MAURETANIA wartime July 4 menu

menu

EPHEMERA
3-2020.39.7001-7029(-done)(50of123)
Cunard Line
1918-07-04
paper
overall: 6 3/16 x 4 in.

This menu from the MAURETANIA dates to July 4, 1918 and is a little piece of WWI history. This Independence Day breakfast was served to American servicemen en route to Europe for the last months of WWI. The ship left Liverpool on June 15 and arrived back with its load of troops on July 7, 1918. The menu is anything but military, with its pink floral decoration, and it seems to be evoking a celebratory air. The food is, perhaps, a bit more generous than the usual wartime breakfast. Even the image of the ship at the top is a throwback to peacetime-- at this time, the ship was painted in a wartime geometric "dazzle" camouflage to confuse German submarines. It has been estimated that the ship transported some 30,000 American troops to Europe in 1918, and it was also used to transport many troops back after the armistice in November 1918. The captain helming the MAURETANIA for these voyages in 1918 was Arthur H. Rostron, the hero of the TITANIC disaster who commanded the CARPATHIA at that time and raced to the rescue of the TITANIC survivors.

2020.39.7003