The Bread and Cheese club was also known as the "Lunch Club." that began in 1827 to 1827. Created by the author James Fenimore Cooper, the club consisted of nearly thirty-five individual scholars, patrons, merchants, lawyers, writers, and artists that held private meetings in the Washington Hall. Some of the most familiar members of the club include: Thomas Cole, Wiley, William Dunlap, Charles Sands, Samuel Morse, and several others. This was rather a social and cultural club for the Upper class of early NY history. According to an article found of Galileo “The club was an outgrowth of “Cooper’s Lunch,” an impromptu gathering of Cooper’s network of intellectual friends, which first met in 1822 in the back room (“the Literary Den”) of a bookstore owned by Charles Wiley.” The meetings of the Bread and Cheese Club were typically held on Thursday afternoons and ended in the evening after dinner. The meal was prepared by “Abigail Jones, an African American artist, with food supplied by members, who hosted or catered individual meetings in rotation” (Galileo). Cooper was the head of the club, whom written many books and collaborated with his team members to execute his writings. However, after three years of leading the club, Cooper moved away from New York in 1826, the club had diminished and soon branched off into different clubs.
