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Oh, the chambermaid came to the door
Says, "Get up, you lazy sinner
We need those sheets for a tablecloth
And it's almost time for dinner!"
-- "No Booze Today!"
That was an song I learned in the 1960s, from a children's album. It was already forgotten in children's culture; I never heard it anywhere else. You can judge how obsolete the song was because it mentioned sending a child to the saloon with a growler to get beer, a custom I doubt revived after Prohibition.
Remembering the song did make me wonder where the boarding-house went. It was a city institution in America throughout the last part of the 19th century and at least until World War II. A boarding house gave you a bedroom, access to common rooms, and two meals a day. Young women going to the city were sent to "respectable" boarding-houses that would keep a watchful eye on their clientele. Jokes said that young men married just to get out of the boarding houses.
Then they went poof. What happened? When and how did single Americans decide that they'd put up with their own cooking in exchange for privacy?
Edit: My father, born 1929, habitually referred to grabbing a serving dish across somebody else -- as opposed to asking for it to be passed -- as "a boarding-house reach", both when he did it and when a child did it.
Says, "Get up, you lazy sinner
We need those sheets for a tablecloth
And it's almost time for dinner!"
-- "No Booze Today!"
That was an song I learned in the 1960s, from a children's album. It was already forgotten in children's culture; I never heard it anywhere else. You can judge how obsolete the song was because it mentioned sending a child to the saloon with a growler to get beer, a custom I doubt revived after Prohibition.
Remembering the song did make me wonder where the boarding-house went. It was a city institution in America throughout the last part of the 19th century and at least until World War II. A boarding house gave you a bedroom, access to common rooms, and two meals a day. Young women going to the city were sent to "respectable" boarding-houses that would keep a watchful eye on their clientele. Jokes said that young men married just to get out of the boarding houses.
Then they went poof. What happened? When and how did single Americans decide that they'd put up with their own cooking in exchange for privacy?
Edit: My father, born 1929, habitually referred to grabbing a serving dish across somebody else -- as opposed to asking for it to be passed -- as "a boarding-house reach", both when he did it and when a child did it.
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Date: 2013-12-16 06:32 pm (UTC)ETA: I always liked the house-keeping of young women living semi- on their own, semi-boarding in things like the Anne books. How they did it, but also the freedom that it represented.
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Date: 2013-12-16 09:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-16 11:21 pm (UTC)I read an article not too long ago about a boarding house in Manhattan, a respectable one for women even, that is thriving in this day and age. I can't find a link offhand though.
Finally, in the town I just moved to, right by the train station there is an honest to god TEMPERANCE HOSTEL that is still in operation, and has been continuously, AFAIK, since the 1880s when it was founded: http://reidsguesthouse.com.au/ They don't advertise it on the site but I believe they also offer some longer-term accommodation.
I still say "boarding house reach", too.
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Date: 2013-12-16 06:33 pm (UTC)It was 1947, and it involved something that happened in New Mexico.
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Date: 2013-12-16 06:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-16 07:11 pm (UTC)And look, a reading list!
Date: 2013-12-16 07:19 pm (UTC)...
Boardinghouses “served people who really [couldn’t] get a foothold in urban space any other way,” explained Betsy Klimasmith, an English professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston and author of a 2005 book about urban domesticity in American literature.
Also also wik
Date: 2013-12-16 07:28 pm (UTC)With regard to the time given in the article, "Stage Door" (1937) is set in a boarding-house. I've definitely read passing memoir references to war workers living in boardinghouses, though. There was a housing shortage, and that may have prolonged boardinghouses' lifespan.
Re: Also also wik
Date: 2013-12-16 08:02 pm (UTC)Our town was full of these, but by the late 40s or early 50s it had only one boardinghouse sfaik. After the war, the servicemen had gone back to their own homes, leaving the new apartments etc as alternatives for people who would formerly have used boarding houses.
'Modern conveniences' also made one's own kitchen, even if small and improvised, competitive with boardinghouse dining.
For a cheerful view, see the old memoir Mama's Boarding House.
Edit: Your point about modern conveniences is very well-taken; you can't easily have a 2-room apartment with its own wood/coal cookstove.
Re:
Date: 2013-12-16 11:04 pm (UTC)I wouldn't be surprised if some boarding houses had a 'no babies / no couples' policy; perhaps as much for respectability (marrying before you could afford your own home suggested poor impulse control) as for noise.
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Date: 2013-12-16 07:36 pm (UTC)P.
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Date: 2013-12-17 02:42 am (UTC)This had the side effect of banning same-sex couples. Some LFBT couples therefore had one person adopt the other.
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Date: 2013-12-20 02:08 pm (UTC)I knew the term boarding house reach, although I'm not sure if I heard it from my parents. My main exposure to boarding houses was in movies. The one that comes to mind is The Day the Earth Stood Still, which is centered in one.
When and how did single Americans decide that they'd put up with their own cooking in exchange for privacy?
One thing that also seemed to be happening post-war was the rise of people sharing houses or apartments with others as roommates. To a certain extent, that's the same situation as a boarding house only without the live-in landlord/housekeeper.