off the leash

Americans Discover Vacation: The Cigar Store Indian Syndrome

Posted on January 25, 2015 by Ken Dowell

The history of America’s national parks usually begins with the “discovery” of Yosemite. This so-called discovery is described in a 1910 book The Yosemite Valley written by one of the early while settlers of the region Galen Clark. “The Yosemite Valley was discovered and make known to the public by Major James D. Savage and Capt. John Boling, who, with a strong detachment of mounted volunteers from what was known as the Mariposa Battalion, went with friendly Indian guides to the Valley in March 1851 to capture the resident tribe of Indians and put them on the Fresno Indian Reservation.”

(Ken Kistler)

What Clark does not explain is how you can discover a territory when in fact there are some folks already living there. This is a good example of the attitude of European Americans to Native Americans which is part of the whole story of the “discovery” of America. One might instead suggest that the Europeans were immigrants to America rather than discoverers.

By the mid-19^th century whites had killed off a substantial portion of the Native American population and what was left was in the process of being herded into reservations by outfits like the Mariposa Battalion. But this was also a time, according to See America First author Marguerite S. Shaffer, when “scenic nationalism swept through the U.S.” And as more and more Americans began to travel West their attitudes toward Native Americans shifted and began to take on a romanticized image of the Native American as part of the scenery, players in the whole Manifest Destiny, conquer the wilderness patriotic narrative.

It didn’t take long for the white pioneers of Yosemite to see the potential as a tourist attraction. Clark writes, “The first house in Yosemite was built in the fall of the year 1856, and was opened the next spring as a saloon for the entertainment of that class of visitors who loved whiskey and gambling. The next year it was fitted up and used as a restaurant.” Nor did it take long for promoters of Western tourism to try to make the Native American part of the attraction.

Railroads hired Native Americans to greet their westward bound passengers. A series of travel guides called See America First that was published by Page and Company beginning in 1914 offered up images of the noble savage. Shaffer describes how “the series guides constructed a tourist spectacle of primitive Indian societies living in harmony with nature that served to augment an ideal of nature as a refuge from modern society. In effect they (tourists) purchased and thus participated in the primitive lifestyles embodied in the romanticized tourist Indians…”

(Michele Walters)

Native American ceremonies were presented as one of the sights to see while traveling through the West. Shaffer writes: “Picturesque and exotic tourist Indians who willingly collaborated in the staged authenticity of the tourist experience were acceptable and appealing. As objects on display they were aestheticized consumer products.”

This would only get worse. By the mid-20^th century, many Americans had cars and paid vacations. They also had TVs. As observed by Are We There Yet? author Susan Sessions Rugh, “the new medium of television was quickly captured by gun-slinging cowboys fighting Indians…to save the frontier for white man and his woman.”

Just as later generations of tourists would bring their children to amusement parks built around brands like Dora the Explorer or Harry Potter, travelers in the 50’s and 60’s set out for theme parks branded with names like Hopalong Cassidy and the Lone Ranger. And at these venues the portrayal of Native Americans sometimes veered off into the ludicrous, if not outright stupid.

One such amusement park in California was Knott’s Berry Farm. Started in the 30’s as a fried chicken joint, it evolved into an amusement park that by 1952 was attracting 1.2 million visitors. Those visitors could get their picture taken with statues of gold miners or saloon girls or Native Americans wearing headdresses. In Rugh’s book there is a picture of a Filipino family that the park hired to dress up as Native Americans.

(skeeze)

Another of the 50’s cowboy and Indian themed attractions was the Corriganville Movie Ranch. This was originally opened as a place to film westerns. Rugh notes that one of the regular Sunday afternoon attractions was an “Apache flaming arrow attack on covered wagons.” This bit of theater was actually broadcast live by one of the local TV stations. Guests could also pretend to be Indians and go on the hunt for hidden arrowheads. In 1955 the Corriganville attraction was bought out by none other than the Lone Ranger himself and it was later renamed the Lone Ranger Ranch.

In that same year Disneyland opened. While the new Disney park notably welcomed black and Mexican-American guests at a time when prejudice kept them away from some other resorts, the Disney attitude toward Native Americans was somewhat less enlightened. One of the features of the new Disney park was Injun Joe’s Café. Rugh quotes a description of Frontierland in a 1963 edition of Disney News that touts the fact that children could dance with Indians at the “authentic Indian Village where true-to-life, honest-to-goodness Indians from throughout the Great Southwest perform daily.” Long before the advent of Disney princesses there were performers by the names of Horse Stealer, Whitecloud, Red Eagle, Little Deer and Whirling Wind.

The cigar store Indian was introduced long before that. Its origin was based on the fact that it was Native Americans who turned Europeans on to tobacco, much as it was Native Americans who led whites to the “discovery” of Yosemite. This ultimately resulted in Native Americans being driven off the tobacco fields that they had cultivated, in some cases being replaced by plantations which would be cultivated by black slaves. And in the same way that the “noble savage” was later marketed as a symbol of the now cultivated West, the wooden carved Indian sitting outside the shop was a way for the tobacconist to market his goods and attract customers.

Posted in Americans Discover Vacation, History, Travel | Tagged history, national parks, Native Americans, travel, vacation, Yosemite | 28 Comments

Birds of the Bronx (Zoo)

Posted on January 22, 2015 by Ken Dowell

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Birds, Bronx Zoo, Eagle, Owl, Peacock, World of Birds, zoo | 2 Comments

Americans Discover Vacation: We’ve All Got Wheels

Posted on January 18, 2015 by Ken Dowell

In this series of posts about the history of vacations in America, I’ve written about many things that influenced how Americans spent their vacations. They included the changing attitudes toward leisure, the development of various types of resorts, the creation and promotion of the national parks, the influence of publishers and publicists and the provision of paid vacation benefits. But nothing had as profound an impact on how Americans vacationed as when we all got wheels.

The advent and then widespread adoption of the automobile changed not only how Americans traveled but who went on vacation, what they did with their free time and the very landscape of the United States.

(Tim Emerich)

From the 1910’s to the post World War II era, automobiles became increasingly affordable. Henry Ford introduced the Model T, widely recognized as the first affordable automobile in 1908. In 1910, he produced 12,000 Model T’s. By 1925, he was producing 10,000 cars a day.

While the working class was still not on the road to vacation in the 1920’s, a very economic style of vacationing had begun to emerge. Auto-camping was accessible to a new class of car owners and overall offered an economic way to travel as auto-campers could bring their own food as well as their own mode of transit. These trips also might involve fishing or visiting relatives. By the 1930’s roadside tourists cabins had begun to sprout and the increasing use and lower cost of cars enabled many to continue to vacation despite the Depression. The state-by-state WPA travel guides, part of a New Deal initiative to aid unemployed writers, all featured auto tours.

(Tim Emerich)

The post World War II era was the beginning of what Are We There Yet? author Susan Sessions Rugh calls the golden age of American family vacations. Those vacations were road trips. Rugh believes they were a progression from the auto-campers of the 20’s. Camping, as an affordable alternative for all Americans, took off in the 1940’s and 1950’s.

Rugh notes that between 1948 and 1960 car ownership rose 54% and that by 1962, 84% of Americans traveled by car on their vacation. She writes, “The family car was a home on wheels, an extension of the domestic space and thus represented a sense of security for the traveling family on the road.”

Automobiles changed the national parks by making them more accessible and changed the way they were promoted. Before the widespread adoption of cars, the railroad was the primary transit facility for heading west. The parks were in fact partially developed and promoted heavily by the corporations who owned the railroads. Those promotions focused on scenery because that is what you see while riding in a rail car. But if you’re traveling in your car, you’re free to stop and look around wherever you want. Marguerite S. Shaffer, author of See America First, writes, “the automobile, catering to the whims of the individual driver, fostered a personalized journey.”

Minerva Terrace, Yellowstone National Park

As a result, a lot more attention was paid to attractions along the way. States picked up the promotional mantle from the railroads and they focused on local color and history. And a lot more people headed West to the national parks. Cars made park-to-park touring viable. Rugh notes that after World War II there was a surge in visitors to Yellowstone and those visitors included veterans, farm families and workers. And they were all coming by car. By 1950, 98% of the visitors to Yellowstone arrived by automobile. “Americans conquered the West in their cars,” writes Rugh.

With all these folks on the road, the landscape of America changed as well. As more and more of us had cars, we needed roads to drive them on. In 1916 Woodrow Wilson signed the first highway legislation, the Federal Aid Road Act. It offered up $75 million in matching funds to states for improving their roads. By the following year every state had a highway administration agency. The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1921 called for the development of a national highway system and provided more funding.

(Paul Brennan)

Many of the interstate thoroughfares that we drive on now got their start when Dwight Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956. That legislation pledged $25 billion to create an interstate highway system.

But roads were not the only thing that was changing along the route of the growing number of vacationers. Rugh says that “before streamlined interstates the American roadside was characterized by oddities, larger than life statues of folk heroes, petting zoos and odd-shaped eateries.” Before long these curiosities would be replaced by fast food restaurants and motel chains.

(Andalusia)

One other change was occurring on the roads. In what was still, up until at least the 60’s, an economically and racially segregated society, all kinds of Americans were using the same roads and the same highway rest stops. Rugh, in commenting on the visitors to the national parks, says, “all classes and races mixed in ways they did not at home in a segregated America. Although those with greater means could afford to stay in lodges and eat in the dining rooms while working class families camped out of their cars and heated canned beans, visitors mixed on the trails and in the cafeterias and on the roadsides.”

The golden age of American family road trips faded out starting in the 1970’s. The oil embargo in 1973 had an impact. Air travel became more accessible and that opened up a whole new range of vacation venues that previously were hard to get to if you only had a fixed amount of time. Ironically, in the 21^st century, the skyrocketing costs of air travel and the increasingly poor quality of service the U.S. airlines provide their “economy” customers, has for many revived interest in the road trip.

Posted in Americans Discover Vacation, History, Travel | Tagged automobiles, cars, highways, history, national parks, travel, vacation, Yellowstone | 28 Comments

Creatures of the Bronx (Zoo)

Posted on January 15, 2015 by Ken Dowell

Thirsty

Playful

Sleepy

Regal

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged animals, bears, Bronx Zoo, tiger, zoo | 2 Comments

Americans Discover Vacation: While Disparaging Tourists

Posted on January 11, 2015 by Ken Dowell

I am sure you have probably had a conversation about restaurants in which you or someone you are speaking with dismisses some eatery as being “for tourists.” That means it is probably overcrowded and overpriced. What’s more it is somehow not authentic because its patrons aren’t locals.

That attitude toward tourists, what they do and where they go, turns out to be nothing new. In fact it is as old as tourism itself. In an earlier post (Americans Discover Vacation: Overcoming Our Heritage), I included a quote from James Kirke Paulding describing traveling as “the most exquisite mode of killing time and spending money ever yet devised by lazy ingenuity.” Paulding was a member of the early 19^th century American literati. He dipped his pen into various types of writing that included a novel, comedic stage plays and a satirical periodical. These were different times and such writings apparently qualified him for a number of government jobs that eventually ended up with an appointment as Secretary of the Navy.

John F. Sears, author of the Sacred Places, the book where I found Paulding’s quote, describes his writing as “poking fun at the hurry, pretensions and superficiality of the tourists.”

(PublicDomainPictures)

That was from 1828. Travel at the time was slow and expensive. Only the country’s elite were participating, which was the case for a good part of the 19^th century. Middle-class Americans at the time were religiously conservative, moralistic and generally preached industriousness. Anyone with the time and money to travel was viewed in much the same light as the European aristocracy. They were thought to lack not only endeavor but also sufficient moral rigor.

Writing in Working at Play, Cindy S. Aron notes that “by the last half of the nineteenth century writers and cultural critics were offering parodies of tourists and noting the inauthentic quality of tourist attractions.” In the same book, Aron quotes a 1975 New York Times article about the bathers at Cape May, suggesting that their primary pursuit was “flirting and gossiping.” That wasn’t intended as a compliment.

And then there were the folks who were active in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries promoting the American West as a travel destination. They showed their disdain for “easterners” who chose to travel to Europe.

So when vacationing was confined only the country’s elite, most of their countrymen were quick to criticize. But as travelling became something that involved a broader segment of Americans, the tables were turned and the elitists didn’t view these new tourists that kindly either.

(heavenkid)

In discussing the reaction of some to the fact that a more economically diverse group of Americans started to visit Niagara later in the 19^th century, Sears writes. “…the excursionists who arrived after railroad fares declined usually visited Niagara Falls only for a day. The genteel tourist regarded them as less cultivated. They appeared more eager for exciting diversions than the better-off tourist, less inclined to the quieter pleasures of a sylvan walk.”

Out West, similar sentiments were being expressed by John Muir, an author who was an advocate for wilderness preservation and became a founder of the Sierra Club. Because of his role in petitioning for the legislation that established Yosemite as a national park he has been referred to as “father of the national parks.” But he was no champion of the common man as tourist. According to Sears, “Muir detested the ordinary tourists who made a quick tour of Yosemite’s points of interest and then left.”

The promotion of the national parks focused on comparing the authentic experience of nature as compared to “the crass concerns of commercialism and cheap amusements of common tourist attractions,” according to Marguerite S. Shaffer, author of See America First.

Sears sums it up like this: “Tourists as a species have a bad name; they are regarded as superficial, crass, insensitive to their surroundings.” Aron offers a similar view: “Tourists, both popular and scholarly wisdom contend, are vulgar, superficial, provincial, gullible, and entirely lacking in taste or sophistication.”

(nemo)

The attitudes of these 19^th and early 20^th century commentators was only the beginning. In more recent times, Hollywood chipped in with some classic movies portraying family vacationers as laughable, bundling boobs. Once the growth of global travel sent Americans around the world and brought visitors from every continent to the U.S., our inherited attitude toward tourists mixed with ethnic stereotypes and prejudices to produce even more vitriol to be hurled at the people who stop by and throw some cash into the local economy.

Posted in Americans Discover Vacation, History, Travel | Tagged 19th century, history, tourists, travel, vacation | 29 Comments

Winter Skyline from the West Bank of the Hudson

Posted on January 8, 2015 by Ken Dowell

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Hudson River, Jersey City, Manhattan, New York, Skyline | 1 Comment

Americans Discover Vacation: With an Agency Itinerary and a Guidebook in Hand

Posted on January 4, 2015 by Ken Dowell

Like many other industries the travel business has been radically changed by the Web, by digital publishing and ecommerce in particular. Printed travel guides are on the decline as are storefront travel agencies. But these two travel businesses were for more than a century the way Americans planned and booked their vacations as well as the way they were guided through their eventual destinations.

Both the travel agent and the travel guide emerged in the second half of the 19^th century, the time when the term vacation began to be spoken by more and more Americans.

(jlynne)

The first travel agency in America was the British agency Thomas Cook. Cook started his business in the 1840’s shuffling temperance campaigners between various English cities via the rails. As the business expanded it began to sponsor overseas trips and in 1869 Cook himself led a small group of Brits on a rail excursion from New York to San Francisco. Cook opened a New York office in 1871 and continued to conduct trips to the West Coast.

The Raymond and Whitcomb Agency, opened in Boston in 1879, become the gold standard for luxury travel in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Author Cindy S. Aron (Working at Play) notes that a Raymond and Whitcomb trip was going to involve private rail cars, first class service and luxury hotels. See America First author Marguerite S. Shaffer comments, “Early on tourist agencies such as Raymond and Whitcomb offered a sense of exclusivity and refinement, assuring elite tourists that they would circulate among people of their own social standing.”

Initially they booked trips to the White Mountains in New Hampshire and to Washington, D.C. and later added transcontinental voyages. Here are some sample Raymond and Whitcomb offerings:

1887 Raymond’s Vacation Excursion to Washington, D.C. – leaves from Boston. “5 days in the national capital. Carriage ride to the public buildings and other points of interest. Visit to Mount Vernon.”
1888 Raymond’s Yellowstone National Park Excursion – leaves from Boston, New York and Philadelphia “A grand excursion to the Yellowstone National Park with incremental trips to Chicago, Milwaukee, the Dells of the Wisconsin, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Niagara Falls, etc.”
1906 Raymond and Whitcomb’s Tour of California – leaves from Boston, New York and Philadelphia. “Excursion to the Pacific Coast via the Santa Fe route. Through Pullman Vestibuled Cars to Los Angeles without change.”

By the 1920’s the agency was offering cruises to Latin America and the Mediterranean, around Africa and around the world.

While travel agencies emerged in the 1870’s, travel guides got an even earlier start. Appleton’s Travel Guides, originally targeted at European visitors, are cited by Shaffer as the first series of guides published in the U.S. Some early Appleton publications were:

1848 – Appletons’ Railroad and Steamboat Companion: being a Travellers’ Guide through the United States of America.
1849 – Appletons’ New York City and Vicinity Guide.
1860 – Appletons’ Illustrated Hand-book of American Travel

In addition to other city guides Appletons’ had an edition dedicated to fishing. Perhaps their most reknowned publication was the two-part Picturesque America, which included hundreds of engravings of the works of famous landscape painters. It was edited by William Cullen Bryant, the editor of the New York Evening Post.

One of the most lasting and highest quality series of travel guides was surprisingly published by the government. During the Depression, FDR established the Federal Writers Project in 1935 as a way to put unemployed writers to work. More than 6,000 persons were hired by the FWP and they included some of the best known writers of their generation including Saul Bellow, John Cheever, John Steinbeck, Studs Terkel and Richard Wright.

One of the products of the FWP was the American Guide Series which was more commonly referred to as the WPA (Works Progress Administration) Guides. The first guide, covering Idaho, was published in 1937, and the Oklahoma guide, published in 1942, completed the 48-state series. Each of the guides included some articles about the history of the state, photos and auto tours of the state. As automobile vacations grew in popularity after the Second World War, these guides were still current and used.

In an earlier post (Americans Discover Vacation: As Well As Discrimination and Bigotry), I noted that blacks and Jews built their own touring infrastructure as a way of circumventing discriminatory treatment. That included travel agencies and guide books. One example is The Negro Motorist Green Book, which was published from 1936-1966. The Green Book, as it was commonly known, was created by Victor Green, a former mailman who became a travel agent in New York. The information in the book included listings of hotels, camps, and restaurants that served blacks. Green himself expressed the hope that one day his guides would be unnecessary and eventually that was the case.

By the middle of the 20^th century a vast number of Americans had the time and the wherewithal to vacation. Many had a guide book along with a couple gas station maps in their glove compartment and before long there would be a travel agency in just about every town of any size.

Posted in Americans Discover Vacation, History, Travel | Tagged appleton's, Federal Writer's Project, Green Book, guidebook, history, Raymond and Whitcomb, Thomas cook, travel, travel agency, vacation | 30 Comments

10 Most Viewed Off the Leash Blog Posts in 2014

Posted on December 31, 2014 by Ken Dowell

10. Monster Trucks, Freaks, Creationists and Other Things You Don’t Usually See in New Jersey

9. 17-ton Marilyn, Enormous Abe and a Pitchfork in the Sky

8. A Few Great Music Documentaries

7. Digital Deception: Is Fake News a Laughing Matter?

6. Digital Deception: Catfish

5. Growing Up in the 50’s: The Corner Store

4. Growing Up in the 50’s: School

3. This is Hinchliffe

2. Growing Up in the 50’s: The Night Two Guys Burned Down

1. Growing Up in the 50’s: Christmas Time in Paterson

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged blog poss, views | 1 Comment

Americans Discover Vacation: Under the Influence of PR

Posted on December 28, 2014 by Ken Dowell

The emergence of public relations in the United States chronologically coincided with the growth of vacationing in America. As more and more Americans started to go on vacation there was a corresponding increase in the number of resort owners, local businessmen, transportation companies and government officials who were ready and willing with suggestions about where they should go.

So you find many of the practices which we currently associate with modern day PR, media relations, press trips, content marketing and sponsored events, getting their start in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. There’s even a few instances of journalists slipping over to “the dark side” in all probably in search of a steadier income.

(Sgraton)

In an earlier post I brought up the case of a Dr. Thomas Goode, proprietor of the Virginia Hot Springs Resort. Dr. Goode published promotional pamphlets that included testimonials from folks who suggested that spring water was a cure for deafness and paralysis. This was in 1848. Here’s a guy who was clearly a doctor of spin.

Newspapers were an important vehicle for getting resort and travel information to the public. So it’s not surprising to find that resorts were ready to get into the business we would come to know as media relations. In Working at Play, author Cindy S. Aron notes that some resort proprietors started to offer up vacant rooms to newspaper correspondents. “Happy journalists then allegedly wrote glowing reports.”

It was at about the turn of the century that public relations started to become a paid profession. And it was right about that time when corporate PR departments started to create brand-name destinations for traveling Americans. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the West and specifically with the emergence of national parks as popular Americans vacation spots.

The first of the national parks, Yellowstone, was created in 1872 when Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone Park Act. According to Marguerite S. Shaffer, author of See America First, the idea to make Yellowstone a national park originated with Jay Cooke, the banker who financed the Northern Pacific Railroad. Promoting Yellowstone meant more passengers for the train line that went in that direction. For that same reason the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad promoted the Grand Canyon and the Great Northern Railway promoted Glacier National Park.

Moose habitat at Yellowstone National Park

The Great Northern, according to Shaffer, “rewarded newspapers and magazines that published articles on the park by purchasing advertising.” And if you’re going to start a media relations campaign, who better to run it than a former journalist. Great Northern hired Milwaukee Journal reporter Hobie Smith as a one-man PR department. Shaffer describes how Great Northern gave journalists free rides to the park. In 1911 they organized their first press tour of Glacier National and, lo and behold, profited from widespread newspaper publicity.

Writers and artists, including painters, photographers and later videographers, were also courted by the resorts, the railroads and their PR reps. They produced what today we would call content marketing or native advertising. As an example, Shaffer notes that Great Northern courted the short story writer Mary Roberts Rinehart and sent her off on a group expedition around Glacier National. She returned the favor with a series of articles for Collier’s magazine in 1916.

In his book Sacred Places, John F. Sears, writes: “The raw material of nature was rapidly transformed into a cultural commodity by reproducing and marketing verbal descriptions and pictorial representations of these places.”

(tpsdave)

As the automobile began to replace the railcar as the preferred vehicle of vacationers, the onus for promoting vacation destinations began to shift to car companies and, in the case of the national parks, the government agencies responsible for those parks.

When Alice Huyler Ramsey made the first coast to coast auto trip by a woman (see Women on the Loose) she did it in a Maxwell touring car. That car was supplied by the Maxwell-Briscoe Company. That was an example of the PR efforts that the car companies were undertaking to present their product as the preferred means of touring in America. This type of promotion would eventually lead to the 50’s advertising jingle “See the U.S.A in a Chevrolet.”

In 1911 the Department of the Interior created a photo exhibit of the national parks that toured libraries. They also brought in the Kinemacolor Moving Picture Company to create videos (or in early 20^th century vernacular moving pictures) of Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier National and others. While the government had only a modest budget for this, according to Shaffer, funding came from business interests associated with the parks.

Robert Sterling Yard, whose credentials included stints at the New York Sun and New York Herald, was hired on by the department to essentially write press releases. Shaffer says “he established a national parks news service and began writing articles for magazines, including press bulletins, collecting and distributing photographs and statistics…”

This type of PR campaign was still being promoted by the U.S. government well into the 20^th century. Shaffer describes the Lyndon Johnson administration’s “See the USA” program. In 1967 that included a Discover America Vacation Planning Week replete with buttons, posters, a sweepstakes and a theme song.

PR, marketing and promotion were a key part of the success of many different properties and destinations. And there is probably no better example than the establishment of the national parks as a tourism brand, a distinctly American tourism brand, and the vast numbers of Americans who were drawn to Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon and others as their vacation destination.

Posted in Americans Discover Vacation, History, Travel | Tagged history, marketing, media relations, national parks, PR, travel, vacation, Yellowstone | 17 Comments

Americans Discover Vacation: As Well As Discrimination and Bigotry

Posted on December 21, 2014 by Ken Dowell

Vacationing got off to a slow start in America with a few of the nation’s elite traveling by coach to resorts on the oceans, in the mountains, or by lakes or springs. As transportation options improved and got faster and cheaper, more and more Americans took vacations and more destinations emerged. Eventually, at some point in the mid-20^th century, affordable family autos and paid vacation time meant that most Americans were taking part.

But from the very beginning vacationland America was a reflection of the society of which it was a part. And for racial and religious minorities that meant discrimination and bigotry.

(Wikimages)

In Working at Play, author Cindy S. Aron describes how Jews were excluded from resorts in New York State in the 19^th and early 20^th century. A high profile incident in 1877 involved a well known and wealthy Jewish banker, Joseph Seligman, being turned away at the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga, a place he had visited regularly, because the new manager had instituted a policy of not accommodating Jews.

Mohonk Mountain House

The Quaker run Mohonk Mountain House near New Paltz discouraged Jewish guests. Aron found this quote in a 1917 house manager’s report: “Hebrews are few. Wm. W. Cohen, a high-class Hebrew, rather insisted on coming, even after learning that he would probably be unwelcome. It took only three days for him to realize his mistake.”

One of the most shameful incidences of discrimination was in the nation’s newly created national parks. Author Marguerite S. Shaffer (See America First) provides evidence of one Robert Sterling Yard, who was executive secretary of the National Parks Association, talking out of both sides of his mouth. On the one hand he proclaims “In the national parks all are just Americans.” But in reference to blacks he confides “While we cannot openly discriminate against them, they should be told the parks have no facilities for taking care of them.” That nonsense was dated 1922.

Segregation in the national park system lasted well beyond that at Shenandoah National Park in Tennessee. Thinly disguising their policies, park officials there had a private concern build separate accommodations. Toilet facilities were separate although no signs indicated that and at restaurant facilities, blacks were ushered into the dining areas reserved for staff.

Among the most popular of the Minnesota lake resorts were those operated by the Ruttger family. The first was started in 1898 and by the 1930’s they ran five properties. Susan Sessions Rugh, author of Are We There Yet?, notes that the Ruttger’s promotional brochure included the phrase, in all caps, “CLIENTELE CAREFULLY RESTRICTED.” Rugh writes “Certainly that meant they excluded black customers, but it also meant Jews were not welcome to stay at their resorts.”

(PublicDomainPictures)

There were some notable exceptions. Atlantic City, N.J., was known as a place that welcomed all from the 1890’s onward. And later Disneyland, opened in 1955, was always open to everyone and in fact was very public about hosting well known black athletes and entertainers.

Rugh’s book is subtilted “The Golden Age of Family Vacations.” That is from the end of World War II through the 1960’s. But for blacks “vacationing was an uncertain even fear filled experience because blacks never could be sure that they would find places to eat and sleep on the road.”

The problem existed even for those who chose to visit the nation’s capital. According to Rugh, “For African-Americans, the civic pilgrimage was a bitter lesson in the limits of citizenship. Washington was a southern city with segregated hotels and rooming houses, evidence of racial prejudice in stark contrast to the ideals inscribed on the capital’s monuments.”

Rugh tells the compelling story about how black organizations like the NAACP and CORE fought discrimination by organizing boycotts of large travel properties like Howard Johnson’s and Hilton Hotels, until they adopted non-discriminatory policies throughout their systems. She also believes that the protests over segregation within America’s travel facilities played a part in winning passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Like everyone else in America, blacks and Jews did not want to spend their vacations having their families and children met with hostility. So these groups built their own tourist infrastructure that enabled them to enjoy many of the same experiences and amenities as other Americans.

Some hotels in existing resort areas were built by blacks to accommodate blacks. These included the Hotel Dale, which opened in Atlantic City, in 1900, and then opened a second Hotel Dale in Cape May in 1911. The Jersey European Hotel began welcoming black guests 1908 in West Baden Springs, Ind. Idlewild in Michigan was founded by four white land developers with the intent of creating a resort community that would attract middle class black professionals from throughout the Midwest. It became known as the “Black Eden of Michigan.” Even in the neighborhood of the racist Ruttger’s clan two black resorts sprung up, the Northern Lights Resort in Richville, Minn., and Flaggs’s Resort in Emily, Minn.

In the post World War II era many black professionals avoiding discrimination by taking their families to Mexico or Bermuda. But for many others, black-owned travel agencies (Admiral Tours, King Travel) and travel guides (Green Book, Travelguide) emerged to lead them comfortably through the U.S. Rugh describes these black owned travel businesses as “a way to circumvent humiliation and it re-circulated tourist dollars within the black economy.”

Resorts for Jews were centered in the Catskill region of New York State. A wide range of accommodations were developed ranging from rooming houses and bungalow communities to grand hotels. Thus it was accessible to Jews at all socio-economic levels and could be reached by train from New York City. Rugh comments that the “nightly entertainment at the Borscht Belt resorts…featured singing stars and comedians who poked fun at Jewish culture” and notes that the resorts also served as a marriage market.

Perhaps the best known of the Catskill resorts was Grossinger’s. It’s roots date to the early 20^th century when a New York City transplant Asher Selig Grossinger began renting out some rooms and his wife Malke supplied the appropriate Kosher food. In 1919 they expanded by buying a larger property which they named Grossinger’s Terrace Hill House. By the 1950’s it had become the “Waldorf of the Catskills” with 35 buildings, its own airport and post office and 150,000 guests a year. It declined as discrimination against Jews in the U.S. abated and as later generations of Jews became less interested in the traditional Jewish culture of their parents.

Eventually the separate travel infrastructure for blacks also began to disappear as segregation declined, beginning with the 1964 legislation. But these travel facilities of the disenfranchised played a role in the growth of vacationing in America. They assured that there was a place for everyone.

Posted in Americans Discover Vacation, History, Travel | Tagged Atlantic City, bigotry, discrimination, history, Mohonk Mountain House, national parks, racism, travel, vacations | 22 Comments