The Seaside Resorts - Essay Example

?Donna Purcell Order 538601 19 May What Accounts for the Changes in Seaside Resorts from 1870 until 1930? How do they differ? Originally seasidetowns came about as a source of food and later built up as ports for shipping goods to and from England and other countries. The first settlers were the Indians in the 1700s. Eventually settlers came and made their professions as fishermen and farmers by trade. Many of the early settlers owned hundreds of acres of land. The lands around the shores began to develop in the early 1800s both in England and the Americas as the industrial revolution began. People began to filter into the cities to find work and thus seashore towns were developed. Many of the first settlers along the seashore began to open up boarding houses and hotels. The wealthy stayed in hotels and the less wealthy people used the boarding houses. The first boarding houses rented for a fee of $8 – 12 a week for room and board and often included meals and a wagon ride through the cornfields to the beach. As an example, Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey developed in the 1870s as a destination for visitors through Captain John Arnold. He retired from a sea career and bought land in Point Pleasant Beach. He built a railroad to the ocean, which is now known as Arnold Avenue. As in other seashore towns, the railroad was the most influential factor in development and tourism of seashore towns. The 1870s were an era of major tourism expansion brought on by developers who bought and subdivided old farms for vacation home lots. In 1877 The Point Pleasant Land Company bought a 250 acres farm and began selling lots. To attract buyers, a Resort House was built and began a horse-drawn trolley service for tourists. The Resort House was a four-story hotel type structure that housed 200 guests, and was the largest building in town. The resort featured shaded oak and locust trees, a manicured lawn and a clear view of the beachfront dunes. The inside included a ballroom and bowling alley, which was very upscale for that time. Several other hotels and boarding houses were built similar before the turn-of-the-century. Some of the hotels advertised access to New York and Philadelphia trains, trolley lines, water works, electric lights plants and no mosquitoes. Many of these hotels burned to the ground due to being wood structures and others lost business due to changing tastes in lodging. The first beachfront pavilion was constructed in 1880, and ten years later the first boardwalk was built. The first boardwalk was very flimsy and washed away within two years. During the Victorian period rapid growth in population began in the seaside resorts. The railways made if possible for visitors to travel to the seashore, and it became much more affordable. The seashore had a nostalgic draw to people as a focal vacation point. A seaside holiday was considered very charming at that time. Again, only a few ordinary people owned cars or telephones until the 1950s. Even when televisions became available, they were very expensive for the average family. The working class worked hard all week in factories, offices, shops and mines and very rarely had the opportunity to travel. However, it became popular to set aside a time during the year to take a seaside holiday. This was popular both in England and the Americas. Traveling to the seaside became popular when it was decided that the sea and bathing in the sea was good for your health. Dr. Richard Russell advocated the use of seawater in bathing and in drinking to treat many early illnesses, in the late 1700s. So it became fashionable for the rich especially to visit the seashore. For people of England a railway trip to the seaside and a week or two-holiday stay at a resort was the highlight of the year. The popularity of holiday seaside trips grew until it became popular to take trips abroad to experience different lifestyles. This became very popular with the wealthy, as the ordinary person could not afford such luxuries. Just as the industrial revolution helped build the seashore towns along with the railroad. so did other changes in habit. Fashion and sea bathing played a large part in the development of seaside resorts. A look at a few old black and white photographs of bathers in the ocean can be very amusing. The approach is very different from how we see the ocean today. Bathers at the seashore had changing rooms on wheels to put their costumes on, as they were called, not bathing suits. The bathing machines were provided to allow the bathers to change into their costumes and enter the water without being seen. Their costumes came down to their knees and sometimes they wore hats that covered their heads. They walked down the steps of the bathing machines and straight into the ocean. Fashion was important, ladies skirts were long enough to sweet the pavement as they passed. The seashore featured entertainment for adults and children. Punch and Judy became a popular seaside attraction in England. Piers were originally built as a necessity for people to get off and on steamships. They were later developed into a leisure facility. Piers provided an exclusive promenade away from the crowds of the city, but you had to pay an entrance fee. They did provide a way to partake of the sea air and a great view of the ocean. In Victorian times it was very fashionable to Promenade along the seafront. That’s how the name Promenade came about. Postcards were invented in 1870; however, they did not have pictures on them until around 15 years later. It took a while for picture postcards to be accepted. The first pictures included seaside and town views. The divided back postcard we are familiar with today first became introduced in Britain. Saucy postcards became very popular from the seaside resorts. However, most contained cartoon like characters and a caption that created a joke. In England the sea was rarely warm enough in the summer months to bath, however, those that had costumes bathed in the sea. There were very few people at that time that could swim, but most felt the sea was very beneficial to their health. Children played in the sea, had donkey rides and build sand castles. The earliest toys for children at the beach were wooden buckets and spades. Later the wooden buckets were replaced by tin. The first permanent boardwalk was constructed in Pleasant Point Beach, New Jersey in 1915, and was eventually expanded to run the entire length of the beach. By the early 1900s the boardwalk was slowly changing from a place to stroll into an active amusement area. It was the home of a merry-go-round and several other amusements. In 1920 Orlo Jenkinson built the first Pavilion and swimming pool. After that the boardwalk pavilion became the place to go for a night of dancing and big bands. Sometimes a national radio show would broadcast live. The pavilion and boardwalk remained popular through the 1930s but sadly a portion of it was destroyed in the hurricane of 1938. The Atlantic City boardwalk opened along the New Jersey beach in 1870. The boardwalk was built mainly to keep sand out of the hotel lobbies. The original boardwalk was 7 miles long. With the conception of fresh air, luxurious hotels, fine restaurants, small shops and the railroad, it became the “World’s Favorite Playground” or the “place to go.” It grew in popularity through the 1930s because of its easy access from New York and Philadelphia. In the 1920s, tourism on the East Coast of the United States was at its peak. Atlantic City considered it its “golden age.” During prohibition, liquor was easily found and gambling took place regularly behind closed doors in nightclubs and restaurants. In the early part of the 20th century Atlantic City went through a changing growth boom. Many of the original boarding houses along the boardwalk were replaced with large hotels. The modern Chalfonte Hotel, which was eight stories tall, opened in 1904. Some of the wood-frame structures were enlarged and have been moved closer to the beach over the years. In 1930 the Claridge opened its doors, the cities largest hotel. This hotel had 24 stories and would be know as the “skyscraper by the sea.” This was the last hotel to open before the casinos arrived. The 1920s also brought automobile culture to the seaside resorts, as road were built and modernized. The automobile made it an increasingly affordable way to spend a family vacation. Not all families could afford an automobile, but the ones that could found it a very easy way to travel to the seashore. In 1930 it is estimated that there were one million cars on the roads in Britain. This also made it possible for seashore residents to travel into the cities to find work. Further developments in bus and coach travel expanded the possibilities of development out of the seashore areas for permanent residents. After World War I many of the road vehicles used during the war were used as models for expanding the bus and coach industry. The First World War also led to major social changes in the status of women. Half the population of the United States was going to finally get to vote in 1928. Traditional perceptions of home, village, and town boundaries were discarded. Ideas of how people communicated between each other were altered. The influx of technology and the increasing personal mobility lead to a growing demand for travel and tourism. While a war was raging, technical progress was growing in aircraft, motor transportation, communications systems and mass production for weapons of destruction and military supplies. These developments were a major post-war incentive for tourism development into and out of the seaside resorts. Rail travel was at an all time peak in 1930; bringing leisure travel as well as holiday travels to the forefront as a major stream of revenue. As the 1900s moved away from the Victorian Age toward a new age of greater individuality, mobility and innovation became a part of everyday life. Therefore, leisure and travel became more accessible. World War I took a tremendous toll on the entire world with an appalling loss of life and economic destruction for all countries involved. This was followed by a vicious outbreak of the Spanish flu, which claimed over 21 million lives all over the world. The great depression spread to Europe from the Americas and quickly brought economic stagnation to much of the world. The onset of the great depression, 1929 – 1930, plunged millions of Americans and Europeans into economic misery. This era, which lasted from 1929 until around 1939, was only relieved by efforts of the governments in gearing up for World War II. A nineteenth century dictionary defines tourists as “people who travel for the pleasure of traveling, out of curiosity and because they have nothing better to do, and even for the joy of boasting about it afterwards.” With this statement, you can see that travel in the early 1900s was considered a luxury of the wealthy, not something that the ordinary person would do. The Workers Travel Association promoted “travel as the best means of achieving mutual understanding between the workers of all countries” This began when technology in communication, air travel, railway, bus, and ship became more accessible to the wealthy. People began to move away from the seaside resorts, as it was now possible to travel across country and out of the country. In the 1930s, although numbers were still modest, British people traveled abroad, mainly to Europe. Volume increased in the late 1930s to around a million visits. Britain was still a relatively law-abiding society and still class oriented. Church going was already in decline, but continued to have a major influence in national issues. Life was still simple for the most part and family oriented. There was no inflation, and some deflation for a short time in the 1930s. Prices had not changed much in 100 years. Therefore, seaside holidays were still affordable by the working population. There were usually limited to one or two day excursions and a week at the best in July and August. Travel by train or bus became the norm. After the First World War most manual labor workers could not afford to stay away from home for holidays. In Britain the issue became a form of social justice, and quickly the government intervened in support of holidays for workers. As depicted by the painting in 1910 by William Glackens “Crowd at the Seashore,” more and more residents sought escape from crowded neighborhoods and summer heat. Affluent urbanites could afford to spend vacations at fashionable seaside resorts along New England and Long Island; however, less prosperous city dwellers were limited to taking day trips to beaches and amusement parks. It was a well-known scene on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon for the working class and middle-class to visit well-known seaside recreation areas. In summarizing the development of the seashore in 1870 up until 1930, we have to look at the events that brought the development to the seashore in the first place. Historians and historical geographers have studied closely the evolution of tourism in specific areas, especially the development of spas and seaside resorts in Britain. In Britain in the nineteenth century development of resorts reflected landowners, middle class businessmen and local governments. The same scenario came about in the nineteenth century in the Americas. Large landowners pushed the railroads through, and sold lots and developed the areas around the seashores. In the early years around 1870 when the wealthy began to take seaside holidays as a means of escape from the working world, life was much more relaxed. Many of the artists of the modern period made their way to the seashore as well, to paint and capture the people on the beach. We have seen how the seaside areas built up through small hotels and boarding houses into an area that became the playground of the wealthy in the late 1800s. As time developed and modern technology, communication and modern travel advanced, the time from the 1920s to the 1930s became the peak of seashore holidays. This allowed people to travel more freely into these areas which changed the face of the seashores from small cottage towns to large cities with hotels, amusements and boardwalks. The early 1870s were a significant time for the class system that gave privileged luxuries to the wealthy and later developed into a more relaxed atmosphere. As time moved on into the early 30s and before the great depression, seaside communities became an era of major change after World War I and a prelude leading up to World War II. Works Cited: The inter-war years 1919 to 1939 and the impact of the Second World War (1939 – 45). 16 May 2005. Web. 19 May 2011. http://v5.books.elsevier.com/. Tower, Jane; Wall, Georffrey.; “History and Tourism.” 1991. Web. 19 May 2011. http://hospitality.ucf.edu/. Entire Websites: Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. “The Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Web. 19 May 2011. http://metmuseum.org/. Atlantic City, New Jersey. Web. 19 May 2011. http://wikipedia.org/. History of Point Pleasant Beach. Web. 19 May 2011. http://pointpleasantbeach.org/. World’s Favorite Playground – Atlantic City, NJ Skyline Circa 1930 – 1970 – Murals on Waymarking.com. Web. 19 May 2011. http://waymarking.com/. City of Camden, New Jersey. “Industrialization.” Web 19 May 2011. http://camden.nj.us/. The English Seaside. A brief history of the seaside holiday. Web. 19 May 2011. http://hubpages.com/. Read More