The Boardwalk became Main Street, Fantasy Island. It was a wonderland of glitz and cheap thrills. “The Boardwalk was a stage, upon which there was a temporary suspension of disbelief; behavior that was exaggerated, even ridiculous, in every day life was expected at the resort.” By the beginning of the 20th century, the resort attracted the attention of the
Atlantic City’s grand promenade created for its strollers an illusion of social mobility that couldn’t be found at other resorts. Elias Howe’s invention of the sewing machine in 1846 laid the foundation for the ready-to-wear clothing industry. Its widespread use in the last half of the 19th century produced a fashion revolution in America. The working class could now afford stylish garments. Ready-made clothing blurred class lines and for many of the resort’s patrons, the Boardwalk became a showcase for their new clothes. A trip to Atlantic City was an excuse for getting dressed up. Strolling on the Boardwalk made visitors feel they were marchers in a grand fashion parade. The working class craved opportunities to participate in festive occasions and the Boardwalk gave them just such a chance. During the summer months, the resort became a huge masquerade party, with everyone trying to appear as if they had arrived socially. At the same time the resort was growing in popularity, American society was groping toward a popular culture to suit the new industrial world. The average worker wanted to be free of the limits imposed by farm life and small villages. Atlantic City was an outlet for that urge. The Boardwalk created the illusion that everyone was part of a huge middle class parading to prosperity and social freedom. There were no class distinctions while strolling the Boardwalk; everyone was someone special.
For visitors to the Boardwalk, the glorification of the common man reached its peak with the rolling chair. The rolling chair was first introduced to the Boardwalk in 1887 by William Hayday, a hardware store merchant, as a part of Atlantic City’s role as a health resort. Invalids could hire a chair and enjoy the pleasures of the view of the surf, the salt air, and the wares for sale in the Boardwalk’s many shops. Harry Shill, a wheelchair manufacturer, was so impressed that he began producing rolling chairs in mass. They quickly evolved from an aid for invalids into a means for transporting every visitor from a working stiff into royalty, even if it was only for a short while. What better way to stroke the ego of the working-class visitor than to wheel him around in a beautifully decorated vehicle, thickly padded with comfortable cushions, and driven by an obliging servant? They couldn’t get that kind of treatment back home, making the Boardwalk something special in their memories.
The Boardwalk brought resort patrons to the water’s edge, but the five amusement piers built on the ocean side lured them farther, overtop the ocean itself. The excitement at the very thought of it was more than most visitors could resist and they spent their money on any attraction offered on the piers. The first three piers that were built didn’t last beyond a single summer; winter storms destroyed them all. John Applegate, a Boardwalk photographer, built a sturdier one in 1884, a 670-foot-long pier consisting of an upper and lower deck, with an amusement pavilion at the outer end. Applegate’s pier was a profitable investment for its owner but it was small time compared to the success had by John Young, who purchased it in 1891.
John Young understood what Atlantic City was all about. Born across the bay in Absecon Village to an oyster man, he was fatherless at the age of three. He left school early for work to support himself. While working as a carpenter doing repair work on the Boardwalk, he met Stewart McShea, a Pennsylvania baker. McShea had money and Young had ideas. Together, they opened a roller-skating rink and a carousel, both of which were successful. When Applegate’s pier went up for sale they grabbed it, with Young in charge of the show.
Young extended Applegate’s pier to a length of 2,000 feet, then searched the world over for attractions to lure the masses. His pier was a glittering palace: It contained the “world’s largest ballroom,” a hippodrome, an exhibit hall with everything from butterflies to mutants, a reproduction of a Greek temple, and an aquarium where he kept special finds from his daily fish hauls. Young held dances, promoted contests, gave away prizes, featured exhibitions, and sponsored productions of both contemporary and classical plays in Young’s Pier Playhouse. He even brought Sarah Bernhardt to his pier to star in a performance of “Camile.” The Captain had something for everybody.
The pier Young bought from Applegate was destroyed by fire in 1902. Young bought out McShea and rebuilt in time for the next summer, calling his new pier “Young’s Million Dollar Pier.” His pier was a tinsel palace that dazzled Boardwalk strollers. Highlighted by gobs of gaudy Victorian gingerbread, it housed attractions designed to lure a wide cross-section of patrons. It worked like a charm. At the height of his success, Young was reaping an annual income of more than a million dollars, and all before the income tax.
Young didn’t hide his wealth and erected a marble mansion on his pier so he could, to use his own words, “fish out my kitchen window.” The home included furnishings from around the world and was recognized by the U.S. Post Office as “No. 1, Atlantic Ocean, U.S.A.” Although it was constructed on a pier, there was a formal garden fronting Young’s mansion. The garden included statues imported from Florence, Italy. “They were undraped in the classic tradition and considered daring for their time. His Adam and Eve group especially caused a sensation when a bolt of lightning struck Eve in an embarrassing spot. The humor of the situation hit the press. Newspapers and newsreels gave them nationwide coverage.” The lighting and landscaping for Young’s palace were designed by his long-time friend, Thomas Edison. The Captain and the inventor spent many an afternoon together fishing off the end of the pier behind the mansion. Eventually washed into the sea by a winter storm, Young’s mansion was the envy of his customers.
Young and other Boardwalk merchants who modeled themselves after him were, in large part, responsible for institutionalizing the concept of the spending spree in American culture. Thanks to them, Atlantic City developed into a place where visitors came knowing they would part with their money. The tourists did so gladly, because the Boardwalk merchants were able to convince them that they were having the time of their lives.
The counterpart of the Boardwalk merchants were the resort hotel and boardinghouse owners who were pioneers willing to sink their money into the sand in hopes of making a fortune. Many of them came out of Philadelphia and viewed Atlantic City as a new frontier of the hotel industry. For them, the resort was Philadelphia’s summertime playground, and they claimed the market as their own. While they participated in the national advertising campaign of the railroads, the resort’s hotel and boardinghouse operators knew they couldn’t survive without Philadelphia.
The first hotel owner to experience a large success was Benjamin Brown, who purchased the 600-room United States Hotel. Constructed by the Camden-Atlantic Railroad, the hotel had changed hands several times before he acquired it. Shortly after acquiring the hotel, Brown was wooing his visitors with ads stating, “Large rooms, furnished in walnut … gas in every room … morning, afternoon and evening concerts by celebrated orchestras.” Benjamin Brown was every bit the showman that John Young was. Working together with the railroad, he launched an aggressive campaign toward attracting the rich and famous, using them as a draw for nouveau riche social climbers. He gave well-known visitors all expenses paid vacations, provided he was permitted to use their names in his promotional literature. On one occasion Brown was able to attract President Ulysses S. Grant. “My father’s friend, Al, said Grant drank so much when he was in town that he probably doesn’t remember being here.” A holiday was declared for Grant’s arrival and ads were taken in the major newspapers of the Northeast, showing that Cape May wasn’t the only resort that could host a president.
Another influential hotelier was Charles McGlade, owner of the Mansion House, which stood at the corner of Pennsylvania and Atlantic avenues. A low, rambling three-story frame structure, the place was floundering when McGlade took it over. He turned things around quickly. McGlade, a restless bundle of energy, supervised every aspect of his hotel. He began by promoting his property and was the first resort hotelier to use bold commercial display print for his newspaper advertising, like the ads run by retailers. Prior to McGlade, hotel advertisements
