Poland Spring: A Tale of the Gilded Age, 1860-1900

by David L. Richards

Between 1860 and 1900 the Ricker family's rustic frontier farm became the world-renowned summer community of Poland Spring, Maine, a middle landscape where upper-middle-class patrons and their urban values of status, leisure, and consumption confronted, flirted with, embraced and ultimately subsumed traditional, rural New England. First and foremost a cultural study, Poland Spring chronicles the rise of a nineteenth-century tourist mecca. By successfully linking its fortunes to the railroad and tourism, Poland Spring became home to both a classic manifestation of the magnificent Victorian summer hotel culture of the Northeast, the Poland Spring House, and to the legendary business that originated one of the most popular and enduring brands in the mineral water marketplace, the eponymous Poland Spring.

This complex story represents a fascinating microcosm of the blossoming of the vacation trade and tourism in nineteenth-century New England, the emergence of the "springs" phenomenon, the development of entrepreneurialism into corporate capitalism, and the extension into the rural Northeast of the modern values that still predominantly shape the American cultural landscape. Scholars interested in regional, business, and tourism history as well as modernist studies will find much to admire in this progressive cultural history of the Gilded Age, to which historian David Richards brings impeccable scholarship and an energetic narrative style.

Genres: History

Paperback

First published May 3, 2005

Reviews

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this for a course on the Gilded Age and found it pretty interesting. Richards does a good job using this resort as a basis for explaining other trends happening at the same time (increase of leisure time, new arrivals into the managerial upper class, the use of mass marketing, etc). So while it is not as fun to read as popular-history books, it is so informative and Richards has such an easy to read style that it would be worth reading if you're interested in the time period.

[Holly · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a very informative book about the history of Poland Spring, something I read for my book discussion group at the library. I only gave it 2 stars because it's a tad dry--it was Richards' dissertation so I can understand why it is the way it is.