First resorts
Subtitle: pursuing pleasure at Saratoga Springs, Newport, and Coney Island
By: Jon Sterngass.
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2001
Place of publication: Baltimore
Language: eng
Number of pages: 374
Subjects: Tourism -- Social aspects -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Resorts -- East (U.S.) -- History -- 19th century; United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century; United States -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Saratoga Springs (N.Y.) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century; Newport (R.I.) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century; Coney Island (New York, N.Y.) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
Description: "In First Resorts: Pursuing Pleasure at Saratoga Springs, Newport, and Coney Island, Jon Sterngass follows three of the best-known northeastern American resorts across a century of change. Saratoga Springs, Newport, and Coney Island began, he finds, as similar pleasure destinations, each of them featuring "grand" hotels where visitors swarmed public spaces such as verandas, dining rooms, and parlors.

As the century progressed, however, Saratoga remained much the same, while Newport turned to private (and lavish) "cottages" and Coney Island shifted its focus to amusements for the masses.".

"Fifty-nine illustrations enliven Sterngass's unique study of the commodification of pleasure that occurred as capitalist values flourished, travel grew more accessible, and leisure time became democratized. These three resorts, he argues, served as forerunners of twentieth-century pleasure cities such as Aspen, Las Vegas, and Orlando."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [349]-358) and index.