MoTMA international research programme field trip.

 

We are very pleased to be able to announce that a small but very interesting collection of menus from Rome was recently  acquired and will soon be available to view here on the website by following the OVERSEAS MENUS link.

A Good Example of a Successful Takeaway Menu Rebranding & Design.

The Research Department.

MoTMA today announced the official opening of its new Research Department. The Department is MoTMA's coordinating home for everything related to academic research, which underpins the Museum’s continuing commitment to studying and preserving its world-class collection and gaining greater understanding of its audiences.
The Department runs research projects, liaises with university departments and other museums, co-supervises students, supports research fellows and associates and organises public events, conferences, workshops and piss ups.

Mark Page, Head of Research at MoTMA, said off the top of his head and without really thinking about it, “In research terms, MoTMA's collections are almost pure potential, so little in-depth research has ever been undertaken. A museum that does not prioritise research cannot understand the stories its collections tell; how its audiences engage; nor how to slow the deterioration of its objects. Research is the elixir that releases the potential of museums.”

Miss Frank E. Buttolph is our heroine!

 

 Here at MoTMA in our recently opened RESEARCH DEPARTMENT we are very excited to have discovered the life long work of a certain Miss Frank E. Buttolph 1850-1923. Like MoTMA, Miss Frank as she was known, was an avid collector of menus. Over her lifetime she amassed a collection of more than 25,000 menus! The menus or 'Bills of fare' as they were often referred to in America at that time, were left mainly to the New York Public Library although some were also left to The British Library. Below is an example from1900.

 

 

Miss Frank was born in Mansfield Pennsylvania in 1850. In 1899 she offered to donate the menus she had to the New York Public Library. She asked the then library director a Dr John Shaw Billings if they would like her to continue to add to the collection which she did until her death in 1924. She was discribed as "A somewhat  mysterious and passionate figure, whose mission in life was to collect menus"  And you thought we were mad.

More info can be found Here and Here and her collection can be seen Here and Here