Newport's economic reliance on the summer tourist industry
created tension between year-round and summer residents. Summer
residents also clashed with the middle-class and working-class
summer visitors who came to Newport at the turn of the century.
Mutual Exclusion
As early as the mid-1800s, Newporters expressed resistance to
the town becoming a summer resort. The Newport Mercury
editorialized:
"While we throw no obstacles in the way of summer business and
are quite willing for all who can to reap the fullest benefit
from the summer visitors, still we are firm in our belief that
the greatest calamity which has ever befallen Newport is making
it a fashionable resort in the summer." [1]
In
her memoir, socialite Elizabeth
Drexel Lehr recalled relations between the summer and year-round
residents as tenuous:
"The cottagers...were only
concerned in excluding the townspeople from any of the pastures
they considered their own. They themselves might wander at
will in the lovely old town with its quaint old-fashioned
streets nestling down by the waterfront. But the inhabitants
must not dream of returning the compliment. Not for them the
sacred purlieus of Bellevue Avenue and Ocean Drive, where
they might catch a glimpse of the forbidden splendors of villas
which were only occupied for six or seven weeks in the year."
[6]
She
also described Newporters' attitude toward the summer residents:
"The townspeople despised the 'cottagers,' the summer colony
of millionaires, and boasted of their ability to make them toe
the mark. What harm was there in charging the idly rich prohibitive
prices for two months and then living in comfort for the rest
of the year on the proceeds?" [7]
No Trespassing
Discord erupted in the 1880s when fox hunting became a popular
sport among Newport society. Hounds imported from Buckinghamshire,
England, led the way through the Rhode Island fields. The farmers
disliked the hunters' disrespect for their crops and ended the
sport's popularity by forbidding them to trespass on their property.
[2]
The
summer residents, in turn, began limiting access to their own
property. In the 1890s Newport's year-round and summer residents
debated the right to use the Cliff Walk, a scenic trail along
Ochre Point between the summer estates and the ocean. Newport
guidebooks widely advertised the Cliff Walk as an attraction,
and both Newporters and other visitors promenaded there.
Some
cottagers attempted to keep trespassers away by sinking the
Cliff Walk in front of their estates. They complained that citizens
were abusing the privilege of using the walk, citing trespassing
and property vandalism among the reasons for altering the path.
[3]
Mrs. John King Van Rensselaer commented on this in her memoir:
"[It] may perhaps seem churlish on the part of the rich proprietors
to try as they do to exclude the public from access to their
grounds, but they could tell many tales of the annoyances they
have received from trespassers."
As
an example of their transgressions, she explained: "At one place
where the lawn slopes to the Cliff Walk it is no unusual thing
for people to walk up to the house, sit on the piazza, or even
enter the rooms." [4]
While the 1893 Baedecker's United States travel guide
advertised the Cliff Walk to visitors, it noted that William
K. Vanderbilt's Marble House was now kept from "the vulgar
gaze" by a fence. [5]
Society's
disdain for the townspeople extended to the increasing numbers
of excursionists coming to Newport in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. When the Newport Street Railway proposed
constructing a trolley system, Newport
society "raised a whirlwind of opposition," according to a June
16, 1889, column in the New York Times.
A
group of summer residents including H.A.C.
Taylor, J.J. Van
Alen, Frederick W. Vanderbilt, and Edward
R. Wharton filed an injunction against the trolley crossing
Bellevue Avenue, on the grounds that the trolley system would
hurt businesses, reduce property values, and frighten their
horses. The group took the matter before the Supreme Court in
Providence, but the court denied the injunction and work proceeded
on the line. [8]
Controversy
over Newport's trolley system erupted again in 1897, when the
Newport and Fall River Street Railway Company announced plans
to connect Newport's trolley lines with those in Fall River.
"Trolley Line to Newport: A Project to Enable Fall River Mill
Hands to Visit the Home of Aristocracy on Sunday" announced
a November 16, 1897, column in the New York Times.
Again, summer cottagers protested this move, while residents
in nearby Portsmouth and Middletown approved it because they
claimed it would bring "a big boom for their lands." The trolley
line between Newport and Fall River opened in June 1898. [9]
Dissatisfied
with the growing numbers of excursionists now coming to Easton's
Beach, the public beach in Newport for many years, Newport's
elite adopted Bailey's Beach as their exclusive playground.
Owned
and operated by the Spouting Rock Beach Association, Bailey's
Beach became the ultimate test of one's acceptance into Newport
society. Elizabeth Drexel Lehr described the protocol atBailey's:
"Only
the elite could bathe at Bailey's Beach. It was Newport's
most exclusive club. The watchman in his gold-laced uniform
protected its sanctity from all interlopers. He knew every
carriage on sight, fixed newcomers with an eagle eye, swooped
down upon them and demanded their names. Unless they were
accompanied by one of the members, or bore an introduction
from an unimpeachable hostess, no power on earth could gain
them admission. If they wanted to bathe, they could only go
to Easton's Beach—'The Common Beach' as the habitues
were wont to call it. There they would have the indignity
of sharing the sea with the Newport townspeople, referred
to by Harry Lehr
[her husband], who was fond of quoting the sayings of Louis
XIV, as 'Our Footstools.'" [10]
The
Casino was also a site of class conflict in Newport. James
Gordon Bennett, publisher of the New York Herald,
founded the Casino in 1880 as an alternative to Newport's Reading
Room. Unlike this male-exclusive club, the Casino Club was open
to both men and women.
In
the 1880s, the Casino Club was one of the primary places for
society to be seen. Croquet, tennis matches, archery contests,
concerts, and balls were commonly held there. While the Casino
had an air of exclusivity, Newporters could attend Casino events
for a fee. [11]
The
establishment of the United States National Lawn Tennis Tournament
opened the Casino to Newporters and out-of-town guests. Members
of all classes could enjoy this new sport, but society retained
the best seats. [12] Hotel accommodations in Newport became
too few for the numbers of guests arriving each August.
As
the tournament became nationally known, the Casino board admitted
middle-class players, mostly college men. These players came
to resent the atmosphere of the Casino and campaigned for relocation
of the matches to New York. In addition, neighborhood children
hired as ball boys for the matches went on strike during one
of the tournaments. [13]
"To Cultivate the Most Pleasant and Cordial Relations"
Newport's Mayor Boyle called for better relations between Newporters
and the summer residents in his 1898 inaugural address:
Our city is solely
dependent on combined attractiveness and on the coming of
those who have so largely contributed to its upbuilding and
beautification, and any act or spirit which causes the depreciation
of its capital, whether it be the mean and selfish defacement
of the Cliffs or the narrow policy of opposition, blind to
the city's best interests, should be condemned and discouraged.
Our best and wisest policy is to cultivate the most pleasant
and cordial relations with the Summer colony, and this, I
repeat, we can pursue without the loss of the slightest right,
and to our advantage. [14]
While summer residents publicly exhibited themselves to year-round
residents and summer visitors, they resented intrusion into
their designated spaces. Bailey's Beach, Bellevue Avenue,
and the Cliff Walk were areas they attempted to reserve for
themselves. Year-round residents, in turn, resented the summer
residents' intrusions upon their town two months each year.
Excursionists, eager to see for themselves what the media
had presented to them about Newport, ignored the summer residents'
attempts to privatize their space. By the turn of the century,
Newport's shores had opened to people of all classes.
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