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 19th and early 20th 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)

(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

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)

(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 20th 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 20th 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.

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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-20th 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)

(Wikimages)

In Working at Play, author Cindy S. Aron describes how Jews were excluded from resorts in New York State in the 19th and early 20th 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

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)

(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 20th 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.

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Shit We Used to Say

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Ken Dowell

When you haven’t got much to offer

(OpenClips)Shit or get off the pot. Pretty obvious. If you’re going to do it, do it. If you’re driving behind someone who keeps putting the directional on but never turns this is what you would mutter.

Without a pot to piss in. Usually referring to someone with no resources. Disdainfully used for folks with big plans but no money.

(imelenchon)It’s your dime. A reference to the fact that public telephones used to cost a dime for local calls. By telling someone “it’s your dime” you are saying you’re the one who called me so get on with it and say whatever it was you wanted to say. If you were busy when the phone rang and when you answered you were greeted to a few minutes of idle chatter, you might inject this comment into the first couple seconds of available silence.

Further elaboration on the use of shit

Shit-eating grin (the g is eating is silent).  A slightly goofy smile connotating happiness over something that one possibly should not be doing. If you had a quick one with a co-worker in an office bathroom stall you might emerge from the experience with a shit-eating grin on your face. Not to be confused with shit faced, another in the extensive genre of shit expressions. Shit faced means drunk.

Doesn’t know shit from shinola. Knows nothing. Usually used in reference to someone who is pontificating about something which they have no knowledge of. Shinola was a brand of shoe polish, something that was available in multiple shades of brown, hence the potential for confusion.

Monikers of ordinariness

Ham and egger. Ordinary but useful. Often used in baseball to describe a scrappy player who is generally not a big talent but gets by on effort. A ham and egger might be a second baseman who fields every ball hit to him but never makes any spectacular plays. At the plate he gets one or two singles a game.

Five and dimer. Cheap, penny-pincher, petty. Not to be confused with five and dime which was a cheap store. The five and dime was a small discount department store that was a staple of all downtown shopping areas in the pre-Walmart era. Woolworth’s is an example.

(mconnors)Brown bagger. Refers to the type of office workers who would bring their lunch to work in a brown bag. Not the guy who drives the business. Could be expected to beat it out the door when the clock strikes 5. Someone who sold tickets at a train station was likely a brown bagger. Not used for workers who did any kind of manual labor as these folks needed more substantial lunch containers that would hold up on the job site until the noontime whistle blew.

Loud and unwelcome

Ripped him a new asshole. Theoretically it could be ripped him or her a new asshole. Basically means to severely reprimand.

Let go of my ears, I know my business.  A reference to oral sex. Term was used by men but I doubt it was ever used when actually in that situation. Rather it was a caustic yet comic way to fend off unwanted supervision.

Blowing smoke out your ass. Used to describe someone who is complaining, scolding or reprimanding in a loud, obnoxious way. You may have heard the recent story about a Korean air exec who threw a temper tantrum on one of their flights because a flight attendant didn’t serve the bag of nuts properly. I suspect if my dad was on that plane he might have described her as “blowing smoke out her ass.”

Devices we used

(MGDboston)Icebox. This is how my maternal grandmother referred to the large kitchen device that she used to keep food cold. My paternal grandmother called it a Frigidaire after the brand name of an early maker. My parents, being the modern people they were, substituted the term “fridge.”

The can. Any bathroom’s primary device. Most likely uttered solely in the company of men.

On the horn. Talking on the telephone. The name horn likely originated from someone who lived with a loudly ringing phone and who found it annoying and disruptive.

Rabbit ears. The set top antenna used for the tube (TV) before cable or streaming. Folks who weren’t up to climbing on the roof and installing something more substantial, used these.

(Nemo)

(Nemo)

Church Key (mensatic)

(mensatic)

Church key. Beer bottle opener

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Americans Discover Vacation: Finding the Time

Posted on December 14, 2014 by Ken Dowell

The history of American vacationing in the 19th and early 20th century is a story of gradual growth in the number of people who went on vacation and the places they choose to go.  But by well into the 20th century, those people were still almost exclusively white and members of the upper and middle classes.

(photo by Grafixer)

(photo by Grafixer)

It would be quite a while before working class vacationers would be part of the tourism scene in America. There were a number of barriers to workers taking vacation. Transportation in the 19th century, consisting of stage coaches and later canals, steamboats and railroads, was slow and expensive. Even as rail travel proliferated at the end of the 19th century and automobile travel emerged in the early decades of the 20th century, it’s benefits were available primarily to the financially comfortable.

A few cheaper vacation options emerged in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Camping was always posed as an affordable alternative. While some Americans were camping in style with lots of equipment, guides and cooks, those of more modest means could simply camp on local farmland.  Or they could go “tramping” on foot with their gear on their backs. Later auto camping became popular with the less well healed segments of society and camping provided a means for working class families to enjoy the national parks. Religious camp meetings also attracted a broader cross-section of attendees.

There were a few philanthropic groups who arranged vacations for working class Americans. Usually their efforts were directed toward women.  In her book, Working at Play, author Cindy S Aron describes some of these. The YMCA ran a “seashore cottage” on the New Jersey shore that offered very low rates for working class women. The Working Girls Vacation Society was founded in 1884 and funded by wealthy philanthropists. They provided retreats in Connecticut for “working class girls” from New York City. Typical of the time these charitable offerings came with very heavy religious and moral overtones.

Coney Island

Coney Island

These efforts touched a very small percentage of working class Americans because they didn’t address the issue of time. Even as transportation became faster and more affordable, the initial impact on workers was to make day trips more popular.  The urban working class would take advantage of accessible transit to spend the day in Coney Island or Rockaway, N.Y., Revere Beach in Boston and Dream City in Pittsburgh.  But working class families, dependent as they were on their week-to-week paydays, may not have been able to take time off work, may have feared for their jobs if they did so, and in fact could not afford to take time off work unless it was paid.

America’s working class did not go on vacation regularly until the practice of paid vacation expanded to their level of society.  According to Donna Allen, author of Fringe Benefits, in 1930 only 10% of wage earners had vacation plans compared to 80% of salaried middle-class employees.

There were a few, a very few, companies in the U.S. who provided vacation benefits earlier in the century. They did so, not out of altruism, but because they believed they would benefit from a healthier, happier workforce. These progressive-minded businessmen saw an advantage to themselves by improving the morale and the loyalty of their employees.

The corporate pioneer in this respect was the National Cash Register Company in Dayton, Ohio.  Aron describes how NCR started in 1902 by closing its factory for a two-week period albeit without pay.  Two years later the company filled four trains with some 2,000 NCR employees for a trip to the World’s Fair in St. Louis.  By 1913, 20 year veterans were given one week’s pay and by the 1920’s the threshold was reduced to 10 years served. “NCR’s interests in its workers vacations made it unusual for an early 20th century company,” Aron noted. “The vast majority of businessmen opposed the idea of vacations for production workers.”

1913 Paterson Silk StrikeAs unionization spread through the industrializing cities of America, paid vacations were not a focus of the unions. Workers at the time were often victimized by shutdowns. Companies would close their plants for slow periods, sometimes during the summer or during the holiday, causing their blue collar employees to be temporarily out of work and out of money. Time off was for many something more feared than aspired to. Unions at the time fought for the 8-hour day and the 5-day work week, not for the two-week vacation.

Some unions were, however, involved in creating sites for vacationing workers. The International Ladies Garment Workers opened Unity House in Stroudsburg, Pa., in 1920. For a modest sum of $13 a week, union members could swim in the lake, hike in woods , and attend courses like “The Economic Basis of Modern Civilization” or “Appreciation of Art.” The ILGWU also bought a Catskills resort at White Pines in 1924 from a local union that had tried to establish an education and leisure vacation home for workers. This Unity House, like the one in the Poconos, was successfully run for several decades.

While unions were not actively advocating paid vacations, Aron notes that they indirectly contributed to the cause. Companies who were trying to stave off unionization would sometimes attempt to do so by improving their employment practices, including vacation policy. By 1937 70% of companies were offering paid vacations and according to Marguerite S. Shaffer, author of See America First. By 1949, 93% of union contracts included some type of paid time off.

The last piece of the vacation puzzle for the working class was the widespread ownership of affordable automobiles and the availability of roads that made auto trips faster and more accessible.

So by the time we reached what author Susan Sessions Rugh (Are We there Yet?) calls the “Golden Age of American Family Vacations” in the decades following World War II, all classes of Americans are on the road and on vacation. “The postwar family road trip was made possible by paid vacation and affordable family cars,” writes Rugh. By 1952 there were 62 million licensed drivers in the U.S. and in 1962 Rugh cites government reports that state 81% of Americans traveled by car on their vacation.

But challenges still existed for racial and religious minorities. I’ll discuss those barriers and how they were overcome in next week’s post.

(See also Americans Discover Vacation: Women on the Loose.)

Posted in Americans Discover Vacation, History, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , | 25 Comments

Light Show!

Posted on December 9, 2014 by Ken Dowell

Tunnel of Light

ElephantPlane

SnowmanReflectionsChristmas Tree

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Americans Discover Vacation: Women on the Loose

Posted on December 7, 2014 by Ken Dowell

The 19th century was not a great time to be a woman in America. Large portions of our nation fell under the influence of the Protestant ethic, a philosophy that valued women primarily for their ability to birth and raise children. Combine that with the stifling mores of Victorianism and you have what historians have dubbed the Cult of Domesticity.

Family SecretThis of course was still a time when women couldn’t even vote, no matter how many useless dolts the men of America elected. But for at least some women discovering vacation freed them from this trap even if only temporarily.

Working at Play author Cindy S. Aron says vacations define “what people choose to do rather than what they are required to do.” By that definition who needed a vacation more than the Victorian era American woman. Aron writes, “Summer resorts encouraged more relaxed rules of conduct. Women found and helped create a resort culture freed from some traditional middle-class constraints. “

Cape May street

Cape May

This was apparent at the earliest American resorts, places like Saratoga Springs and Cape May. Women fished, bowled and played billiards. They swam in the same ocean the men swam in. At these more fashionable and affluent resorts flirting and courting were commonplace. Raised in a culture that expected them to be in the house some women found places where they could instead see and be seen. By the late 19th century women outnumbered men at the popular high end resorts. Some city-dwelling wives and their children would spend part of the summer in places like the mountains in New York State or the beaches of Long Island and their husbands would commute there on weekends.

As vacationing spread to a broader segment of society, women were among the participants in different types of vacations, among them camping. They climbed and fished side-by-side with men and accompanied hunting parties. Early in the 20th century, they joined in “tramping” trips, camping and traveling on foot carrying gear on their back.

Improved transportation options and an expansion of tourist accommodation, particularly in the West, sped the development of tourism in the early decades of the 20th century. See America First author Marguerite S. Shaffer notes, “The landscape of tourism offered women a venue outside of the domestic sphere in which they could re-imagine themselves as independent, self-sufficient active members of society.”

John F. Sears, author of Sacred Places, adds, “Tourism, unlike hunting or plowing, tending a flower garden or caring for children, was never gender identified. Both men and women participated in it, often together.”

The story of the growth of vacationing in America has largely been put together through the diaries, memoirs and narratives of early travelers. Authors of these recorded experiences include many women who could be considered pioneers of the American vacation experience.

Margaret Cruikshank, a 58-year old teacher from Minneapolis, was one of the early visitors to the new Yellowstone National Park in 1883. She went by train to Montana and then took a coach to the hotel at Mammoth Hot Springs. Her travel around the park was by carriage or horseback. She wrote a story about her trip titled “Earth Could Not Furnish Another Such Sight” that was later published in Montana: The Magazine of Western History.  Cruikshank describes accommodations in the park as “ludicrously insufficient.”  “Wherever you go there are streams to ford, corduroy to fall over, sagebrush plains to crawl along and mountains to cross,” but also “every stop reveals new wonders.” Cruikshank suggested that “the strong can stand it and enjoy it. But this is no place for the delicate.”  She concluded “All who have made the tour of the park are expected to return half-dead, spent and powerless.”

Mammoth Hot Springs

Mammoth Hot Springs

Alice Huyler Ramsey was a 22-year old housewife from Hackensack, N.J. In 1909 when she set off on her gender’s first transcontinental auto voyage. She left from New York with three other women in a Maxwell touring car and arrived in San Francisco 59 days later. During the trip she changed 11 tires, cleaned the spark plugs, and repaired a broken brake pedal. During her journey she caught bedbugs in a hotel in Wyoming, was surrounded by a Native American hunting party with bows drawn in Nevada and slept in the car when it got stuck in the mud. But she survived and in later years drove across country more than 30 times. In the year 2000 she became the first woman inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame.  In an interview with Ms. Magazine in 1975 she stated the obvious: “Good driving has nothing to do with sex.”

In 1923 Katherine Hulme set forth on a cross country trip with a female companion referred to as Tuny in her later published account of the journey. Shaffer comments that “in many respects their decision to make a transcontinental tour represented a declaration of independence.” The two logged 6,000 miles motoring from New York through Minneapolis, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, British Columbia, Idaho, Washington and Oregon before ending up in San Francisco. While many men gave their cars women’s names, Hulme christened her’s “Reggie.” There is a story in the book about a garage attendant who warned the two not to try to cross the Big Horn Mountains at that time of year. Hulme blew him a kiss and Tuny drove on.

(See also American Discover Vacation: Overcoming Our Heritage)

Posted in Americans Discover Vacation, History, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , | 30 Comments

Digital Deception: You know you’re a sockpuppet if…

Posted on December 4, 2014 by Ken Dowell
(image by Karen Arnold)

(image by Karen Arnold)

…your profile picture is of an attractive young woman wearing a bikini.

…you put your cell phone number on your profile page

…you have thousands of likes on Facebook  and tag every photo 100 or more times

…but you don’t have any local friends

…you claim to be an executive of a major corporation on LinkedIn but don’t have a premium account

–your LinkedIn profile has a lower case first and last name, a minimally filled out profile and you work for a company with a generic name

…you have less than 50 connections on LinkedIn

…but you follow 2,001 people on Twitter (Twitter rules prohibit following more than 2,000 people until  2,000 people follow you)

twitter blank

…your Twitter bio is empty

…your Twitter URL has nothing to do with the first and last name on your profile.

(A sockpuppet is a false online identity used to deceive or spam other social media users.)

On the other hand, if you’re a real person who wants to avoid the spammers and scammers who are trying to connect, follow or friend you, here are some tools that may help:

(image by mzacha)

(image by mzacha)

Posted in Digital Deception | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Americans Discover Vacation: Overcoming Our Heritage

Posted on November 30, 2014 by Ken Dowell

The first European settlers to come to America were religious extremists who rebelled against the Church of England because it was too tolerant. The Puritans and Pilgrims of the New World believed in moral and behavioral purity down to the minutest detail. They objected to things like Christmas celebrations, drama and music. Puritans in England were known to take an axe to church organs.

Their legacy in the modern history of America is what later came to be known as the Protestant ethic, a philosophy which worshipped the purity of hard work, thrift and discipline. Fair enough. But it also viewed leisure, recreation and anything that could be associated with idleness with disdain. And it relegated women to a secondary public role and viewed their primary purpose as motherhood.

So if you are an Anglo-Saxon American, your ancestors were not the type of say “let’s take a few days off and have a good time.” And since a good percentage of the American public with some disposable income in the 19th century was pretty Waspy, the whole idea of vacation took hold rather slowly here.

But take hold it did, beginning in the 1800’s. While philosophically opposed to the idea of “a few days off to have a good time,” if you could reinterpret your vacation as therapy, religion, education or nationalism, you were good to go.

In her comprehensive history of vacations in America, appropriately titled Working at Play, Cindy S. Aron explores how the prejudices of our forefathers affected how we spent our vacation. “The fear of leisure and relaxation – expressed as soon as mid-19th century middle class vacationers began traveling to beaches, springs and mountains – took new forms but endured not only through the 1930’s but, I would suggest, until today,” says Aron.

Mohonk LakeWhile the word vacation does not appear to be used, other than to describe student breaks, until mid-19th century, some members of the elite were traveling to destinations such as mountain houses, springs and seashore towns throughout the 1800’s. The choice of destination reflected the motivation for this travel, which at least publicly was discussed in terms of health benefits. Aron quotes a certain Dr. Thomas Goode who published guides in 1846 that included testimonials as to how spring waters cure deafness and paralysis. Coincidentally, Goode was the proprietor of Virginia Hot Springs.

The elite who visited these early resorts were believed by many descendents of the Puritans to be somewhat more casual about the purity of their behavior, although one should consider the possibility that they were not necessarily morally looser but rather better positioned to record their behavior in memoirs. In John F. Sears book, Sacred Places, he quotes the author James Kirk Paulding in 1828 as categorizing travel as “the most exquisite mode of killing time and spending money ever yet devised by lazy ingenuity.”

One of the first appearances of middle and lower middle class activity that could be interpreted as vacation was attendance at camp meetings that were organized by religious groups, initially mostly Methodists. Some of the sites of these religious camp meetings later became more permanent resorts. One example is Ocean Grove, N.J., founded in 1869 as a “retreat for Christians” by the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association. The camp meeting association still exists, still owns Ocean Grove, and now promotes it as “God’s square mile at the Jersey Shore.” To this day there is no liquor sold in Ocean Grove and the beach is still closed on Sunday morning.

Camping itself was positioned as an exercise in purity. Aron cites an 1875 New York Times writer extolling the virtues of camping as “imbibing in integrity and simplicity (while) the bathers at Cape May that season were busy flirting and gossiping.”

Another type of vacation destination that the moralistically-minded 19th century citizen deemed acceptable was the self-improvement resort . The best known of these was in Chautauqua in Western New York. Similar resorts, combining recreation with education, were opened in the latter part of the 19th century and they were collectively known as chautauquas. Aron observes: “Nobody who visited at Chautauqua intended to spend nights in a drunken stupor and days smoking in the billiard hall or playing cards in a gambling den.”

Old Faithful

The number of Americans who vacationed, even with the growth of these “acceptable” sorts of destinations, was still relatively small and did not show widespread growth until the 20th century. Yet it was in the late 19th century that an important reason for that growth began to take shape.  That is when land at Yosemite and Yellowstone was set aside for public use. These and other national parks would play an important role in the growth of vacationing in America. This type of travel was fueled by an appeal to nationalism.

Marguerite S. Shaffer, in her book, See America First, writes that “tourism was promoted as a ritual of American citizenship.” The phrase “See America First,” which was initially used in the first decade of the 20th century, reflects that promotion which came from the railroads that carried passengers to the West, artists and writers of the time (some of whom were being paid by those railroads) and a little later by government agencies that promoted the national parks.

White America didn’t have much history. We were at the time often reminded by Europeans that we didn’t have much culture. But what we did have was landscape, awesome natural scenery that rivaled anything known to 19th and early 20th century Westerners. “To celebrate American wilderness was in some ways to declare America was superior to the Old World,” writes Shaffer.

The early years of the national parks saw only a small stream of visitors as it was still a trip that was available only to the elite. They traveled West via luxury Pullman cars. In the first couple decades of the 20th century the competitiveness of the railroad companies led to widespread promotion of the sites along their routes as well as cheaper fares. This brought a larger segment of visitors to Yosemite, Yellowstone, Glacier National Park and the Grand Canyon. But the real explosion in this kind of “look for America” vacation came with the growth of the automobile in the 1920’s.

The patriotic vacation undertaken in an auto grew in popularity until at least the 70’s. And the destination was not just the national parks. In Are We There Yet: The Golden Age of American Family Vacations, Susan Sessions Rugh writes that postwar family motorists commonly “set off on tours of historic sites or took their children to Washington, D.C.”

Shaffer quotes Lyndon Johnson’s Secretary of the Interior Stuart Udall expressing the nationalism pitch to vacationers in the 1960’s: “When it comes to the search for history, we have our own castles, kingly places and even ancient cathedrals.”

Still no mention though of knocking off for a week to have a good time.

(This is the first in a weekly series of blog posts about the history of Americans on vacation.)

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Every Thanksgiving

Posted on November 28, 2014 by Ken Dowell

Bloomfield vs. Montclair

Woodman FieldBloomfield v. Montclair

Montclair Mounties

Montclair cheerleadersBloomfield fanBloomfield cheerleaders

Montclair fanInjured Montclair player

Bloomfield vs. MontclairMontclair cheerleaders

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A Few Great Music Documentaries

Posted on November 23, 2014 by Ken Dowell

  1. Searching for Sugarman

Searching for Sugar ManSometimes you see a documentary and you walk out thinking if that had been a fictional movie it would have seemed too preposterous. This is one of those stories.  This guy in Detroit named Sixto Rodriguez makes a couple of records in the 70’s (Cold Fact, 1970;  and Coming From Reality, 1971 ). He is his 20’s at the time. Pretty much nobody buys them. He then spends several decades working in Detroit as a manual laborer often doing nasty demolition jobs. Thanks to the slimebuckets who owned the rights to his music he has no idea that somebody was buying those records. In fact so many hundreds of thousands of South Africans bought up his two albums that he was a legend in that country.

Rodriguez possibly would never had known that, and he never got a dime for all those sales, but for the  fact that a South African record store owner, Stephen “Sugar” Segerman, dedicated himself to tracking him down. And he did. And before you know it Rodriguez is playing live in Cape Town before a packed house of adoring fans some 30 years after his records were released.

I was fortunate to get to see Rodriguez last year at NJPAC. Now in his 70’s, he’s had a long, hard life and it shows, but the venue was packed with people who came to celebrate his story. And to listen to his music. Because while this incredible tale overshadows the music itself, he’s a quality songwriter and the music is really good. I don’t know why Americans let this guy slide by until the South Africans, and these filmmakers, woke us up to his music.

See trailer.

  1. 20 Feet From Stardom

20 Feet From StardomNot just a great music documentary, this is a great movie. The story of the trials and tribulations, as well as the massive talent, of backup singers. Among those whose career the storyline follows is Darlene Love, hard-working, underappreciated and exploited for much of her career. The movie reminds us that at one time she was taking on housecleaning jobs. She rises above it all, builds a successful solo career, and eventually is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Bruce Springsteen backing her up at the induction ceremony. She’s the exception.

There’s Claudia Lennear who started as an Ikette in the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, worked with Joe Cocker and Leon Russell, and was the inspiration for the Stones’ song “Brown Sugar.” She wasn’t successful in building a solo career and now teaches languages at Mt. San Antonio College in California. There’s the story of Merry Clayton, asleep and with her hair in curlers, summoned to the studio to belt out lyrics about rape and murder in “Gimme Shelter.” (A song that was in my head for weeks after seeing this movie.) When you watch Lisa Fischer do a duet with Mick Jagger during a Rolling Stones tour, you forget to even notice Jagger.

While not front and center these talented women did not always go unnoticed by the musicians they worked with. Among the folks who pay tribute in the film are Springsteen, Jagger, Stevie Wonder, Sting and Bette Milder. Turns out that when you tilt the focus at little bit off center you might discover the reason why some of your favorite songs are as good as they are.

See trailer.

  1. Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story

Respect YourselfThe rise and fall of Stax, the Memphis label that positioned itself as the antithesis of the mass-produced cookie-cutter sound of Motown. Running through this film are themes about race relations in America, about the evolution of the entertainment industry and the struggle of small independents to survive. But mostly it’s about the corps of brilliant musicians who passed through Stax.

To be honest, I had no idea how good Booker T. is until I saw this movie. He also seemed to be the heart and soul of Stax Records even though they had some better selling acts. From the early 60’s Booker T. and MG’s was a mixed-race band in the segregationist South, a symbol of what Stax stood for. There’s also Otis Redding, who arrived at the Memphis studio carrying someone else’s bags, but with a demo tape in his pocket. They ended up cutting a record right then and there. As far as I’m concerned, Otis Redding has no equal.

Stax was founded in 1957 by brother and sister team Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton. He ran the studio in an old movie theater and she operated the adjoining record shop. It lasted until 1975. In addition to Otis and Booker T. and the MGs, the Stax roster included Sam and Dave, the Staple Singers, Isaac Hayes, Wilson Pickett, Albert King and Carla and Rufus Thomas.  You’ll be amazed at how many great songs came out of Stax. A few of them are on the trailer.

  1. David Bromberg Unsung Treasure

Unsung TreasurePerhaps more people would be aware of David Bromberg if he hadn’t decided to a take a couple decades off. But that’s what makes the story as told in Unsung Treasure so interesting.

Bromberg’s heyday was in the 70’s and 80’s. An accomplished guitarist, he played blues and bluegrass, jazz, rock and folk. He played at the head of the David Bromberg Big Band and he played solo.  And he’s a pretty interesting guy to listen to as he is not adverse to telling a story or two on stage. The movie has some vintage clips of Bromberg performances and also shows some of his more recent collaborations with Keb’ Mo’ and Dr. John. The latter pronounces in his ever more raspy voice, “David Bromberg is an American icon.”

At some point in the 80’s he packed it in, decided he had enough of touring and wanted to stay home and hang around with his wife. For 20 years or so he ran a violin shop in Chicago. Later he moved to Wilmington, Del., (said he couldn’t take the cold in Chicago and couldn’t afford New York). The documentary shows how he achieves some success in working to revive the desolate downtown area he relocated to.

Bromberg plays some gigs now and again mostly on the east coast. I saw him last year at William Paterson College with the remnants of the big band. He was as good as ever. If you get a chance to see him, you won’t be disappointed. You can get a taste of the film and his music here.

What are your favorite music documentaries?

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