Matchbook covers have been a source of advertising since 1894, two years after the matchbook was patented. Souvenir restaurant matchbooks, that ubiquitous memento of the night on the town, have been around since the turn of the century.

This vibrant, sprawling archive of over 3000 matchbooks from Chinese-American and other AAPI restaurants represents businesses from almost every state in the US and parts of Canada and dates from the 1920s through the 1970s. Taken as a whole, it is an incredible graphic compendium which helps visualize an important, complex aspect of America’s cultural and culinary history.

The first Chinese restaurants in the United States were opened in the Gold Mining towns of the 1850s. By 1929, in spite of cultural xenophobia and racist institutional policies like the Chinese Exclusion Act, almost all of the 50 most populous US cities in the country had Chinese restaurants. Though there were high-end Chinese eating establishments in the US as early as the 1860s, the majority of Chinese restaurants were in the form of “chop suey houses.” Cheap, affordable late-night joints where western diners could enjoy dishes that were somewhat derived from Cantonese recipes, but for the most part bore little or no relation to what was eaten anywhere in China. (“Chop suey” is, in fact, not even the name of a dish, but a rough translation of the phrase “odds and ends” or “leftovers.”)

These “chop suey” spots remained the standard until the 1960s and 70s. In her article “A Very Brief History of Chinese Food in America,” author Emelyn Rude writes that “the liberalization of American immigration policy in 1965 brought new arrivals from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Mainland, who in turn brought with them the foods they had enjoyed in areas like Hunan, Sichuan, Taipei and Shanghai.” In 1967, the fine-dining Sichuan restaurant Shun Lee Palace became the first Chinese eatery to receive a four-star review from the New York Times.

The matchbook covers in the collection help tell this story, providing a visual aid to the recurring similarities and countless differences used to advertise Chinese-American eating establishments. A number of the earlier covers offer “chop suey,” “chow mein,” while some later covers give the promise an “authentic experience."

As well, many of the covers employ the stereotypical “Chop Suey font” commonly associated with Chinese-American eateries. With a wedge-like shape design meant to evoke Chinese calligraphy, but bearing actual connection to it, the first known example was patented in 1883 by the Cleveland Type Foundry and was eventually called “Mandarin.” Its popularity expanded after it was used on the cover of the sheet music of the 1899 song “A Trip to Chinatown. Over time it became the model for all subsequent “Chop Suey” fonts.

By contrast, there are countless examples with their own typological flourish, some of which speak to the era of their creation. One interesting 1960s cover, for the Ricksha Bistro and Discotheque in San Francisco, utilizes a psychedelic type-face associated with the Rock posters of Bill Graham or Wes Wilson. Many of the covers reproduce an image of the restaurant itself, and others have a portrait of the proprietor. Often, the inside cover contains a small map, showing the restaurant’s location within a few city blocks.

Overall, the collection is an invaluable resource for advertising, culinary, and social history.

New York Book Fair 2024