Mandarin Restaurant Ashtray
notes: label: Description
content: Original ashtray from The Mandarin, in San Francisco, California, a restaurant owned by Cecilia Chiang.
label: Description
content: When one thinks of smoking and Chinese American history, one may think of the early Chinese laborers and opium dens in the early Chinatowns of California. Although many Americans, particularly the anti-Chinese movement, portrayed these images to show the deviance of Chinese immigrants, they had grown accustomed to another form of smoking in its heyday in the first half of the 20th century: the cigarette.
label: Description
content: An ashtray is a tray where cigarette or cigar ashes can be discarded. Cecilia Chiang made an ashtray designed specifically for her restaurant, with the famous logo of Madame Chiang. The ashtray refers to a time period in American restaurants when smoking in public places was allowed and even embraced as an important pastime of American culture. In fact, when Cecilia Chiang opened her first restaurant during the 1960s, over half of adult Americans were regular smokers. But the public health movement against smoking led to the public ban on smoking and ultimately, a decline in smoking in general. In 1998, California laws declared smoking illegal in bars, restaurants, and public places.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Asian Pacific American Business
label: See more items in
content: Food
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Cecilia Chiang
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2011.0115.03
label: catalog number
content: 2011.0115.03
label: accession number
content: 2011.0115
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Ashtray
label: Object Name
content: ashtray
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 15.5 cm x 15.5 cm x 2.5 cm; 6 3/32 in x 6 3/32 in x 31/32 in