Working At Play

Acknowledgments
Introduction

Part One: Inventing Vacations
1. Recuperation And Recreation: The Pursuit Of Health And Genteel Pleasures
2. “through The Streets In Bathing Costumes”: Resort Vacations, 1850-1900
3. “No Late Hours, No Headache In The Morning”: Self-Improvement Vacations
4. “a Jaunt… Agreeable And Instructive”: The Vacationer As Tourist
5. “Unfashionable, But For Once Happy!”: Camping Vacations

Part Two: Into The Twentieth Century
6. “Vacations Do Not Appeal To Them”: Extending Vacations To The Working Class
7. Crossing Class And Racial Boundaries: Vacationing In The Early Twentieth Century
8. “It’s Worthwhile To Get Something From Your Holiday”: Vacationing During The Depression Epilogue
Notes
Index

Additional Info
In Working at Play , Cindy S. Aron offers the first full length history of how Americans have vacationed–from eighteenth-century planters who summered in Newport to twentieth-century urban workers who headed for camps in the hills. In the early nineteenth century, Aron shows, vacations were taken for health more than for fun, as the wealthy traveled to watering places, seeking cures for everything from consumption to rheumatism. But starting in the 1850s, the growth of a white collar middle class and the expansion of railroads made vacationing a mainstream activity. Aron charts this growth with grace and insight, tracing the rise of new vacation spots as the nation and the middle class blossomed. She shows how late nineteenth-century resorts became centers of competitive sports. But as vacationing grew, she writes, fears of the dangers of idleness bloomed with it. Self-improvement vacations flourished; religious camp grounds became established resorts, where gambling, drinking, and bathing on Sunday were banned. Asbury Park, named after Francis Asbury, the first American Methodist bishop, quickly became one of the most popular getaways for the devout.