I was reading an Emily Post etiquette handbook from 1922 online yesterday. A wealthy woman of that era often traveled with her lady’s maid. Gentlemen seemed to travel with their valets less, but a wealthy couple traveling with young children would usually have their nurse (nanny) along. The travel chapter even gives several examples on the proper way to sign a hotel register when traveling with various family members and/or servants. I know that down South hotels were strictly “whites-only” or “colored-only” and even in the North it wouldn’t be unheard of for a upper-clase hotel to not allow non-white guests. What happened when a wealth white family was traveling with their black maid/valet/nurse? Would the servant be allowed to stay in the same hotel as their employer? Did hotels have seperate quarters for them or would they stay in a normal room near their employer?
WAG, only whites were allowed to register as guests and a registered guest that needed a suite instead of a room was even more welcomed.
Most segregation laws and policies contained exceptions for domestics accompanying their employer. Needless to say, domestics were expected to remain unobtrusive and work, as opposed to enjoying the resort facilities in their down time (if they had any).
For some reason the first thing I thought of was that scene in the 1973 “The Three Musketeers” where D’Artagnan (Michael York) is getting on a boat using a stolen pass, accompanied by his servant.
“Monsieur, this pass is only for one person.”
“But I am only one person. This is a servant.”
The implication being that servants weren’t quite people.
A lot of times they stayed in a different hotel that would admit blacks. After baseball teams signed black players for a while in some cities blacks were forced to stay in different hotels than the team.
This is what I’m thinking. I’ll wager that in the south, in 1922, there were still lots of people who considered a black servant to be mere “property.”