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Hospitality Industry: Restaurants, Hotels, & Lodging Resource Guide

Trade Literature

empty booths set for diners with silverware, napkins, and glasses
Carol M. Highsmith, photographer. Restaurant table setting. Between 1980 and 1990. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

On this page are the trade magazines for both the hotel and restaurant industry together. Some have a restaurant or cafeteria focus, some a hotel focus, and some covered both. What is not included are sources that cover the catering industry specifically, though older literature does include catering coverage.

The below publications are ones held by the Library but there some titles that we have not included. There are others mentioned by J.O. Dahl like National Hotel Review, Restaurant News and Management, The Restaurant Man, Cafeteria Management, Chef and Steward Magazine, Pacific Caterer, Pacific Coast Hotel Record, National Restaurant Association Bulletin, and International Steward that may be available elsewhere. Not included here are periodical literature targeting women like Good Housekeeping, The Delineator, Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences, Journal of Home Economics, Bulletin of the American Home Economics Association, The Home Economist, Cornell Bulletin for Homemakers, but they may offer some content on specific aspects of running restaurants and tea rooms. More general trade literature that cover food more broadly such as American Food Journal and Food have also been excluded but they have coverage of the business end of the restaurant industry.

To look at the industry historically, you may also want to research specific businesses, particularly if they predate much of the more specialized trade literature. Using a business name and searching in local newspapers and directories will be important. See the Databases section of this guide for those database that the Library subscribes to. For more information on how to do that type of research Business Reference has a guide Doing Historical Company Research that will provide more information.

The following materials link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to digital content are provided when available.

Indexing sources

Many of the trade literature sources are not necessarily going to be digitized and searchable.  Historically, indexing services have been the traditional way to access many of the articles found in trade literature if the journal did not index itself. Included below are many of the standard and relevant print indexing titles. While many of the below indexes are available in electronic format (see our databases), the print versions may be more widely accessible.

The following materials link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to digital content are provided when available.