In this episode, NYPL's Tal Nadan spoke about the Horn & Hardart Automat with Lisa Hurwitz, director of the documentary film The Automat, and Alec Shuldiner, Lisa's collaborator and author of a 2001 dissertation on the subject. These coin-operated eateries were once ubiquitous in New York and Philadelphia, and their rich history is documented in NYPL's Robert F. Byrnes collection of automat memorabilia as well as many other archives explored by these researchers. During the program, the three speakers discussed how the dissertation led to the film and the very different processes and challenges entailed in creating these two formats of scholarship.

Episode Recording and Transcript

A transcript of this event is available here.

Related Resources

• Website for Lisa's documentary film, The Automat

• Alec's dissertation, Trapped behind the Automat: Technological systems and the American restaurant, 1902-1991

  • Dissertation abstracts can be read via the database Proquest Dissertations and Theses, available at any NYPL library or while connected to Library wifi.  Full dissertations can be requested through your local interlibrary loan service.  More details on NYPL's interlibrary loan service can be found here.

• Guide and digitized images for the Robert F. Byrnes collection of automat memorabilia, NYPL Manuscripts and Archives Division

• "Before the Big Mac: Horn & Hardart Automats," a blog post written by Valerie Wingfield, processing archivist for the Byrnes collection

• Online component for NYPL's Lunch Hour NYC exhibition

• NYPL's What's on the Menu? Project, including a Horn & Hardart menu from 1940

About the Work/Cited Series

Work/Cited is a program series that showcases the latest scholarship supported by the rich collections of The New York Public Library with a behind-the-scenes look at how the finished product was inspired, researched, and created. Catch up on previous episodes on the NYPL blog, where videos and links to related resources are posted shortly after each program. Sign up for NYPL's Research Newsletter or view the events calendar to hear about future programs as they are announced.