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| - | In the past, and at a few places at the present time, a sitter could get free tea leaf readings from the waitresses at a "Gypsy" themed tea room, cafe, or restaurant. The best known of these places was, of course, The Mystic Tea Room, Bernice Barton's Pittsburgh restaurant after which this site was named. Other well-known tea leaf reading eateries were The Gypsy Tea Kettle, The Gypsy Tea Shop, The Gypsy Tea Room, The New Temple of Fortune Tea Room, The Egyptian Tea Room, The Spanish Court Tea Room, the Wishing Cup Tea Room, and The Original Tremont Tea Room.
| + | This a placeholder for a page that has been underwritten by my Patreon supporters. |
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| - | But how did these Tea Leaf Reading Tea Rooms come about -- and where have they gone?
| + | '''* Online for Patrons July 21st, 2021. ''' |
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| - | [[File:Advertisement-Gypsy-Tea-Kettle-NYC-Black-and-White.jpg|thumb|600px|center|Advertisement for a free reading with every meal at The Gypsy Tea Kettle in New York City, circa 1930s]]
| + | ''' * Online for the Public July 21st, 2022.''' |
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| - | ==Restaurants and the Female Suffrage Moment==
| + | If you want to read new web pages as i write them, please subscribe for $2.00 per page. I release 4 new web pages each month, on the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th. For $8.00 per month you will see the new material a full year before the public -- and you will know that you have made my continued work as a writer, content provider, graphic designer, and publisher possible. The extra money i get each month from Patreon literally goes to buy food and clothing, and is a great blessing to me in my work. Patrons not only get advance sneak-peaks of interesting material on magic, divination, fortune-telling, and social history, they have access to a sub-section of the Lucky Mojo Forum where i answer questions and take suggestions about upcoming material. |
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| - | [[File:Tea-Room-Magazine-February-March-1924.jpg|center|400px|thumb|The Tea Room Magazine, March, 1924.]] | + | [[File:New-temple-of-fortune-tea-room-36-w-randolph-chicago-Matchbook-cover-A.jpg| New Temple of Fortune Tea Room, Chicago, Illinois, where during the 1930s you could have not only a free tea cup reading with each meal, but also a selection of palmisttry, card, and crystal ball readings as well |
| | + | |200px|thumb|left|Matchbook cover advertising the Gypsy Tea Kettle in New York City, New York, including a "Free [[How To Read Tea Leaves|Teacup Reading ]] with every meal."]] |
| | + | [[File:From-the-Land-of-Tea-Cat-Yronwode.jpg|right|300px|thumb|Support me on Patreon! "From the Land of Tea" allows my Patreon subscribers to access bonus articles and scans about tea leaf reading and tea room culture for a small monthly donation.]] |
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| - | As restaurant dining became more common in the mid to late 19th century, growing right beside it were the intertwined women’s movements that led to the establishment of public education, divorce laws that permitted women to escape abusive marriages, inheritance laws that allowed women to own and manage businesses, and the long, hard fight for female suffrage.
| + | == Support the Mystic Tea Room == |
| | | | |
| - | (Read More about [[Tea Room History]])
| + | All of the material you have access to here -- the fabulous tea cups, the instructive booklets, the nostalgic postcards, the boldly graphic matchbook covers, and all of the historical information researched and shared from the mind of the woman who is making it all happen -- can easily fit into one 8 x 10 foot room in an old Victorian farmhouse, but you would never see it without the investment of the time it takes to produce such a site and the caloric input such a site requires in the form of food for the writer, graphic designer, and database manager, as well as the US currency needed to pay for the computers, software applications, scanners, electricity, and internet connectivity that bring it out of that little room and into the world. So, as you can see, this site is the darling of many, and it is growing at a rapid rate ... but although it is "free," there also is a cost. Your financial support underwrites this cost. |
| | | | |
| - | ==Themed Tea Rooms==
| + | Each new web page or sample pdf is circulated to Patrons as an unpublished galley proof or advance copy. After one year access for Patrons, each web page will be released to the public, while book pages will be available to the public as printed books, and copies will be sent to Patrons who subscribe at the upper two tiers. |
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| - | [[File:Spanish-Court-Tea-Room-Madame-Evelyn-Advertisement.jpg|thumb|600px|center|Advertisement for Madame Evelyn's free tea leaf readings with lunch at the Spanish Court Tea Room, location unknown, curca 1930s; Madame Evelyn was both a numerologist and a "teaologist"]]
| + | Patrons have access to a Private Patreon sub-forum within the Lucky Mojo Forum, and will be accorded special Red Star Avatar badges at the Forum. |
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| - | Tea Rooms were among the first "theme" restaurants.
| + | Here are the most economical tiers i have devised at Patreon: |
| | + | https://www.patreon.com/catherineyronwode |
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| - | These primarily woman-run establishments proliferated beyond the borders of the United States, too. There were rural tea rooms everywhere, from Canada to New Zealand, as well as in the British Isles. Wherever women sought independent incomes by catering to women motorists, tea rooms sprang up to meet the need. Among the themes they used were:
| + | '''The Sampler '''<br> |
| | + | '''$2.00 Per Month''' |
| | + | * Preview access to ONE new web page per month; the web page release will be held one year before public viewing. |
| | + | * Access to my Patrons-Only Private Sub-Forum at the Lucky Mojo Forum where we can chat. |
| | + | * A special Red Star Patron badge at the Public and Private Lucky Mojo Forums. |
| | | | |
| - | * Potted Plants
| + | '''The Selector '''<br> |
| - | * Outdoor Dining
| + | '''$4.00 Per Month''' |
| - | * Tea Room Gift Shop | + | * Preview access to TWO new web pages per month; the web page release will be held one year before public viewing. |
| - | * Ancient and Repurposed Buildings as Tea Rooms | + | * Access to my Patrons-Only Private Sub-Forum at the Lucky Mojo Forum where we can chat. |
| - | * American Colonial Tea Rooms | + | * A special Red Star Patron badge at the Public and Private Lucky Mojo Forums. |
| - | * Victorian and Edwardian Tea Rooms
| + | |
| - | * Rustic and Rural Roadside Tourist Tea Rooms
| + | |
| - | * Art Deco and Streamline Moderne Tea Rooms
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| - | * Asian Tea Gardens and Tea Rooms
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| - | * Bohemian and Romani Tea Rooms
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| - | * Educational and Charitable Tea Rooms
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| - | * Psychic Fortune Telling Tea Rooms
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| - | It is the last one in this list — the fortune telling tea room -- that interests us here.
| + | '''The Reader''' <br> |
| | + | '''$8.00 Per Month''' |
| | + | * Preview access to FOUR new web pages per month; the web page release will be held one year before public viewing. |
| | + | * Access to my Patrons-Only Private Sub-Forum at the Lucky Mojo Forum where we can chat. |
| | + | * A special Red Star Patron badge at the Public and Private Lucky Mojo Forums. |
| | | | |
| - | (Read more about [[Vintage Tea Room Postcards|Locations of Vintage Tea Rooms]])
| + | To sign up, go to my Patreon page: '''https://www.patreon.com/catherineyronwode''' |
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| - | ==Tea Leaf Reading as a Tea Room Theme==
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| - | [[File:Wishing-cup-business-card.jpg|center|600px|thumb|The Wishing Cup Tea Room, Boston, Massachusetts, business card. Tea Leaf Readings 50 cents by Ross, formerly of the Gypsy Tea Shop, he also offered card readings.]]
| + | <i><b>catherine yronwode</b><br>curator, historian, and docent |
| | + | <br><b>The Mystic Tea Room</b></i> |
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| - | In urban America, where immigrants struggled to earn a living, the Eastern European themed tea room movement took hold. At the Gift Shop Tea Room in New York you could buy the antique dinnerware on which you were served, and much of it was copperware from Poland and Russia. There was a Russian Tea Room and a Russian Bear Tea Room. The Romani theme of Hungary and Romania gave rise to a Gypsy Tea Shop, a Gypsy Tea Room, and several Gypsy Tea Kettle Tea Rooms. When times got hard during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the owners of these small tea rooms took to luring in female diners by reading tea leaves, palms, numerology, and crystal balls— “Free With Every Meal!”
| + | ==See Also== |
| | + | * [[:Category:Tea Rooms|Tea Rooms]] |
| | + | * [[Tea Room History]] |
| | + | * [[Vintage Tea Room Postcards]] |
| | + | * [[Vintage Tea Room Business Cards]] |
| | + | * [[Vintage Tea Room Matchbook Covers]] |
| | + | * [[Dating Tea Room Postcards]] |
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| - | <center>
| + | [[Category:Tea Rooms]] |
| - | <gallery widths="200px" heights="500px" perrow="4" align=center ; cellspacing= 6px; cellpadding: 3px 3px 3px 3px;">
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| - | File:Mystic-Tea-Room-Pittsburgh-PA-matchcover-A.jpg| The Mystic Tea Room, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, matchbook cover, 1950s, where the proprietor, Bernice Barton, hired waitresses and taught them how to read tea leaves
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| - | File:New-temple-of-fortune-tea-room-36-w-randolph-chicago-Matchbook-cover-A.jpg| New Temple of Fortune Tea Room, Chicago, Illinois, where during the 1930s you could have not only a free tea cup reading with each meal, but also a selection of palmisttry, card, and crystal ball readings as well
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| - | </gallery>
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| - | </center>
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| - | Read more about how tea rooms advertise via [[Vintage Tea Room Business Cards]] and [[Vintage Tea Room Matchbook Covers]]
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| - | == The Law Cracks Down==
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| - | When the Great Depression laid the United States economy low in 1929, restaurants and theaters, always a luxury, fell on difficult times. To lure folks in, they devised a variety of giveaways. Movie houses held "dish night" promotions in which a carnival wheel was spun on stage and lucky ticket holders received free kitchenware. Tea rooms in the countryside added gift shops and antiques stores to bolster income, while tea rooms in the cities began offering free tea leaf readings. These psychic fortune telling tea rooms used slogans like "It's All In the Leaves," "Your Fortune Free in Leaves of Tea," and "Free Reading With Every Meal" on their business cards, [[Vintage Tea Room Matchbook Covers|matchbook covers]], and newspaper advertisements. The readings were free, as offered, but the waitress who read your leaves could expect a small tip for her services.
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| - | American attitudes toward fortune telling have always been mixed. About ten to twelve percent of all Americans seek out a psychic reader during the course of any given year. However, reports of fraudulent readers and fake psychics always make the news, and as a result, there are local crackdowns from time to time and from place to place. In some counties, fortune tellers have to post a bond; in other areas they have to make undercover bribes to local law enforcement agents.
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| - | It is quite common for a town or county to pass a local law that while not completely outlawing fortune telling, because it is protected speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, still requires that it be voiced "for entertainment purposes only. " Such laws, and the similar ones that require magical herbs and roots to be sold "as a curio only," are frequently overthrown, and there are far fewer of them on the books in the 21st century than there were in the 20th century, but they have existed, and they have left their marks.
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| - | Take this newspaper article from the Ludington, Michigan, Daily News of September 24, 1930, which was brought to my attention by Dixie M. Ford. In it, we learn of arrests being made in Detroit, Michigan, where psychic tea leaf reading had suddenly appeared -- and just as suddenly become a crime.
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| - | [[File:Tea-Leaf-Fortunes-Are-Taboo-in-Detroit-Ludington-Daily-News-Michigan-24-Sep-1930.jpg|thumb|400px|center|Tea Leaf Fortunes Are Taboo in Detriot, Ludington Daily News, September 24, 1930, Ludington, Michigan; newspaper clipping courtesy of Dixie M. Ford]]
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| - | Two women were arrested for reading tea leaves in a restaurant. There were Mrs. Erma Libson, age 48 (born circa 1882) and Miss Margaret King, age 31 (born circa 1899). The anonymous Associated Press reporter who wrote the article noted that tea leaf reading in restaurants had become "a fad with many persons here for some weeks," that is, since the summer of 1930. The case was adjourned by the judge for two weeks and the outcome seems to have gone unreported, but i know with certainty that tea leaf reading in restaurants in Detroit did not come to an and that day, for i have in my collection a delightful little booklet called "The Muriel Method," published in Detroit in 1938, in which the author tells all about how to read tea leaves in a restaurant.
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| - | ==The Leatherneck Tea leaf Reader==
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| - | Now let's take a deeper dive into another themed tea room where free readings were offered: The Gypsy Tea Room, also known as the Gypsy Tea Shop, at 207 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, under the management of M. E. Businger.
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| - | So ... who was M.E. Businger, and what else was he doing at the Tea Room? Thanks to newspaper digitization resources, we have some answers. I have transcribed these articles from OCR records: <br>
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| - | ''The Pittsburgh Press'', Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania <br>
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| - | Sunday, October 17, 1943; page 52 <br>
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| - | '''MARINE GROUP ENDORSES PROTHONOTARY FRASHER''' <br>
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| - | In a resolution made public yesterday, the Leathernecks, an organization of Marine Corps veterans, announced the endorsement of Prothonotary William H. Frasher, Republican candidate for re-election. The resolution, signed by M. E. Businger and others, said Mr. Frasher has had 16 years' experience in the office while his opponent. David B. Roberts, Democrat. lacked the experience necessary for the office.
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| - | ''The Pittsburgh Press'', Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania <br>
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| - | Sunday, March 10, 1946; page 24 <br>
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| - | '''MARINE CORPS LEAGUE''' <br>
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| - | National organization with two Pittsburgh posts.<br>
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| - | '''Officers:''' <br>
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| - | Commandant, Pittsburgh Detachment, William P. Coyne; <br>
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| - | commandant. Leatherneck Detachment, Clem Templeton.<br>
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| - | '''Dues:''' <br>
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| - | $3 a year.<br>
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| - | '''Meetings:''' <br>
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| - | Pittsburgh, second and fourth Tuesday each month at 207 Fifth Ave.;<br>
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| - | Leatherneck, second and fourth Tuesday each month at Fort Pitt Hotel.<br>
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| - | '''Who Can Join:''' <br>
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| - | Marine veterans of any war and men still in Marine service.<br>
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| - | '''Information:''' <br>
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| - | Pittsburgh Detachment, call M. E. Businger, 207 Fifth Ave.;<br>
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| - | Leatherneck Detachment, call Paul Drew, 205 Clark Bldg.<br>
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| - | </blockquote>
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| - | ''The Pittsburgh Press'', Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania <br>
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| - | Friday, March 15, 1946; page 6 <br>
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| - | '''MARINE CORPS LEAGUE INSTALLS OFFICERS''' <br>
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| - | The Pittsburgh Detachment, Marine Corps League, elected and installed the following new officers at a recent meeting at 207 Fifth Ave.: Commandant, William Coyne; senior vice-commandant, William Silinski; junior vice-commandant, Ed. Campbell; adjutant, Paul Mead; paymaster, M. E. Businger; chief of staff, William Langford; sergeant-at-arms, Don Critchlow, and chaplain, T. Thomas. National Judge Advocate Ralph Thombs, and a team from Youngstown, installed the officers.<br>
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| - | </blockquote>
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| - | <gallery widths="200px" heights="500px" perrow="4" align=center ; cellspacing= 6px; cellpadding: 3px 3px 3px 3px;">
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| - | File:Gypsy-Tea-Room-Pittsburgh-PA-matchbook-cover-1.jpg |Gypsy Tea Room Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, matchbook cover, 1930s; the word "Gypsy" is a slur for the Romani People that was in common use with respect to fortune tellers in the 20th century.
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| - | File:Gypsy-Tea-Room-Pittsburgh-PA-matchbook-cover-2.jpg |Gypsy Tea Room Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, matchbook cover, 1930s; the word "Gypsy" is a slur for the Romani People that was in common use with respect to fortune tellers in the 20th century.
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| - | So we know that 207 Fifth Avenue was the address of the Gypsy Tea Room / Gypsy Tea Shop -- and that M.E. Businger was at one time the manager of the tea shop, as shown on this matchbook cover. (The building, in what was once a historic district, has been torn down and replaced by wall-of-glass office spaces.)
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| - | From the 1943-1946 newspaper articles above we also know that M. E. Businger, the manager of the Gypsy Tea Room / Gypsy Tea Shop, was male, because no women were allowed in the Marine Corps at that time. The fact that he was issuing political endorsements and hosting meetings for Marine Corps veterans at the tea room during the period of World War Two (1941-1945) and its aftermath (in 1946) would seem to indicate that he had served in the Marines during World War One (1917-1918) or possibly the Spanish-American War (1895-1899).
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| - | What seems strange to some modern eyes is that a Republican ex-Marine would host a tea room where fortunes were told in tea cups. However, rather than assume that there was a quirky underside to M. E. Businger, i think what what some people may see as Mr. Businger's unexpected "tolerance" for fortune telling is actually evidence of the sharply negative recasting of public opinion about fortune-telling that took place toward the end of the 20th century.
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| - | Throughout the 19th century, domestic divination by means such as playing cards, palmistry, tea leaves, sortilege, and Moon phases, was part of everyday life, as was a general interest in spirituality and occultism. During and after World War One, interest in all of these forms of divination, as well as more technical methods like astrology, numerology, and the I Ching, grew, with many books and monthly magazines devoted to these subjects. As we have seen, some towns and counties cracked down on fortune telling, but in most parts of the country there were no restrictions, if the divination was made "for entertainment purposes only." Even during the 1950s, as secular scientism began to make inroads into the nation's inclinations toward spirituality and religion, fortune telling remained a popular topic. When the hippies came to adulthood in the 1960s and 1970s, interest in the occult hit a new high point.
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| - | Then came the evangelical movement, the right-winging of Christianity, and the demonizing of folklore, folk magic, and home-style fortune telling. In 1978 the Christian Right supported the Democratic president, Jimmy Carter, but from 1980 onward, it shifted to supporting Republicans exclusively. However, even as late as 1980-1984, the super-conservative Republican presidential administration of Ronald Reagan was governed according to the principles of astrology. (Don't believe me? Look it up.)
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| - | Meanwhile, the nation's demographic balance shifted decisively toward the urban, which meant that rural pleasures, which could not be monetized, gave way to mass-media blitzes of opinion. The rise of cable television, in which the Christian Right played an important role, produced an entire generation that was held in thrall to tales of an imagined divide between the magical and the mundane. This culminated in the Satanic panic of the 1990s, in which innocent people were accused of being sinister occultists. The Christian Right meanwhile went on the offensive against abortion, homosexuality, sex education, euthanasia, contraception, pornography, gambling, and obscenity, while upholding nationalism, creationism, Sunday blue laws, prayer in public schools, textbook revisions, and the display of Confederate flags.
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| - | <center>
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| - | <gallery widths="200px" heights="500px" perrow="4" align=center ; cellspacing= 6px; cellpadding: 3px 3px 3px 3px;">
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| - | File:Gypsy-Tea-Shop-Pittsburgh-PA-matchbook-cover-1.jpg |Gypsy Tea Shop, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, matchbook cover, 1930s; despite the slight name change, from "Tea Room" to "Tea Shop," this is the same establishment as in the previous item;the word "Gypsy" is a slur for the Romani People that was in common use with respect to fortune tellers in the 20th century.
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| - | File:Gypsy-Tea-Shop-Pittsburgh-PA-matchbook-cover-2.jpg |Gypsy Tea Shop, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, matchbook cover, 1930s; despite the slight name change, from "Tea Room" to "Tea Shop," this is the same establishment as in the previous item;the word "Gypsy" is a slur for the Romani People that was in common use with respect to fortune tellers in the 20th century.
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| - | </gallery>
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| - | </center>
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| - | With the coming of the internet, a few old hippies made a deliberate effort to bring occultism and spirituality back from the shadows cast by abstemious and fear-mongering evangelicals, and since the Christian Right was slow to embrace technology, believing that the end-times were too near to bother to learn to code in html, the internet -- first usenet and then the web -- because a playground for magical people and their interests.
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| - | When the next generations came on the scene, the first thing they saw was that the net promoted divination, witchcraft, pantheism, hoodoo, and rootwork, while their evangelical parents did not. So, of course they rebelled and took up the banners of mysticism, magic, and supernaturality. But in doing so, many of them failed to listen to the voices from the past. Those old printed books. Those old printed newspapers. Not digitized? Ugh.
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| - | And so the young ones appear on my horizon, day after day, month after month, year after year, unbelieving that fortune telling was happily "allowed" back before the internet, that people read tea leaves in restaurants -- that REPUBLICAN EX-MARINES read tea leaves in PITTSBURGH!
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| - | Well, the evidence is in. The receipts are here. And M. E. Businger's life stands as an exemplar of how widespread divination and occultism were in the days before the Christian Right tried to demonize it ... and failed. <!--==Tea Leaf Reading as a Cover for Sexual Activity==Like other forms of sexualized readings by young women (palmistry and card reading) Photo of massage parlor and the use of the word "tea room" for gay male sex in public toilets ("T-Rooms) before the AIDS epidemic. -->
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| - | ==The Persistence of Tea Leaf Reading in Restaurants==
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| - | [[File:Original-Tremont-Tea-Room-Boston-MA-Business-Card.jpg|center|600px|thumb|The Original Tremont Tea Room, Boston, Massachusetts, business card. Tea Leaf Readings 75 cents.]]
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| - | Although from the modern perspective of a teen-aged witch in her comfortable suburban bedroom, it almost seems unbelievable that tea cups were once radical, the truth is that the history of tea leaf reading is also the history of the revolutionaries, the progressives, the rebels, the reformers, the Republican leathernecks and and the courageous suffragettes who led the way to many of the freedoms we now enjoy.
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| - | Tea Leaf reading is less common in 21st century restaurants than it was in the 20th century, but the sheels of time continue to spin, and there will always be time to revive tasseography as a hip, new thing.
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| - | Perhaps ''you'' will be the one to do start the Tea Room Reading Revival.
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This a placeholder for a page that has been underwritten by my Patreon supporters.
If you want to read new web pages as i write them, please subscribe for $2.00 per page. I release 4 new web pages each month, on the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th. For $8.00 per month you will see the new material a full year before the public -- and you will know that you have made my continued work as a writer, content provider, graphic designer, and publisher possible. The extra money i get each month from Patreon literally goes to buy food and clothing, and is a great blessing to me in my work. Patrons not only get advance sneak-peaks of interesting material on magic, divination, fortune-telling, and social history, they have access to a sub-section of the Lucky Mojo Forum where i answer questions and take suggestions about upcoming material.
All of the material you have access to here -- the fabulous tea cups, the instructive booklets, the nostalgic postcards, the boldly graphic matchbook covers, and all of the historical information researched and shared from the mind of the woman who is making it all happen -- can easily fit into one 8 x 10 foot room in an old Victorian farmhouse, but you would never see it without the investment of the time it takes to produce such a site and the caloric input such a site requires in the form of food for the writer, graphic designer, and database manager, as well as the US currency needed to pay for the computers, software applications, scanners, electricity, and internet connectivity that bring it out of that little room and into the world. So, as you can see, this site is the darling of many, and it is growing at a rapid rate ... but although it is "free," there also is a cost. Your financial support underwrites this cost.
Each new web page or sample pdf is circulated to Patrons as an unpublished galley proof or advance copy. After one year access for Patrons, each web page will be released to the public, while book pages will be available to the public as printed books, and copies will be sent to Patrons who subscribe at the upper two tiers.
Patrons have access to a Private Patreon sub-forum within the Lucky Mojo Forum, and will be accorded special Red Star Avatar badges at the Forum.
