VACATIONS AND RESORTS

Americans did not begin to vacation, in the sense that we understand the word today, until the mid-nineteenth century. During the colonial period most people, deterred from travel by the absence of good roads and comfortable transportation, looked for recreation close to their homes. A few spots, however, catered to those members of the aristocracy who had the resources and time to travel. Newport, Rhode Island, for example, was by the 1760s attracting wealthy southerners for the summer. But it was not until the 1820s that increasing numbers of the elite left home for trips that had some of the characteristics of a vacation. Wealthy Americans began to frequent the watering places, spas, and seaside resorts that were being established during these years, places like White Sulphur Springs in western Virginia, Cape May on the shore of southern New Jersey, Pine Orchard House (later called Catskill Mountain House) in the Catskills, and Saratoga in upstate New York.

During these years most Americans still lived on farms, and for them extended absence from home during the summer months was out of the question. Only those with substantial financial assets and accommodating work schedules could frequent these early resorts. Southern planters took their families to the springs, leaving their plantations in the hands of overseers. Wealthy merchants arranged their affairs in order to spend time at Newport or Saratoga. Those involved in literary pursuits—often in those days people of independent wealth—took their work with them to summer spots. And well-to-do urban men who could not spend the entire season away sometimes arranged to leave their families in country or seaside homes, near enough to the city to allow for frequent trips back and forth.

Many of these early "vacationers," however, would have denied that the primary purpose of their trips was recreation or pleasure. Health, most would have said, was the reason for their sojourns. Many of America's first vacation spots began as health resorts, often growing up around natural springs whose waters reputedly possessed health-giving qualities. Both medical and lay opinion held that drinking or bathing in such waters could cure a vast array of illnesses. If the promotional literature were to be believed, ailments ranging from constipation to sterility, from scrofula to gout, as well as female diseases, sleeplessness, chronic diarrhea, bilious complaints, and hair loss would all succumb to the powers of the mineral waters. Those resorts that could not boast of proximity to mineral springs promoted instead the health-giving properties of their geography or climate. Newport and Cape May made claims for the ameliorative effects of ocean breezes or sea bathing, and Catskill Mountain House touted the virtues of mountain air. Whether in the mountains, by the ocean, or near the springs, the resorts became havens from the frequent summer epidemics of cholera and yellow fever that plagued cities and low-lying areas in these years.

Nevertheless, if the ostensible purpose of these vacations was health, there is no doubt that clients sought relaxation and recreation as well. In the 1830s and 1840s much of the fun apparently stemmed from associating with the rich and famous who increasingly flocked to these resorts. Seeing and being seen were often primary attractions, since many of the resorts offered little else in the way of amenities. Visitors to these spots wrote in letters and diaries of the less than luxurious, even primitive, conditions—cramped and dirty accommodations, hard beds, flea-infested blankets, crowded dining rooms, surly staff, and horrible food. There were, however, compensations. Guests amused themselves playing cards or nine pins, dancing at balls, walking or riding in the mountains, enjoying the scenery, flirting, courting, and gambling.

The years around the Civil War brought alterations in the social and technological fabric of American life that contributed to the increase in the number of vacation resorts and to the growth of a large and more diverse vacationing public. Most important were changes in the nature of work. As the industrial economy matured it brought with it increasing numbers of people filling salaried, white-collar jobs. Employees of burgeoning corporate and government bureaucracies became part of a new middle class. These people could structure their activities to make time for vacations. By late in the century many firms were regularly giving their white-collar staff at least a week of paid vacation. Moreover, the fairly steady employment that such bureaucratic labor promised allowed these workers to budget time and funds in ways that made vacations possible.

Another impetus to the vacation industry was the expanding network of railroads, which brought vacation spots within the geographical and financial reach of more people. In the antebellum years it might have taken four or five days and considerable expense to travel from Washington, D.C., to one of the Virginia springs, but by the 1870s the trip could be accomplished in a day. The railroad brought travelers from New York City to Catskill Mountain House in six and a half hours in contrast to the day and a half it had taken by steamer and coach. The development of numerous rail lines encouraged the growth of resorts in a variety of areas, many of which drew middle-class patrons. These were the years, for example, when the New Jersey shore began to sprout beach communities that attracted growing numbers of city folk from New York or Philadelphia for a few weeks' stay in the summer. The first train brought visitors to Atlantic City in July 1854, although this resort did not really take off until the 1870s when the first boardwalk was built and a second railroad began to bring increasing numbers of vacationers from Philadelphia.

As more Americans took vacations during these years, they created a demand for more types of resorts. Those who could afford it sometimes tried to hobnob with the wealthy in the grand hotels of Saratoga or Long Branch. But most middle-class vacationers settled for more modest alternatives. Boarding at a country farmhouse or in a small hotel or private home at the seashore may not have offered the amenities or panache of a resort hotel, but it still afforded clerks or schoolteachers a way out of the hot city. On the other hand, many sought the city as a place to vacation, some, for example, visiting one of the expositions of those years—Philadelphia in 1876 or Chicago in 1893.

The sorts of resorts that became popular after the Civil War suggest that many Americans felt that vacations should be used for more than mere recreation. Indeed, religion apparently motivated some to found, develop, and visit resorts. Since the early nineteenth century Methodists had been holding revival camp meetings, and some of these sites were becoming permanent fixtures. In the summer of 1857, for example, over 250 families lived in tents and participated in a revival at Wesleyan Grove on Martha's Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts. By the 1870s Wesleyan Grove and its neighboring town of Oak Bluffs were growing resort communities. In that decade another group of Methodists formed the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association on a site on the northern New Jersey shore. The association built a large auditorium where the faithful came together for religious meetings, lectures, and concerts throughout the summer. The association also established rules prohibiting not only the sale of liquor but Sunday swimming and carriage riding. Although these laws were strictly enforced, a thriving resort of hotels, boardinghouses, and cottages developed. By the turn of the twentieth century the summer population of Ocean Grove numbered thirty-five thousand. Rehoboth, on the Delaware shore, also began as a Methodist camp meeting in the 1870s and had become a seaside resort by the late nineteenth century. Resorts like these served two purposes. They provided sites for religious meetings, and they created vacation spots where God-fearing Christians could feel comfortable and enjoy themselves without fearing that recreation would degenerate into dissipation. The saloons and bawdy houses in places like Atlantic City would find no home in a Christian resort. Here families could pray, spend time together, and enjoy the sun and beach.

Methodists pioneered another sort of vacation venture. In 1874 minister John Vincent founded chautauqua on the banks of the western New York lake of that name. Originally envisioned as a school for Sunday school workers, chautauqua within a few years assumed a much broader educational purpose. Growing numbers of visitors spent a few days or a few weeks on the lovely grounds attending classes in art, music, and literature and listening to lectures on topics that ranged from science to temperance. Those who came to the shores of Lake Chautauqua to participate in the summer assemblies combined rest and recreation with moral and intellectual uplift. They attended classes but also enjoyed boating, swimming, beautiful scenery, and lively company. Chautauqua apparently captured the attention and imagination of the American people; by the turn of the century about two hundred other chautauquas were operating across the country.

Those with more adventuresome tastes had by that time other options. Yellowstone was made a national park in 1872 and became accessible to vacationers when the Northern Pacific Railroad was completed in 1883. Within a few years guests could find hotels there or choose, as did many, to camp out. Vacationers who wanted to visit the West without forgoing the conveniences of the East could book a packaged tour with the Thomas Cook agency that would take them from New York to San Francisco in luxury. The Grand Canyon began to attract vacationers when the Sante Fe Railroad built a branch line directly to the canyon's rim in 1900.

Regardless of where Americans chose to vacation, until the 1920s it was primarily those from the middle or upper class who could afford the time or money for anything more than a one-day excursion. The 1920s and 1930s, however, witnessed an important change in vacation patterns. Social critics, economists, forward-thinking industrialists, and some union leaders began to debate the issue of vacations for factory workers. Many argued that paid vacations for workers might, in fact, prove profitable for their employers. A rested and refreshed work force, they said, would repay in increased productivity more than the investment in the workers' vacations. Slowly, American business began to offer industrial workers the same sorts of vacation privileges that the white-collar work force had been enjoying for half a century. As a result a new, larger group of Americans joined the vacationing public.

Among these new groups were Americans of various ethnic backgrounds, many of whom created their own resorts or vacation spots. Jews from New York City, for example, began in the early 1900s to take their families to the Catskill Mountains. Since most Catskill resorts refused to admit Jews, these vacationers boarded at farmhouses owned by other Jews. Many Jewish immigrants who had tried their hand at farming soon found that summer boarders provided a more lucrative income. As a result, many Jewish resorts grew from what had once been modest farms.

By the turn of the twentieth century blacks, as well, were vacationing at a variety of places. Readers of the Indianapolis Freeman, an important black newspaper, found advertisements for resort hotels in the New Jersey countryside and for excursion trains to Niagara Falls, Atlantic City, Cape May, and other beach resorts.

Another twentieth-century change in vacationing came from technology. Just as earlier the railroads had opened vacation spots to middle-class travelers, so now the automobile made new sorts of vacations possible. At first only the rich could afford automobiles, and a few wealthy and adventurous Americans motored off into the unknown—a hazardous and expensive undertaking. These vacationers sought independence and adventure, hoping to escape from the restraints of rail travel and to find an alternative to the crowded and often stuffy resort hotel.

During the 1920s, however, the price of automobiles fell, making it possible for people with more modest incomes to own them. Automobile owners soon discovered that cars provided one of the least expensive means of vacationing. Paved roads replaced the dirt paths that early motorists had followed, and campgrounds and motels sprang up along these routes to serve this new public. Whether the destination was seashore, mountain, lake, national park, or only relatives in another state, Americans could now reach them in their own cars. Moreover, by the mid-1930s the possibilities at each of these destinations had proliferated. One could rent a cabin in a national park for as little as $1 a day, board with a farmer in the country for $12 a week, spend a week on a Mississippi River boat for $47.50, or stay at a luxury dude ranch for as much as $75 a week.

The growth of the commercial airline industry following World War II also had an enormous impact on America's vacationing practices. Those who could afford to travel by air found that time constraints no longer limited vacation choices. It became possible to vacation on the opposite coast or in Europe, even if the vacationer could spare only a week from work. The decreasing time it took to reach destinations allowed Americans to split their vacations, taking two shorter breaks rather than one long one.

Although many mid-twentieth-century Americans chose the same sorts of seashore, mountain, or country resorts as had their counterparts half a century earlier, others sought new sorts of experiences. Disneyland, the first of America's theme parks, opened in Anaheim, California, in 1955, and by the 1980s more than 10 million people a year were visiting it. Millions more flocked to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, and to the numerous other parks organized around a variety of themes—from country music and Christianity to wildlife and the frontier. Winter vacations became increasingly popular as some sought to escape from the cold and others headed for the ski slopes. Time-sharing arrangements made it possible for people to "own" a home at the shore for one or two weeks a year, and excursion fares and charter flights opened air travel to people of more moderate means.

Vacationing, which had begun in the early nineteenth century as the preserve of the elite, had grown to include the white-collar middle class in the years after the Civil War and in the 1930s the working class as well. Today vacationing, though certainly not a universal phenomenon, is nevertheless an experience shared by a wide cross section of the American population.

Foster Rhea Dulles, A History of Recreation: America Learns to Play (1965); Alf Evers et al., Resorts of the Catskills (1977); Perceval Reniers, The Springs of Virginia: Life, Love, and Death at the Waters, 1775-1900 (1941).

Cindy Sondik Aron

See also Automobiles; Centennial Exposition; Chautauqua Movement; World's Fairs.