BOOK PREVIEW: Victorian America in 3-D Chapter 1 Buildings, Part 2: Hotels
This is more of the first chapter of my forthcoming book illustrating features of nineteenth century America with period photographs.
PUBLIC BUILDINGS: HOTELS
Victorian America in 3-D
Chapter 1: Environment
Part 2: Hotels
Following the end of the Civil War in 1865, civilian travel and tourism increased dramatically. Railroad lines built before and during the war expanded between most population centers and popular scenic resort areas.
Thanks to increases in family incomes during the prosperous postwar decade and the seasonal nature of many jobs, such scenic wonderlands as the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and places like Saratoga Springs in northeastern New York state where mineral springs believed to enhance health were located, became wildly popular destinations, where trainloads of tourists disembarked for extended holidays often involving much of the summer months.
Consequently, especially in the White Mountains, which was relatively close to several large industrial New England cities, hotels proliferated. Almost all these were wooden structures, and given the nature of open-flame-and-flammable-fuel lighting before the spread of electric lighting, and the extensive amount of tobacco smoking by Victorian era men, most of them eventually burned to the ground. Therefore, today, surviving stereograph photos may provide the sole source of detailed information about the nature of these grand structures!
Hill’s Mansion House, Easthampton, Massachusetts, c.1870. Photo by Knowlton Brothers of Northampton, published by F.H. Putnam & Co. of Easthampton, The well-dressed males posed in front are likely to have been students at the local private school which is still in operation today and named after an early benefactor, local industrialist Samuel Williston.
Downer’s Landing was a popular early tourist stop on the eastern Massachusetts coast near Boston. This is the Rose Standish House. No photographer cited on this c.1870 view.
The Hotel Weirs in Weirs, New Hampshire, a resort town at the south end of Lake Winnipesaukee in the central part of the state. The hotel sat on a low bluff overlooking the lake. Weirs Beach is still a very popular summer vacation destination today. Photo by F.J. Moulton of Weirs and Tilton.
The Alpine House at Gorham New Hampshire in the White Mountains. This hotel eventually suffered the fate of most of the period, burned down. Photo by the Bierstadt Brothers (Charles Bierstadt was later known as a fine western landscape artist), c.1863.
The Crawford House in Crawford Notch in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Crawford Notch was a pass which gave access to the eastern portion of the White Mountains. A major railroad construction project brought a train station to the Crawford House by the mid 1870s, a few years after this image was probably made. Note the three stagecoaches with passengers in front, the arrival and departure of which were always a crowd-drawing spectacle.
The Sinclair House in Bethlehem New Hampshire in the western section of the White Mountains. This one also burned down. Photo by Kilburn Brothers of nearby Littleton, 1872.
Logan House Porch. Note the fancy Victorian decorated ironwork! By F. Gutekunst of Philadelphia c.1880 from his “Pennsylvania Railroad” series.