Creating Digital Histories: The History of Places in North America
This research guide is for the students in the "Creating Digital Histories: The History of Places in North America" (HIST 506:401:03). Professor Tatiana Seijas.
Books
First Resorts: pursuing pleasure at Saratoga Springs, Newport & Coney Island by
This history of Saratoga Springs, Newport, and Coney Island explores the cultural and social forces that shaped tourism, defined leisure, and developed these places into the diverse vacation spots we know today. "At the dawn of the nineteenth century, Saratoga Springs hosted no more than a thousand hardy travelers yearly, Newport floundered in the midst of a fifty-year commercial decline, and Coney Island's beach resembled a wind-swept wilderness. A hundred years later, the number of summer visitors to Saratoga had increased a hundredfold, the antics of high society at Newport transfixed America, and at least five million pleasure seekers visited Coney annually. 'Those who talk of the mushroom growth of our Western cities,' declared an astounded writer for Harper's Weeklyin 1878, 'might better spend their wonder and enthusiasm upon our Eastern watering-place.'"--From the Introduction 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.
Call Number: Alexander, Robeson E166.S87 2001ISBN: 0801865867Publication Date: 2002
Saratoga Springs, New York: A brief history by
Saratoga Springs, New York examines the history of a town whose livelihood was threatened by drought and the outlawing of gambling. People from all walks of life came to Saratoga Springs to enjoy horse racing, gambling and other popular vices. But when the springs dried up and gambling was outlawed, the town's future was in peril. Timothy Holmes presents the history of Saratoga and examines how the town managed to avoid the slow death that threatened to overtake it.
Call Number: Alexander F129.S3H65 2008ISBN: 9781596294523Publication Date: 2008
Chambers, Thomas A. 1999. Fashionable Dis-Ease: Promoting Health and Leisure at Saratoga Springs, New York and the Virginia Springs, 1790-1860.” ProQuest Dissertations & Theses. [online]
Saratoga Springs, New York. An Illustrated, Descriptive Story of This Famous Health Resort : Brochure. 1916. C. A. Marshall. [online]
Sorin, Gretchen Sullivan, and Jane W Rehl. 1992. Honorable Work : African Americans in the Resort Community of Saratoga Springs, 1870-1970. Saratoga Springs, N.Y: Historical Society of Saratoga Springs. [online]
The Traveller’s Guide for Montreal, Quebec and Saratoga Springs Containing Brief Notices of Prominent Objects of Interest in These Places. 1859. Québec (Province): Printed for the publishers, 1859. [online]
[Taintor, Charles Newhall] [from old catalog]. 1900. Saratoga Illustrated: The Visitor’s Guide of Saratoga Springs. New York (State): Taintor brothers, 1900.
Databases & Websites
- Saratoga Springs, NYThe official site of the city of Saratoga Springs lists their documents and map collections. They are not digitized, but it can be requested.