By the Beautiful Sea: The Rise and High Times of That Great American Resort, Atlantic City 9780813587028

Citation preview

A Man Would Not Be a Good American Citizen if He Did Not Know of Atlantic City. (Theodore Roosevelt)

PYTHE PñflUTIFUL 5Efl

The Rise and High Times of That Great American Resort, Atlantic City

BY

Charles E. Funnell

Rutgers University Press New Brunswick, New Jersey

This edition Rutgers under agreement Originally published

published in 1983 by University Press with Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. in the USA as a Borzoi Book.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Funnell, Charles E. By the beautiful sea. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Atlantic City (N.J.)—Social conditions. 2. Atlantic City (N.J.)—Economic conditions. 3. Seaside resorts—New Jersey. I. Title. HN80.A83F85 1983 974.9'85 82-23172 ISBN 0-8135-0986-6 Copyright1975 by Charles E. Funnell. Copyright® 1983 by Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey Manufactured

All rights reserved in the United States of America

Second paperback printing,

1989

This history is dedicated to Our Lady of the Jersey Meadows.

Contents Preface (ix) Chapter 1 The Great Democracy Claims a Washbasin (3) 2 Newport of the Nouveaux Bourgeois (24) 3 Games for the Mauve Predicament (56) 4

The Perspectives of Janus (76) 5 Babylonian Days (93) 6 Not Too Far From the Madding Crowd (119) 7 "Fallen Lady" (142) Notes(161) Selected Bibliography (193) Index (follows page 199) A Photographic Album (follows page 114)

Preface ONE FINE summer day, while pursuing a brief acquaintance with a charming if somewhat loony young lady whose taste ran to sleazy resorts, I found myself in Atlantic City. I was immediately taken with the gaudy whirl, the energetic vulgarity, the brazenly cheerful tasteldssness of the place. Like all Americans, I assume in my viscera that the world began with Howard Johnson's, but a newspaper clipping in a taffy-shop window enlightened me. Atlantic City, it said, was some hundred and twenty years old, as old as the pyramids for American purposes. Suddenly, I scented mysteries on the Boardwalk. Some months later, having grudgingly taken a responsible and dull dissertation topic to wife, I happened to be at a party for graduate student historians. My consciousness elevated by a quantity of those cheaper wines to which graduate students are forced to resort, Atlantic City suddenly popped to the surface. Next day I drafted a new proposal; this book is the result. By the Beautiful Sea attempts to construct a pattern of social history for the greatest popular Victorian American resort, using the themes of the Machine and the City, Nature, Morality, and Pleasure. I admit to some embarrassment for rendering these as proper nouns, but they occupied such a prominent place in the public mind at the end of the nineteenth century that I believe I am justified. The themes arrange themselves into two major alignments—namely, the Machine and the City versus Nature, and Morality versus Pleasure. The less tangible relationship between the two alignments emerges near the conclusion of the book. By the Beautiful Sea focuses on the 1890's, and nearly all of its data come from the years 1890 to 1908. This is the fin de siècle period, which witnessed the waning of Victorian society and its peculiar ambiance of social problems, moral values, and political and economic phenomena. The term "Victorian" is not meant to be an idle borrowing. Queen Victoria, who ruled England for the immensely long time of sixty-five years, gave her name to the age. "Victorian" has many associations for English culture, but I will mention only those which impel me to apply it to American culture as displayed at Atlantic City in the 1890's. ix

'

X

*

PREFACE

Urban vigor and squalor, masses of humanity and a new popular culture, florid but charming sentimentality, sinister but inventive criminality, optimism and bad taste, ingenuity and eccentricity—these were Victorian America, as well as Victorian England. We shall see them all at Atlantic City. Atlantic City was not entirely unique in this era. Unless a specific contrary claim appears, the reader may assume that much of what is true of this resort is also true of many of the other seaside towns of the Jersey coast at the turn of the century. In fact, while gathering data for my study, I occasionally examined material such as pamphlets promoting Cape May and Asbury Park, which were quite like those that extolled Atlantic City. This is all to the good as I see it, since a social history should attempt to deal with a culture's widely shared experiences rather than what is peculiar and exceptional. Nevertheless, Atlantic City's magnitude endows it with representative cultural importance lacking in smaller resorts. I want to add two things here. The first is a declaration. I do not imagine myself to be above my subject. Anyone who has seen me taking the Ail-American Treat (burger-fries-shake) at the various franchise food pavilions I help support, riffling through stacks of 1930's girlie magazines at Philadelphia flea markets (Stocking Parade; Zippy, "Illustrated Breezy Fiction"), or affectionately musing over my lithographed tin Douglas "World Air Line" made in postwar Japan, will know how preposterous it would be to suggest that I gaze upon Atlantic City from an elitist pedestal. I find my own tastes as curious as the next man's. Nevertheless, I have sometimes been harsh and often sarcastic in dealing with my topic. I can only say that my apparent animosity is really disguised affection. I attribute a certain sourness in my temperament to too many solitary walks on deserted beaches as a child and the cannibalisms of modern life. Let me say flatly that—on the whole—I regard Atlantic City as a warm and appealing story, and I wish the contemporary resort long life and health. The second thing I want to add is a question and its answer. What is Atlantic City of the 1890's about? I believe it is about the sadness of being merely h u m a n , the limitations of desire, and the compassion one feels in retracing the aspirations of dead people. For me, however improbable it may seem from what I write, history is a sacrament of compassion. H u m a n s in large groups imply the need for mercy. Of my personal and intellectual sources of inspiration for this book I will make brief mention. I was born on the wrong side of the elms in a patrician resort, Southampton, Long Island (now on the bourgeois skids). When I was very young, my father took me on trips to New

*

XI

'

PREFACE

York City, and certain memories were given me forever: fresh deepgreen paint on a subway entrance, a storm of ticker tape for a homecoming general, hot English mustard on a ham sandwich at the Hotel Commodore lunch counter, the sound of the word "Idlewild," and the stained copper of the Statue of Liberty. Much later, I came to love the view from the Pennsylvania Railroad as the train crosses the marshes in northeastern New Jersey. Here you can see the Empire State Building over the crown of a rocky mound, beneath which the tracks plunge as they lead to Manhattan. And finally there were books—Alan Trachtenberg's Brooklyn Bridge, Leo Marx's Machine in the Garden, and Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie come to mind. The progress of By the Beautiful Sea from dissertation to book was facilitated by the Muse of Unemployment, the gracious companion of today's doctors of philosophy. Those cheaper wines to which graduate students resort are now a fond memory for wineless days. Nevertheless, the slum-green interior in the district office of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Bureau of Employment Security has a meditative serenity which is rather attractive, and fruitful of scholarship. I wish to thank the New Jersey Historical Commission and its Associate Director, William C. Wright, for a grant to defray my expenses of travel and research. Richard Sweeney, director of the Atlantic City Public Library, and Leslie Randall, supervisor of its local history collection, kindly made the library's resources available to me. The respective staffs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Atlantic County Historical Society (particularly Mrs. Russell Andrew), the Free Library of Philadelphia, and the Division of Prints and Photographs of the Library of Congress provided me with data and photographs in profusion, and Mr. William McMahon of Atlantic City graciously contributed several photographs from his personal collection. I am indebted to Professors Neil Leonard and Charles Rosenberg for criticism of my manuscript. My gratitude to Professor Michael Zuckerman could not be greater. His sharp criticism of the study's errors was exceeded only by his generous praise of its modest virtues. Messrs. Charles Elliott and David Bain of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., were similarly encouraging in the latter stages of my effort. Finally, I want to thank my mother and father (a historian before me) for waiting patiently for the results.

Pi THE PEflUTirUL 5Efl

A L O F - C m LI

V « . XXXIV.—Mo. 1?53.

WW,