of the American tea-room during the first half of the 20th century.

The boom in tea-rooms began in 1910 and ended in the ’50s, when their image was fixed as a bastion of women’s middle-class convention (think Schrafft’s). Not so, says Whitaker. The upsurge in tea-rooms reflected profound social change. At the turn of the century, tea-rooms in hotels and department stores were among the few public places unescorted women could go for refreshment, and there were not many of them. By 1925, they had proliferated in cities, suburbs, and rural areas across the US. The author attributes this phenomenon to three developments: the rising independence of women, unsatisfied with their dining choices; the surge in automobile ownership, which made the country tea-room an attractive Sunday drive destination; and Prohibition, which put tea-rooms on a competitive basis with restaurants that could no longer serve liquor. The author examines menus and decor, designed for the most part by and for women and heavy on Colonial themes (fireplaces and spinning wheels). She also reports on subcategories of tea-rooms, including those in Greenwich Village, which boasted a bohemian atmosphere and unconventional hours. Roadside tea-rooms prided themselves on cleanliness and fresh food; in the cities, working women found tea-rooms a haven for lunch; on college campuses, they became student hangouts. Spinning-wheel motifs were superseded by sometimes outrageous whimsy as Russian and gypsy tea-rooms came into vogue. A support industry emerged, with college courses, trade magazines, and how-to books and articles available for the tea-room entrepreneur.

The author connects the dots between tea-rooms and social change, but the picture that emerges is a rough sketch, even for its limited audience. (8 pp. color photos, not seen; 85 b&w illustrations)