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]
Elizabeth Drexel Lehr
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." [2]
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?" [3]
No Trespassing Newport's year-round residents clashed with
the summer residents in the 1880s when fox hunting became a popular
sport. Hounds imported from Buckinghamshire, England, led fashionable
hunters through the Rhode Island fields. Farmers disliked the hunters'
disrespect for their crops and ended the sport's popularity by forbidding
them to trespass on their property. [4]
Cliff Walk
The summer residents, in turn, began limiting
access to their own property. In the 1890s Newport 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 members of all classes promenaded there.
Some summer residents 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. [5]
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."
[6]
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." [7]
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 kept from
"the vulgar gaze" by a fence. [8]
No New Trolleys
Newport Trolley
The summer residents'
disdain extended to the increasing numbers of visitors of other classes
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. [9]
Controversy
over Newport's trolley system emerged 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.
Newport's summer residents again 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. [10]
Bailey's—The
Exclusive Beach
Bathers
at
Bailey's Beach
Dissatisfied
with the growing numbers of visitors of other classes coming to
Easton's Beach, the public beach in Newport for many years,
Newport's upper-class families 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
at Bailey'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.'" [11]
At the Casino
Newport
Casino
The
Casino was also a site of class conflict in Newport. James
Gordon Bennett Jr., publisher of the New York Herald,
founded the Casino in 1880 as an alternative to Newport's exclusively-male
Reading Room. Unlike that club, the Casino
was open to both men and women.
In
the 1880s, the Casino 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, members of other classes could attend Casino
events for a fee. [12]
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 upper-class
families retained the best seats. [13]
Visitors
Watch
a Tennis Match
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, local children hired as ball boys for the
matches went on strike during one of the tournaments. [14]
"To Cultivate the Most Pleasant and Cordial Relations" Newport's Mayor Boyle called for better relations between
year-round residents and 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."
[15]
And so, 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. And, summer visitors, eager
to see for themselves what the media
had presented to them about Newport, ignored the summer
residents' attempts to maintain areas exclusively for their
own use.
By the turn of the century, Newport's shores had opened
to people of all classes.
