Artifact Spotlight: USS BROOKLYN Christmas Menu, 1903

Far from home on cruises all over the globe, naval officers and enlisted men have always celebrated the  holidays with special meals. This 1903 menu for Christmas dinner shared by the officers of the USS Brooklyn (CA-3) is just one of several interesting Christmas holiday-related documents in the Naval War College Museum collection. 

The famous armored cruiser, well-known for her role at the Battle of Santiago (1898) and for carrying the remains of John Paul Jones from Cherbourg, France to Annapolis, Maryland (1905), was on station with the newly reformed European Squadron at the time. Not content to simply list the evening's courses, the menu is annotated with quotes from Shakespeare, Lord Byron, the New Testament, and others.

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 The menu was donated to the Naval War College Museum in 1997 by the late Ambassador Dwight Dickinson.