Hotels were among the earliest things that bound the United States together. They were both creations and creators of communities, as well as symptoms(征兆) of the frenetic quest(狂热的追求) for community. Even in the first part of the nineteenth century, Americans were already forming the habit of gathering from all corners of the nation for both public and private, business and pleasure purposes. Hotels were especially American facilities making conventions(大会) possible. The first national convention of a major party was held in Baltimore, at a hotel that was then said to be the best in the country.
In the longer run, too, American hotels made other national conventions not only possible but pleasant and convivial. The growing custom of regularly assembling(集合), not only for political conventions, but also for commercial, professional and learned ones, in turn supported the multiplying hotels. By mid-twentieth century, conventions accounted for over a third of the yearly room occupancy of all hotels in the nation.
Nineteenth-century American hotelkeepers, who were no longer the genial(亲切的), deferential(恭顺的) “hosts” of the eighteenth-century European inn, became leading citizens. Holding a large stake(树桩，赌注) in the community, they exercised power to make it prosper. As owners or managers of the local “palace of the public,” they were makers and shapers of a principal community attraction. Travelers from abroad were mildly shocked by this high social position. |
