In this posting, we’ll be looking at the birth of the ‘Golden Age of Travel’, and exploring how the changes and innovations made to transport and communications during the 19th century, gave birth to the first great age of travel and tourism. We’ll be looking at what tourism and travel was like when it first became available to ordinary people, how the tourist experience differed between then and now, and what we might have lost and gained during the journey.
‘The Golden Age of Travel’ is defined as the era from the second half of the 1800s up to the early 1940s, when cheap international travel and the tourist trade really started taking off, thanks to technological and transport advances made during the Industrial Revolution. It was an age of wonder and excitement, and was the first time that ordinary people were able to travel in style, speed, safety, and comfort. It was also the first time when people could travel strictly for pleasure at reasonable prices.
The Second World War, and the subsequent geographical, technological and political changes which it forced, irreversibly changed the tourist landscape, making the difference in the travel-experience between the first and second half of the 20th century almost as different as night and day.
The changes brought about by the War made it impossible to return to the elegance, excitement, wonder and grandeur of the pre-war travel experience – it’s something which exists only as a ghost, which lingers in old photographs, antique luggage, hotel and steamship-tickets and the stamp marks found in fading passports. So what was it really like? What was travel and tourism like before and after the War? How did pre-war travel differ from post-war travel, and how did post-war travel morph into what we know today? In this issue, we’ll find out together, on our very own tour through history!
So stamp your passport and clip your tickets. Strap down your trunks and hold onto your Baedekers. We’re about to take a trip back into history. Our ancestors may not have been jetsetters, but they were globetrotters, who still managed to explore the world in a haze of smoke, steam and gasoline. A flag waves, a whistle blows. It’s time now to depart! All aboard!
Before the Golden Age of Travel
For much of history, travel was slow, boring, painful, expensive and dangerous. People rarely travelled any great distance unless it was absolutely necessary, and almost never for pleasure. It was not uncommon for people to be born, live, and die all within the confines of the communities of their birth, or within a very few miles thereof. Travel meant days and weeks on the road. It meant needing money to pay for bed and board, it meant having to guard yourself against those who would wish you harm in any number of ways. Thieves and robbers on the public roads also meant that you were restricted in your travel, largely to daylight hours when it was easier to protect yourself. This limited your travel-time each day, and made travel even slower. And this if you were poor. If you were rich, travel was slightly easier, but still not without considerable risks.
Even if you had the money to allow for travels, and even if you did travel for pleasure, the journey was still slow, costly and potentially dangerous. Money had to be paid for coachmen, horses, carriages, food and lodgings, and servants. And there was the constant danger of being attacked during your journey. Travelling ‘in style’ told every highwayman along your route that you were rich, and that attacking and robbing you would likely gain a highwayman rich rewards for his efforts. This put you in just as much danger of assault and even death, as someone who had almost no money at all. And the manner of your travel did not change these odds at all.
For most people, travel meant walking. And walking was slow. Walking made you vulnerable. Walking along a country road, or through a town, city or village left you open to all manner of dangers – cutpurses, footpads, pickpockets, muggers, rapists, beggars, robbers and thieves who would all do their level best to relieve you of your worldly possessions. But for most people, this was the only way to travel from A to B – horses were expensive to keep, feed and maintain. And only the wealthy could afford carriages. And even those were not as safe as one might think.
Travelling in the relative speed and comfort of a private carriage or stagecoach did not guarantee you protection. Coaches or carriages which ran regular routes, and even private carriages running along busy Highways, risked being held up. Highwaymen created roadblocks to hold up coaches and force them to stop. Once a carriage was stopped, they could rob its passengers of their valuables and money, and even kill them if they wished. Famous highwaymen made names for themselves, like Dick Turpin, who was a notorious outlaw in Georgian-era England.
If you wanted protection on long journeys, you had to either bring your own weapons and know how to use them, or else pay for armed coach guards, who protected you with swords and loaded blunderbusses, or later, shotguns. To this day, sitting in the front passenger-seat of a motor-vehicle is still called “riding shotgun” – an allusion to the armed coach guard who would sit next to the driver of a stagecoach, to provide armed protection in the event of a holdup.
For all these reasons and more, for much of history, most people did not travel great distances. And if they did, it was rarely for pleasure, but mostly out of necessity – to escape disease, danger, poverty, a troubled home life, or to find employment or other business related reasons. What were the changes that happened in society and technology that allowed people – ordinary people – to travel for pleasure for the first time in their lives? And what was it like to travel and go on a vacation during this first great age of travel? What allowed this to happen?
The Birth of Mass Transport
Widespread travel for pleasure would not be possible without a corresponding development of means of cost-effective mass transport. Spurred on by the Industrial Revolution, the second half of the 19th century, saw efficient, cheap mass-transport becoming a reality, and for the 19th century, and the first half of the 20th century, efficient, cheap transport was symbolized by two great new inventions of the age: The steam-powered locomotive, and the steam-powered, ocean-going passenger-ship – the ocean liner! Where did these machines come from, and how did they change the world?
Steam Boats & Steam Trains
The two vehicles which would allow for the movement of large numbers of people with ease and economy were both invented in the early 1800s. By the start of the Victorian era, the first passenger ships and locomotives powered entirely by steam were plying trade around the world. Locomotives and steamships both originated in England, and it was this steam-powered transport technology that gave birth to the modern travel industry.
Conflicts during the 19th century such as the Crimean War, the Chinese Opium Wars, the American Civil War, and the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s were the conflicts that laid the groundwork for the expansion and improvement of steam technology. Expansion of railroad networks caused by the need for rapid troop movements now allowed for swift, efficient movement of civilian passengers.
Advances in steamship technology for wartime uses now allowed for faster, safer and more comfortable ocean travel in peacetime. No more was it about sleeping in hammocks on rocky, creaky, cramped sailing ships that relied on the wind and weather. Now you could steam across the Atlantic or the Pacific in a berth, or a cabin of your own, in comfort and style, lulled to sleep by the throbbing of the powerful steam-pistons deep beneath the ship, that turned paddle-wheels, and later, screw-propellers, which drove great vessels across the ocean at speed.
No more was travelling by train a smoky, dusty, sooty experience, full of coughing and gasping for air in uncomfortable, windswept, open-topped carriages; now you could travel on a train with enclosed, corridor carriages with separate day-compartments, or if the journey was an overnight ride, in the relative comfort of a sleeper-car. If you found yourself hungry or thirsty, dining-cars and kitchen-cars provided you with food. If you wanted somewhere to relax, the lounge-car provided you with comfortable seating and bright lights to read, write, smoke, or chat with friends on the journey.
By the late 1800s, travel was safer, faster, cheaper and far more comfortable than lurching around inside a horse-drawn carriage with little suspension. It was also open to a wider range of people. You paid a ticket according to your means. First Class, Second Class, Third Class, or on ocean crossings – Steerage. ‘Steerage Class’ on ocean liners got its name from the fact that third-class passengers were often housed at the back of the ship, and deep in the hull, in the smallest cabins, the closest to the ship’s engines, power generators and steerage mechanisms. First- and Second-Class passengers got cabins on the upper decks, with the bright sea-views, away from the throb and rumble of the engines.
Motorised Transport
Along with steam-powered transport, the rise of cheap, personal and public motor-vehicles in the early 1900s also contributed to the Golden Age of Travel. Vehicles like motorcars, motorcycles and buses freed people from the restrictions of train and streetcar timetables, allowing them to make the best and most use of their free time. Planning trips and holidays around the country or continent became much easier and faster when each person or family had their own vehicle with which to travel in, which was not dependent on such variables as horses, timetables or weather, and which was much faster and more comfortable than previous methods of transport.
Cheap cars for the ordinary middle-class worker such as the Model T and Model A Fords in the United States, the Austin 7 in England, and the Volkswagen ‘Beetle’ in Germany meant that more people could go more places, and weekend drives to explore locations previously impractically far from home could now be accomplished in a few hours. Trips to the country or to other cities and towns were now easy and simple. And a car was easier to maintain and faster to start than a horse and carriage!
The Birth of the Golden Age of Travel
Along with steam-powered transport, the rise of more personal transport also contributed to the birth of the Golden Age of Travel. Starting in 1885, you had the world’s first modern bicycles, and increasingly as the Victorian era came to an end, the rise of the motorcar. Able to take people places that the railroads could not reach, these two inventions further improved people’s ability to travel and explore. This led to an increase and improvement of road networks.
Travelling around the country and going from city to city – road-trips – became popular. Rest stops, motels and diners popped up around the United States. The famous “Route 66” in the United States stretched from Chicago, Illinois all the way to Los Angeles, California, passing through many cities and states on the way, making it a popular road-trip and an easy way to visit many famous cities and towns along your tour of the American interior.
With the infrastructure for safe, speedy, comfortable and cost-effective mass transport now in place, and social changes such as the rise of the five-day working week, it was now possible for people to take time off, and time away from home and work, and to start travelling and go on holiday for the first time in history. The Golden Age of Travel had begun!
Now, it was easy to travel to such places as the countryside, the beach, the bay, or to take day trips into town to go window shopping, to buy gifts, necessities for the house, or to explore cities and towns far from home. It was possible to live far from the city in a new, quiet suburb and commute into town. Journeys that might once have taken days or weeks could now be done in hours or minutes. The amount of free time available to people was beginning to grow. Holidays became popular, with more people getting time off work. People with time off work and money to spend wanted to go travelling, and the number of exciting destinations to visit was growing, catering to all levels of tourist, as were the ways to get there, and places to stay, once you arrived.
As the 20th century progressed, travel became faster still. With the opening of the Suez (1869) and Panama (1914) Canals, long detours around the horns of Africa and South America were eliminated for all but the largest of ships, slicing days off of voyages to Asia, the Middle East, the Mediterranean and the coastal cities of the United States.
To lure people away from their homes to far flung destinations, travel agencies, railroad companies and shipping lines produced vivid, colourful posters advertising luxurious travel to the edges of the world in fast, sumptuously appointed ocean liners and railroad-carriages, fast connecting trains and short crossings; anything to part a potential traveler from his living-room, and the money from his wallet.
Steamships of all sizes now plied the oceans, seas and rivers of the world. No longer was sailing from England to the Continent (Europe) a dangerous, costly endeavor. Now, you could buy a ticket. You could get on a ferry and in steam-powered speed and comfort, take a trip across the English Channel to France. With rail-links around Europe, cities like Paris, Berlin, Rome, Milan, Venice and Pompeii became great tourist attractions which were easily accessible thanks to efficient public transport services from the port cities of France, Denmark, Germany and Italy. People could travel all over Europe, America, and Asia, in speed, comfort and safety for the first time in history. All this was what contributed to the birth of the Golden Age of Travel.
Packing for a New Age
As the 19th century progressed into the 20th century, travel became cheaper still. After the hell of the First World War, the United States of America tightened its once open door policy on immigration. No longer were shiploads of poor European refugees allowed to be dumped on Ellis Island for large-scale processing. The ending of this policy in 1924, and the subsequent introduction of immigration quotas (which allowed only a set number of people from different countries or backgrounds to migrate each year to specific countries) meant that steamship companies, which had once made thousands of pounds and dollars a year in the immigrant trade, suddenly had their main passenger base swept out from under them!
In the new, optimistic age of the “Roaring” 1920s, a solution had to be found! The answer was ‘Tourist Class’. Ships no longer transported human cargo from A to B. They now transported fare-paying passengers, or ‘tourists’ in comfort, from their home ports to destinations far and wide around the world, for a reasonable price. Cheap tickets were snapped up by eager holidaymakers with free time on their hands, and international, ocean going travel began!
Travelling by ocean liner to cities and countries all over the world often meant long sea-voyages! Very long! London to Paris might take half a day by steamer and rail. London to New York might take a week or more. Melbourne to Singapore might take three or four days. But it was for the mammoth, long-haul voyages, such as those from Naples to Shanghai (eight weeks by steamer!) for which a whole new kind of luggage was required!
These days, we have check-in luggage and carry-on luggage, and it’s all weighed and measured and assessed and tagged. You can only have 10kg carry-on and 40kg check-in and if you want more you have to pay for more, and you have to repack, redistribute and reorganize everything over and over again, so that the plane doesn’t crash into the ocean and sometimes you wonder whether going on holiday is even worth it?
Packing for a long voyage during the Golden Age of Travel was just as challenging, although those challenges were of a rather different nature. One benefit of travelling by steamship was that there weren’t really any luggage weight restrictions. So long as it fit in the hold, or in your cabin or suite on board ship, you were fine. But even for short holidays, you often brought mountains of luggage. Remember that you did not go on ‘holiday’ or ‘vacation’, you went on ‘tour’ – hence ‘tourist’.
You expected to be away from home for days and weeks at a time – and that might be just the ocean voyage, before you even reached your destination! And having spent days and weeks at sea, you weren’t going to spend just a couple of weeks at your destination and then sail for days and weeks, all the way back home again! You expected to be away for a long, long time. A month or more, at least! So the kind of luggage that our grandparents and great-grandparents brought with them on their epic journeys was significantly different from what we would pack and carry today. So, exactly what kind of luggage would you expect to bring on a long ocean voyage?
The Steamer Trunk
The mainstay of luggage for most of the 20th century, and indeed, for most of history, was the trunk – large, wooden boxes into which everything you might require for a long voyage was packed. Considering that an ocean voyage to any destination could take anywhere from a few days to a few months, such large personal storage space was deemed necessary to fit in all the clothing, accessories and other related travel paraphernalia that might be required for a long time spent at sea.
Trunks were designed to be tough. They had to withstand being hoisted by cranes, roped up in nets, and being stacked up, lashed down, and rocked around at sea. They had to put up with rough train rides, carriage journeys, motor trips, being dragged around and shunted from place to place by porters, bellhops and stewards. To protect against damage, they were reinforced with wooden ribs and braces. This was to prevent cracking and warping from the weight of extra luggage stacked on top.
Rivets and studs were hammered into corners and joints to strengthen them. Exposed wooden parts of trunks were varnished to prevent wood-rot, or were lined on their exteriors with leather or canvas to provide a weatherproof finish. Corners were again reinforced with brass plates which were again, riveted on, to prevent damage from abrasion and rough handling. Catches, locks and clasps were made of brass. This made the trunks all pretty and attractive, but it also came with an added bonus – unlike steel, brass does not rust, so provided further protection against the moisture and corrosion of seawater.
The Suitcase
These days, most people pack their clothes and belongings into roll-on cabin-baggage when they go travelling. The days of the actual ‘suitcase’ are steadily disappearing. But there was a time when people who went on holiday carried suitcases, and these cases actually contained the suits which provided them with their names.
A typical suitcase of the Golden Age of Travel, from the late 1800s through the early 20th century was made of leather or canvas. It came with two lockable clasps to hold it shut, and depending on the style, may or may not have come with additional leather belts that were strapped over the suitcase. These belts provided a failsafe mechanism if the clasps were broken, but the belts (which wrapped around the entire suitcase) could also be removed from the belt loops around the suitcase and linked together. They could then be used to strap the suitcase on top of other suitcases or luggage, to keep them together, or to secure them to the roof or luggage-rack of a motorcar or horse-carriage during transport, if other storage space was not available.
The Gladstone Bag
Sturdy, of large capacity, secure and easy to carry, Gladstone bags were the backpacks of their day. Everyone who travelled anywhere on a regular basis was likely to have at least one of these, and like backpacks, the humble Gladstone was used to carry as wide a range of items as you could possibly imagine.
The Gladstone was invented by a London bag-maker in the 1800s and named after globetrotting British prime-minister William Ewart Gladstone. It was immediately popular because of its large capacity, and secure, gate-mouth opening. Reinforced with a metal frame, the bag could be opened, and remain open while it was packed. This made it ideal as an overnight-bag into which anything could be packed with haste.
Once packed, the bag was closed, locked, and then simply carried away. No consideration had to be given to how the bag’s contents might shift upon movement, since it did not have to be tipped onto its side to grasp the handle, unlike a suitcase.
This was likely the reason why this style of bag was so popular with physicians, who commonly carried sharp, dangerous and breakable objects in their medical-kits, which were likely to be broken if they shifted unexpectedly inside a backpack or other type of luggage. The gate-mouth opening also meant that a doctor’s hands were free to dive in and out of the bag to retrieve whatever instruments and medicines might be required in an emergency, without having to constantly pull the bag open over and over again.
The Portmanteau
‘Portmanteau’ is a French loanword for a type of luggage which has all but disappeared from travel in the 21st century. You never see these things anymore unless they’re in museums or in period movies and TV-shows.
Literally meaning “Coat-Carrier” (‘porte’ as in ‘portable’, and ‘manteau’ meaning ‘coat’), or also called a ‘wardrobe trunk’, this style of trunk was used for carrying your more expensive clothes – your best dresses, favourite suits, your dinner suit or your white tie and tails. It was stood on one end, and then opened up, looking for all intents and purposes, like a portable closet, complete with hanger-rack and separate drawers and compartments for shoes, shirts, trousers, socks, underwear and space for coats, trousers and jackets so that they wouldn’t get crushed during long journeys.
Portable Word-Processing – Vintage Style
Then, just as now, our globetrotting forebears often wished to keep some sort of record of their travels, or wished to inform others of their travels. Or had a need to communicate and write to others during their travels.
If we had to do this today, we’d bring along an iPad or a laptop computer and seek out the nearest establishment boasting free WIFI. And in their own way, our grandparents and great-grandparents had their own methods for keeping in touch and connected with others.
The Writing Slope
The reservoir pen which could be carried around in your pocket, and used anytime, anyplace, anywhere, at a second’s notice, is a relatively recent invention. If you went travelling any time before 1900 and you needed to write while away from your desk, chances are that you probably had one of these things packed in amongst your trunks, boxes and cases:
Writing-slopes were the laptop computers of their day. They carried everything that you required for on-the-move communications: Ink, pens, paper, stamps, sealing-wax, seals, spare nibs, matches, envelopes, pencils, paper-knife, eraser, paper-folder, and storage for money, letters, important documents and valuables. The writing box or writing-slope shown here is typical of the more expensive, up-market writing-slopes of the 1800s. It comes complete with desk accessories in elephant-tusk ivory, inset matchbox and inkwell, and an automatic deadlock security system (and the original key!).
Half-closing the writing-box exposes three, flat ivory panels, or an ‘Aide Memoir’. Here, simple notes and reminders could be scrawled on the ivory slates in graphite pencil. They could be erased using a moist cloth, and the ivory could be reused.
Writing boxes were common travelling companions of the educated globetrotter or travelling businessman of the 19th century. They died out at the turn of the century when they were replaced by fountain pens, and by yet another common piece of luggage which might be brought with you on a long voyage during the early 20th century.
The Portable Typewriter
Invented in the 1870s, early typewriters were bulky, heavy things. Weighing up to 15-20kg (about 30lbs+), they were impractical as portable writing machines. As travel increased towards the end of the 19th century, and as typewriters became better designed and more commonplace, a market was realized: Portable typewriters would surely prove popular with the travelling public, if only such a machine could be produced!
The first portable, laptop typewriters came out in the first decade of the 1900s, but their golden age started in the 1920s. Portable typewriters were manufactured by Remington, Royal, Underwood, Corona and countless other typewriter companies. They were snapped up by reporters, authors, journalists, travel writers and businessmen who often had to travel as part of their jobs, and needed to be able to correspond swiftly and neatly while on the road.
This Underwood Standard Portable from the second half of the 1920s was typical of the portable typewriters carried around the world by tourists and writers during the Golden Age of Travel. Newspaper reports, story drafts, letters home, business reports and magazine articles were all typed up on machines like this and sent home across the seas by untold thousands of writers, eager tourists, journalists and businessmen during the early 20th century.
Oddments and Accessories
Along with large pieces of luggage like suitcases, Gladstone bags, trunks and portmanteaus, our globetrotting predecessors also brought with them all manner of smaller boxes, bags and cases for holding almost everything you could imagine. Shoeshine kits, collar-boxes, handbags, hatboxes, stud-and-link boxes, and toiletry cases carrying everything from straight-razors to talcum-powder.
Such large amounts of such small luggage were often packed inside trunks and suitcases, to separate and organize one’s belongings on long trips, but also to keep the items most commonly used closer to hand. Until the 1930s, men’s shirts came in general ‘one-size fits all’ style with longer sleeves, and without attached collars and cuffs (called ‘tunic shirts’). The separate collars and cuffs were stored in collar-boxes. The studs and links to attach these to the shirts were stored in jewellery cases.
As it would be impossible to store all of one’s belongings into a ship’s cabin or berth, or on a railroad-carriage, only the trunks and cases carrying the most essential items were stored close-at-hand. Clothes and other belongings that would not be required until the ship or train reached its destination would be stored in the hold, or in the luggage vans coupled to the backs of trains.
Classic Luggage Stickers
Hotel chains as we know them today did not exist in the early 20th century. Every hotel in town was owned and operated separately, and competition between them was fierce. Every hotel had to be grand, classy, have a catchy and elegant sounding name, and have everything that the guest might desire. Hotels that wanted to stand out had everything custom made. Everything from the stationery, silverware, glassware, china and towels were emblazoned with the hotel’s monogram or logo. And of course, every hotel had to have its own distinct and immediately recognizable set of stylish and colourful luggage-stickers.
Luggage stickers were once like tattoos – unique, colourful, and evidence of a varied and well-travelled past. Just like how sailors who went to sea came back festooned with ink, a steamer-trunk, set of suitcases or a well-travelled Gladstone bag often returned home plastered from lid to base in stickers. Stickers came from almost anywhere and everywhere: from train stations, stickers from shipping companies, and stickers from hotels.
Stickers contained information such as the name of a trunk’s owner, his room number, the train which he had taken, or the name of the ship he had boarded. And if he had boarded a ship, then the sticker might also have his deck and cabin number. If he was on a long train journey and his luggage was stored in the goods-van at the back of the train, his trunk sticker might have his carriage or compartment number.
Today, luggage-stickers are just ugly, black-and-white barcoded, print-out, rip-off, stick-on-and-done affairs. As soon as you arrive at your destination, it’s immediately your mission to remove these stickers as soon as possible, lest their blandness offend the eyes and sensibilities of the delicate. On the other hand, vintage luggage stickers were works of art. They often had bold letters in artistic fonts and colours which spelt out the hotel name, the ship name, the city or port where the sticker was plastered on, and came with decorative pictures or photographs as part of the design. They were like miniature travel posters in their own right and passengers often kept the stickers on their luggage as proof of their travels, and as proof of the extent of their travel. And also because it gave their luggage ‘character’, with the various stickers creating a rainbow patchwork of paper on the bland leather surfaces of their cases and trunks.
Hotels During the Golden Age of Travel
The rise in the frequency of travel from the late 1800s to the start of the Second World War saw a corresponding rise in the number of hotels. A number of the world’s most famous hotels trace their roots back to this first great age of tourism. In the United States, the Stanley Hotel (1909) was opened by Freelan O. Stanley, co-owner of the famous Stanley Motor Carriage Co., which produced the well-known Stanley steam-powered automobiles of the 1900s-1920s. Notoriously haunted, it gave Stephen King the inspiration for one of his most famous horror novels: “The Shining”. Its guests included Titanic survivor Margaret Brown, musician J.P. Sousa, and President Theodore Roosevelt.
In New York City, the famous Plaza Hotel was opened in 1907. In London, the Langham and Grosvenor Hotels were opened in 1865 and 1862 respectively. The Ritz (1907) and the Savoy (1889) in London remain two of the most famous hotels in the world. In Singapore, Raffles Hotel opened in 1887. But as grand and famous as all these structures are, they all owe a debt to one hotel which has sadly faded into history, no longer operating, and which has been overshadowed by the fame of all the other hotels that have come after it.
The Tremont Hotel, in Boston (closed 1895), one of several hotels named Tremont House or Tremont Hotel scattered around the United States (there were five in total) was the first hotel in the world as we would know them today, which offered amenities like lockable bedroom doors, indoor plumbing, indoor heated baths, indoor toilets, a proper reception area, and bellhops to carry the mountains of luggage mentioned earlier on. Opened in 1829, it predated many of the most famous hotels in the world which still operate, and paved the way for standards in hotel amenities and services which we take for granted today.
As the numbers of hotel guests started to climb as more people found more time and more spare cash with which to travel, hotels started competing with each other. To lure in more customers, they came up with more and newer amenities, better service and furnishings, and all kinds of features and extras which today are considered standards across the hotel industry. In some respects, the service was also much better than what we might be used to today.
These days, we arrive at the hotel and check in. Then, we’re given our key-cards and told our room numbers and left to it, and that’s basically it. In older times, when hotel competition was fierce, this level of ‘service’ was not always acceptable. Back when even a short journey meant bringing a small cartload of luggage with you, the front-desk clerk would ring the counter-bell (similar to the one shown above) to summon a youth who would take your room key and some or all of your luggage, which he either carried upstairs, or loaded onto a hotel luggage-trolley and took upstairs in an elevator. This boy (they were traditionally young men) got his name from the very bell used to summon him – ‘Bellhop’. Once at your room, he unlocked the door for you, helped you carry in your luggage, handed you your key and then left you to your thoughts.
A luxury hotel of the era would’ve come with such amenities as a lobby, hotel restaurants, lounges, bars, and even a ballroom, where a house orchestra or jazz-band would provide music which you could dance to, if you wished. Hotels which had their own house-bands included the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, the Savoy Hotel in London, the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York, and Raffles Hotel in Singapore. Big names like Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman would often broadcast live from the Pennsylvania Hotel at set times each evening, for hotel guests to dance to, and for people at home to listen to via radio.
Popular Tourist Destinations
During the Golden Age of Travel, from the late 1800s through to the mid-20th century, a number of countries became popular, famous, and even infamous destinations for the well-heeled globetrotter of yesteryear. Countries like Canada, the United States, Cuba, Mexico, Germany, Italy, Egypt, Spain, France, Scotland, Ireland, England, Australia, India, the British Straits Settlements, Hong Kong, Japan and China were all popular tourist spots. If you had the time and money, you might take a whole year off, and visit all of them, going on a world tour.
Among the most popular travel destinations were those considered ‘exotic’, such as Egypt, the Middle East, India, the Dutch East Indies, the Straits Settlements, Japan, and one of the most famous of all: The International Settlement of Shanghai.
The Shanghai International Settlement
Shanghai, China’s most famous port city was a free port from 1843-1943, one of several treaty-ports opened and developed by the British after the Opium War of 1839. Anyone could go there and free trade was encouraged, much like Singapore during the same era. Shanghai in the first half of the 20th century, free from the ravages of war in Europe, flourished. It was not only famous, it was notorious.
Tales abounded of gambling, prostitution, drug-trafficking (mostly opium), giddy nightclubs with raucous jazz music, high living, department stores, the Shanghai racetrack, grand ballrooms and luxurious hotels. But Shanghai, for all its glitz and glamour, pulsing nightlife and sheen of neon, also held a seedy underbelly reeking of gangland violence and crime. The police fought riots, stabbings, shootings, kidnappings, rape and an endless battle against the fierce underground opium trade. Shanghai was the original Sin City.
Who wants to go to Shanghai?
Visiting Shanghai in the early 20th century was like visiting Las Vegas today. Its lurid reputation more than anything else, was its biggest draw card. And for the right price, any and all kinds of thrills could be had, if you knew where to look, and who to contact in the crime-infested underworld of the International Settlement.
One of the first views of Shanghai that you got was The Bund. The Bund, or raised embankment, was the main riverfront thoroughfare of pre-war Shanghai, then called the Shanghai International Settlement. Stretched out along the entire length of the Bund were banking houses, shipping offices, grand hotels, newspaper headquarters, upscale clubs, the Shanghai Customs House, and foreign consulates.
As your ship sailed up the Huangpu River and away from the Yangtze, this was your first view of the city – all its grandeur out on display like some gaudy jewellery-shop window display. The Bund ran the entire width of the British and French Concessions of Shanghai, from Suzhou Creek, and down the west bank of the Huangpu River. And the ships docked right there on the riverside. The moment you got off, you were plunged right into the heart of Old Shanghai. You had your choice of the two best hotels in town: The Palace Hotel, and the Cathay Hotel (which remain there still, along with all the other buildings, which are heritage protected, although the hotels have since been renamed).
Shanghai was so popular that in the United States, some young men joined the United States Marine Corps (USMC) hoping to be posted to the 4th Marine Regiment, also called the ‘China Marines’, because they were based in Shanghai, a city of exotic and oriental wonder! Due to the city’s cheap labour and high standards of living, even humble soldiers lived in relative luxury while deployed to Shanghai. Here, their main tasks were protecting the boundaries of the city and the American Concession, and enforcing the laws of the International Settlement, although this second duty was also carried out by the multi-ethnic Shanghai Municipal Police, whose job it was to enforce law and order within the Settlement.
The SMP was originally largely British, but also included Chinese, Indian, French, and American officers as well. In 1917, famous American songwriter, Irving Berlin, wrote a now, almost-forgotten song called ‘From Here to Shanghai’, which spoke of the singer’s longing to experience something more exotic than just a trip to ‘dreamy Chinatown’. 1922 saw the publication of ‘Goodbye, Shanghai’, and in 1924, one of the most famous jazz standards of the day, ‘Shanghai Shuffle’ was published, showing how popular this destination was among travelling Europeans and Americans.
Travelling to Shanghai from Europe, or even America, took several weeks. Most ships did not sail to most of their destinations directly. Even the largest ocean liners didn’t do that. There was far more money to be made by making regular stop-offs along the way, which at any rate, were necessary to re-coal the ship, drop off mail and passengers, pick up more mail and more passengers, restock the ship for the next leg of its voyage, and then carry on. A ship sailing from England to China might stop at Cherbourg, Casablanca, Marseille, Naples, Port Sa’id, Bombay, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Tokyo before finally dropping anchor at its final destination: Shanghai. You can see now, why such a trip would take up to two months to complete!
The Shanghai International Settlement went by many names. ‘The Paris of the East’, and ‘The Whore of the Orient’ were two of the most common, reflecting both its ritzy, exotic nature, and its Devil-May-Care way of life.
The Peking Legation Quarter
For tourists wanting to visit the old capital of China (it was moved to Nanking in 1927), you either caught a train from Shanghai to Tientsin, and then to Peking, or else sailed to Tientsin directly and caught a train from there. And while in Peking, you stayed at the famous Peking Legation Quarter, at the Grand Hotel de Pekin, or the Grand Hotel Des Wagons Lits. The Legation Quarter, like the International Settlement to the south, was the Western expatriate enclave within a larger, Chinese city.
After the famous Siege of the Legations in 1900, the entire compound was surrounded by walls and gates to protect it against possible future uprisings, making it look like a walled city. The Grand Hotel Des Wagons Lits was operated by the same company which ran the famous Orient Express, the Compagnie Internationale Des Wagons Lits (“International Sleeping-Car Company”). In Peking, just like in modern Beijing, chief tourist destinations were the Great Wall, and the Forbidden City. After the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, the Forbidden City was opened to the public as the Palace Museum in 1925, a position it has held ever since.
Singapore: The Crossroads of the East
Another popular tourist stop was Singapore. Called ‘The Crossroads of the East’, Singapore was ideally situated for a quick stopover on your inspection of the South Pacific. A British colony since the 1810s, Singapore was widely considered to be one of the nicest, grandest, most exotic, and safest places in the world to have a holiday. After all, it had one of the finest military airbases in Asia, as well as some of the best coastal fortifications. For this reason, it was also proudly touted as the ‘Gibraltar of the East’, as well.
The place to stay at while in Singapore was of course, Raffles Hotel. Opened in 1887, Raffles has housed all manner of celebrities, from Noel Coward to Rudyard Kipling and even British royalty. Raffles’ main slogan in the early 20th century came from a review given by Kipling in 1887, months after the hotel opened. Glowing with praise, Kipling had said: “When in Singapore, feed at Raffles!” – however, Raffles was careful not to publicise the rest of his review, which continued: “…and sleep at the Hotel De L’Europe!” – The Hotel De L’Europe was Raffles’ main competition in Singapore at the time! Unlike the Hotel De L’Europe, however, Raffles survived the Great Depression. The De L’Europe, by comparison, closed its doors in the mid-1930s due to falling guest numbers.
As a free port and main stopover for ships plying the passenger trade from Europe to Asia, Singapore boasted excellent shopping. A visit to Orchard Road was almost mandatory, to seek out the latest oriental wonders brought to the colony by ships sailing back from China and Japan.
Berlin: Cultural Center of Europe
Despite the scourge of the Franco-Prussian War and the First World War, during the late 1800s and early part of the 20th century, the city of Berlin, Germany, was a popular tourist-spot for the well-to-do. Renowned as a center of culture, art, music and politics, Berlin attracted writers, journalists, politicians and famous actors.
Hotels like the Adlon became famous as haunts for foreign newspaper-reporters and visiting VIPs. As the Hotel Adlon in particular was (and still is) located in the governmental and diplomatic quarter of Berlin, it was the ideal place to stay for journalists wishing to cover German politics. Foreign embassies and the Reichstag were all nearby. Even today, the Russian and British embassies in Berlin are located just a few blocks from this famous hotel, which was rebuilt in the 1990s on its original location.
Before the scourge of Nazism in the mid-1930s, Berlin was famous for its café culture, its jazz-music and its contributions to film and theatre. European cabaret flourished in Germany during this period and developed its own unique, raunchy humor in the nightclubs and taverns of Berlin. The center of commercial and social life in Berlin was Potsdamer Platz, one of the city’s main squares. Originally formed by the intersection of five different roads, this large, open space was an ideal hub in the center town from which almost anything could be reached. Grand hotels were built nearby, the Potsdamer Platz railroad station was built near this location, and in 1897, the Wetheim department-store was opened near the square. By the 1920s, it was the largest department-store in Europe.
The Nazi rise to power spelt the end to almost all of this. Many of the actors and musicians were at least partially Jewish, and they fled Germany in droves to escape persecution. Many of the actors in the famous 1942 film “Casablanca” were German, Austrian or Czech Jewish refugees which had been actors in their home-countries. They fled to America during the 1930s and reestablished themselves in Hollywood, when it became clear that they could no-longer act in Nazi-controlled countries. German cabaret, which had a strong focus on political and social satire, was all but abolished by the Nazis.
Baedeker Guide Books
Any eager tourist heading off to far-flung destinations today might consult TripAdvisor, or read up on their Lonely Planet guidebooks. If you went anywhere during the Golden Age of Travel, most likely, you stopped off at your local bookshop or travel agency, and asked to be shown their current stock of ‘Baedekers’.
‘Baedeker’ was a German publishing house established in 1827. Throughout much of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, the Baedeker family became famous for printing guidebooks. Published in German and English, ‘Baedekers’ covered everything from countries around the world, to counties or states within countries, to cities and towns within states, and could be remarkably detailed. From the mid-1850s, Baedeker guides, which were regularly updated, covered countries all around the world. They started being printed in English in 1861, when company founder, Karl Baedeker, realized that for their firm to be successful, they had to appeal to as many languages as possible.
Countries which had Baedeker guidebooks written about them included: Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, France, Palestine, Syria, Norway, Sweden, Great Britain, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Mexico, Canada and the United States! And that’s just from 1861-1900! Other countries that were included in editions printed in the 20th century included Spain, Portugal, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. Cities which earned their own guidebooks were numerous, and extended from London, to Paris to Peking, in China!
Stop and consider for a minute what a challenge it would’ve been to amass such a stockpile of information in an age before the internet. Imagine having to write guidebooks on cities and countries thousands of miles away, and having to rely on steam-post and electric telegraph for communications. Imagine the effort and time it took to send people thousands of miles away to far-off countries to research and gather this information. Far-off countries? In 1914, Baedeker published its first guidebook (in German) on the South Pacific, covering the British Straits Settlements (Malaya, Singapore) and the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). A journey from Germany to Singapore took over a month by steamship!
An Ongoing Journey
The number of things that a person could say and write about this exciting and romanticised element and era of history are almost endless. I’ll be making another posting soon, about the three most famous vehicles of the Golden Age of Travel – the Hindenburg Airship, the Queen Mary, and the Orient Express!
