First Resorts: Pursuing Pleasure at Saratoga Springs, Newport & Coney Island

Abstract

In this work, Jon Sterngass follows three of the best-known north-eastern 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 parlours. 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 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 20th-century pleasure cities such as Aspen, Las Vegas and Orlando.

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