Hotel Dreams: Luxury, Technology, and Urban Ambition in America, 1829-1929 Hardcover - 2011 - 1st Edition

From the jacket flap

Winner, 2012 Sally Hacker Prize, Society for the History of Technology

Hotel Dreams is a deeply researched and entertaining account of how the hotel's material world of machines and marble integrated into and shaped the society it served. Molly W. Berger offers a compelling history of the American hotel and how it captured the public's imagination as it came to represent the complex--and often contentious--relationship among luxury, economic development, and the ideals of a democratic society.

Berger profiles the country's most prestigious hotels, including Boston's 1829 Tremont, San Francisco's world-famous Palace, and Chicago's enormous Stevens. The fascinating stories behind their design, construction, and marketing reveal in rich detail how these buildings became cultural symbols that shaped the urban landscape.

A rigorously researched and elegantly written study of the role of the hotel in shaping and embodying ideals of progress, luxury, and technology in a consumer capitalist society.--American Historical Review

Hotels have served as realms of the fantastic that permit guests to escape the everyday and enter into a world of dreams where service and splendour define new experiences. It is this dream world that Berger successfully evokes in this important book and others should follow her lead by exploring this remarkably rich topic.--Journal of Design History

A salutatory and important book.--Hospitality & Society

A worthwhile addition to the growing scholarly literature on hotels.--Journal of American History

In a relatively compact study, Berger has provided a rich, revealing portrayal of her subject that is likely to remain a basic source for scholars examining the history of the city no less than of the hotel itself for some years to come.--Journal of Social History

Molly W. Berger is the associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and an instructor of history at Case Western Reserve University. She is the editor of The American Hotel, an award-winning volume in The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts series.

Media reviews

Citations

• Choice, 12/01/2011, Page 0
• Reference and Research Bk News, 06/01/2011, Page 320