Collection of Postcards from Resorts Around the US Advertising Gentiles-Only Vacation Accommodations.
United States: 1930s–1970s. 33 items: 28 postcards and five pamphlets. Generally excellent. Item #List3712
A collection of postcards and pamphlets for hotels, resorts, and some planned neighborhoods around the US—mainly in New York, New Jersey, and Florida—with most advertising that they did not accept Jewish visitors. Many of the resorts’ restrictions are stated implicitly, advertising “restricted”, “exclusive”, or “carefully selected” clientele, or mentioning their proximity to “Catholic and Other Christian Churches”. Other postcards are explicit: the Marine Terrace Hotel in Miami advertises “Strictly Gentile Clientele”, Mountain Lakes in Bethel, New York, is described as “a restricted Gentile Vacation Colony”, and Awosting in New Jersey assures patrons that “The most careful Christian restriction insures the congenial atmosphere, characteristic of the community.” Pamphlets for Thendara Lodge and Locust Cottage, both in New York, state that they are “Gentiles Only”; and the collection includes a souvenir pamphlet for Mooseheart, Illinois, a planned community operated by the Loyal Order of Moose, “an international fraternity restricted to members of the Caucasian or White race”. The extent of discrimination against Jewish people inspired the publication of the Jewish Vacation Guide (1917) which documented hotels, restaurants, and services that were friendly to Jewish clients, as the later Negro Motorist Green Book did for African Americans.
The items in the collection come from twenty locations, eighteen of which did not accept Jewish clients. The two postcards advertising resorts that explicitly catered to Jewish clientele come from Twin Pines in the Lake George region, which advertises “Jewish American Cuisine”, and Yarkony’s Kosher Hotel at the Adler in Sharon Springs. These two hotels were part of the “Borscht Belt,” an area of upstate New York that attracted Jewish vacationers, mainly from the city. The area flourished between the 1920s and 1960s, with hundreds of resorts offering Kosher food, Shabbat and holiday services, and entertainment.
Of interest to historians of anti-Semitic discrimination in the US, and of travel and recreation in the midcentury.
Price: $750.00