4
A PROBLEM WITH HOTELS
In which Henry Hilton, as head of the A. T. Stewart business empire, commits the first of his many public relations blunders by refusing accommodations to Jewish banker Joseph Seligman and subsequently banning all members of the Jewish community from the Grand Union Hotel, the Stewart estate’s resort in Saratoga Springs, New York. Hilton’s actions lead to a boycott of Stewart’s stores by the Jewish community. Hilton also reneges on building the “Working Women’s Hotel,” causing a furor among New York City women, who also threaten a boycott.
Within months of the new partnership organized between Judge Henry Hilton and William Libbey to continue A. T. Stewart’s businesses, the enterprise proved profitable for the new owners. Under Hilton and Libbey’s leadership, the company earned a cash profit of more than six hundred thousand dollars within a mere two-month period, a sum the two men split between themselves, with Hilton receiving the lion’s share at 80 percent. But even with Libbey receiving just 20 percent of the profits, it was far more than he would have received if Stewart were still alive. Throughout his business relationship with the late retail magnate, Libbey, although a partner in the business, drew a hefty salary but did not share in the overall profits.
Hilton was a better friend of Stewart’s, however, than he was a manager of Stewart’s retail empire. Despite the early profits, his leadership of A. T. Stewart & Co. was marred by one dubious blunder after another, beginning with his decision to enter the retail market in Chicago, a market dominated by the business icon Marshall Field. In July 1876, Hilton leased space in several buildings in downtown Chicago. The move proved disastrous. Clearly the refrain in real estate is now and was then, “location, location, location.” The sites that Hilton was able to rent were far outside the retail district for most Chicago shoppers. Following the Chicago Fire in 1871, Field and other retailers established their operations on the west side of the city, creating a whole shopping district. By the time Hilton ventured into the market, west side commerce had been fully established. Since Hilton was unable to rent or buy retail space in the district, he opted to lease outside of it, hoping the Stewart name would attract shoppers. It didn’t. Hilton opened his Chicago store with approximately $1.3 million worth of inventory displayed within a dozen departments. During his lifetime, Stewart had kept his distance from Chicago rather than go head to head with the established retailers like Marshall Field, and conversely, Field knew he would be no match for Stewart on his own turf of New York City. This standoff benefited both men, but Hilton had other ideas.
Although a shrewder businessman than Hilton, Field offered to share the wealth in the Chicago market by proposing to Hilton that the two retail giants agree to an arrangement that would avert a price war, which would prove disastrous for both concerns. Hilton did not agree to the arrangement, and so a price war ensued, with Hilton receiving the worst of it. Within four years the Chicago branch of A. T. Stewart & Co. was operating at a loss. In 1882, the branch was closed for good as part of the company’s overall liquidation.
If the Chicago foray proved to be a huge business mistake, Hilton’s handling of the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga Springs, New York, was a devastating public relations blunder that accelerated the downfall of A. T. Stewart & Co.
Work on Garden City continued just as Stewart had planned, including the laying of some fourteen miles of water pipe. Hilton told newspapers that additional homes would be built and streets laid out. The railway line to and from Garden City would be completed, allowing residents to travel to Wall Street in a matter of twenty minutes.
Hilton also promised that work would continue on the Working Women’s Hotel on Thirty-second Street and that affordable, clean, and safe living conditions for working women would be completed strictly according to Stewart’s original plans and intentions. The hotel would be fireproof and have a steam-driven elevator. When asked by reporters to provide specifics regarding other intended charitable works using Stewart’s fortune, Hilton said, “Actions will show for themselves. Mr. Stewart despised alms-giving and preferred to assist people to maintain themselves by their own industry.”
Indeed, Hilton’s actions did speak for themselves but ultimately produced a firestorm of condemnation.
Following Stewart’s death and Hilton’s takeover of the company, Hilton decided to replace the previous manager of the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga Springs. James Breslin, who had successfully operated the hotel under Stewart, was asked to leave. Stewart had never found fault with Breslin’s management of the place, but because the 1876 season at Saratoga was so poor, Hilton decided that Breslin had to go.
Saratoga was a summer resort; its mineral springs, spas, and the Saratoga Race Course—the oldest thoroughbred racetrack in America—attracted scores of the rich and famous every year. They came to gamble, relax, and vacation surrounded by the gay, rich Victorian elegance of the town. Saratoga was chockablock full of ornate mansions, which the wealthy owners referred to lovingly as their “summer cottages.” Stewart’s Grand Union Hotel, regarded as the largest hotel in the world, and the United States Hotel were the two most elegant and massive buildings in the town.
During the late spring of 1877, Hilton noted that despite the many improvements made to the Grand Union Hotel, more and more of Saratoga’s wealthy visitors were checking into the United States Hotel down the street. Through some wrong-headed process of deduction, Hilton attributed the competitive disadvantage to the large number of Jewish visitors who frequented the Grand Union Hotel. Looking for someone to blame for the hotel’s terrible performance and without Breslin at the helm to be a scapegoat, Hilton conveniently decided to prohibit the many members of the New York Jewish community who frequented the hotel. Hilton’s actions were unnecessary and deplorable, only further propelling the downfall of the company.
In June 1877, New York City banker Joseph Seligman, who had been a frequent guest at the Grand Union, was refused accommodations. Despite his protests, Seligman was told that under Hilton’s orders, all Jewish guests were being excluded from the hotel. Hilton’s actions and refusal to withdraw his orders produced a firestorm of protest that spread not only throughout New York’s Jewish community but through other religious groups as well. It was a stunning blow to Hilton and his hotel, but there was more: The protest carried over to A. T. Stewart & Co.’s retail and wholesale businesses.
A SENSATION AT SARATOGA
NEW RULES FOR THE GRAND UNION
No Jews To Be Admitted—Mr. Seligman, The Banker, And His Family Sent Away—His Letter To Mr. Hilton—Gathering Of Mr. Seligman’s Friends—An Indignation Meeting To Be Held
On Wednesday last Joseph Seligman, the well-known banker of this City and a member of the syndicate to place the government loan, visited Saratoga with his wife and family. For ten years past he has spent the summer at the Grand Union Hotel. His family entered the parlors and Mr. Seligman went to the manager to make arrangements for rooms. That gentleman seemed somewhat confused and said: “Mr. Seligman, I am required to inform you that Mr. Hilton has given instructions that no Israelites shall be permitted in the future to stop at this hotel.”
Mr. Seligman was so astonished that for some time he could make no reply. Then he said: “Do you mean to tell me that you will not entertain Jewish people?” “That is our orders, Sir,” was the reply.
—New York Times
June 19, 1877
Seligman and his family had spent their summers at the Grand Union Hotel for a decade. There was no reason for him to imagine that registering at the hotel in June 1877 would be any different. When told that Jews were now being barred admittance, Seligman demanded to know why.
“Are they dirty?” he asked the manager at the front desk. “Do they misbehave themselves, or have they refused to pay their bills?”
The manager told him that it had nothing to do with those things.
“The reason is simply this: Business at the hotel was not good last season and we had a large number of Jews here. Mr. Hilton came to the conclusion that Christians did not like their company, and for that reason shunned the hotel. He resolved to run the Union on a different principle this season and gave us instructions to admit no Jew.”
The outraged banker returned to New York City and immediately wrote a letter to Hilton demanding to know why Jews were being excluded from the hotel. In the letter he said that if Hilton did not see Jews worthy to enter his hotel, then it would be wise for him to send a circular to all Jews informing them not to make purchases at his stores. He charged Hilton with bigotry and said Hilton was not worthy of and lacked the ability to run a hotel like the Grand Union.
In his letter Seligman wrote, “A little reflection must show you that the grievous falling off in your business is not due to the patronage of any one nationality, but to the want of patronage at all, and that you, dear Judge, are not big enough to keep a hotel nor broad enough in your business views to run a department store.”
According to Hilton, Seligman had been spoiling for a public fight because A. T. Stewart & Co had previously done nearly all of its foreign banking business with Seligman’s bank but had discontinued the arrangement. Hilton claimed that Stewart himself had intended the Grand Union Hotel to be a family home during the summer where his 2,500 guests expected security and satisfaction. The concerns of these guests, Hilton said, had to be considered. The hotel, according to Hilton, was run for them and not for those for whom they have expressed dislike. Mr. Seligman, according to Hilton, represented not a class of Hebrews, but of Jews, with whom many of his other guests, especially the female guests, did not wish to associate. These other guests, Hilton claimed, did not wish to be forced to engage with this class of Jew.
“It is the fault,” Hilton said in the New York Times, “of this class of ‘Jews’ themselves that they are discriminated against. … Families like the Hendricks and Nathans are welcome everywhere, while those Jews (not Hebrews) of whom Joseph Seligman is a representative are not wanted any more at any of the first-class Summer hotels. They have brought the public opinion down on themselves by a vulgar ostentation, a puffed-up vanity, an overweening display of condition, a lack of those considerate civilities so much appreciated by good American society, and a general obtrusiveness that is frequently disgusting and always repulsive to the well-bred.”
A group of Seligman’s friends and business acquaintances met to discuss the ugly affair and determine what action they might take. The group decided that New York’s Jews, or for that matter Jews from across the country, could not afford to let the matter rest. Something had to be done.
JUDGE HILTON’S STATEMENT
In the evening a reporter of the TIMES called upon Judge Hilton at his residence and found him willing to speak upon the subject. He said that Mr. Seligman was not ejected from the Grand Union. He had been boarding at the Clarendon up to the time of the opening of the Grand Hotel. He then came over and “in an ostentatious manner,” it seems, demanded the best apartments. … Judge Hilton does not consider Mr. Joseph Seligman a Hebrew. Years ago, he said, Mr. Seligman absolutely threw overboard the Hebrew Bible and Moses … he but plays the mountebank if he attempts to arouse the prejudices of the Orthodox Hebrew Church by circulating any stories or insinuations to the effect that he was turned out of the Grand Union Hotel simply because he belonged to that ancient faith. … Mr. Seligman is a “Jew” in the trade sense of the word, and the class of Jews he represents, while they are not forbidden to come to the Grand Union are not encouraged.
—New York TimesJune 19, 1877
The refusal of the Grand Union Hotel at Saratoga to admit Mr. Joseph Seligman and family as guests and Judge Hilton’s explanation of it … have created a profound sensation in this City and in all sections where there are Summer hotels or people who patronize them. … The general position taken is decidedly opposed to that of Judge Hilton although there are a few hotels in this City where Jewish custom is openly discouraged on grounds similar to those stated by Judge Hilton.
—New York TimesJune 20, 1877
When asked whether he would clarify his order excluding Jews, Hilton said that the new rules were adopted after a great deal of deliberation and for purely business reasons alone. According to Hilton, his action had the approval of a majority of “the better class” of Americans and many first-class hotel proprietors. Hilton said many of his hotel associates were glad to be rid of a “ruinous evil.”
Addressing the controversy, the New York Times ran an article that included interviews with local hoteliers who generally disputed Hilton’s claims that many, if any, hotels approved of Hilton’s behavior.
According to the Times, Mr. Waite, the general manager of the Windsor Hotel, was asked if the hotel discriminated regarding the admission of guests.
“We have not the slightest possible objection to Hebrews as guests at this hotel,” Waite said. “We have always found them, as a class, the promptest paying customers and have never had an account outstanding against them on our books.”
The management at the Grand Central Hotel stated that “a great mistake had been made at Saratoga.”
According to the management at the Metropolitan Hotel, “If persons apply for accommodations who are undesirable, there are ways of letting them know they are unwelcome without offending them.”
At the Hotel Brunswick, Mr. E. R. McCarty said that Jews were “good customers and were not hard to please.”
Lewis Leland, the general manager of the Sturtevant House, told reporters, “No one was ever excluded from the Sturtevant on account of religion or race.”
At the Gramercy Park Hotel, management noted that many Jewish guests had stayed there and further noted, “It was never observed that they were unlike other persons living in the hotel in their manners. No complaint had ever been made against any of them.”
At the Hotel Devonshire, Mr. Livermore, the proprietor, said, “The Hotel Devonshire makes no discriminations against Hebrews, nor do I see how it could if it complied with the laws under which hotels conduct their business.”
Ferdinand Earle, owner of Earle’s Hotel, said he thought that the policy of Judge Hilton “seemed suicidal.”
But not every New York City hotel owner disputed Hilton’s new orders in Saratoga.
According to the Times, “Major Field, manager of the Albemarle Hotel said he would not have Jews come to the establishment at any price because they killed a good class of customer wherever they were allowed. They rendered themselves obnoxious to other guests by their egotism and love of display and never settled their bills.”
But in general, the hotel industry did not support Hilton’s outlandish claims. Yet, despite public and industry opinion, or the potential long-term cost of it, Hilton stuck militantly to his discrimination policy at the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga.
The repercussions of Hilton’s published response regarding Joseph Seligman’s “class of Jews” was immediate not only on the Grand Union Hotel but also on the Hilton-run A. T. Stewart & Co. stores. Within a day of Hilton’s comments, one hundred Jewish mercantile accounts at the wholesale and retail Stewart businesses were closed and Jewish women throughout the city vowed not to shop at A. T. Stewart’s any longer. According to a report published on June 20, 1877, in the New York Times, these actions by the city’s Jewish community would cost “from $3,000,000 to $5,000,000 a year from Jewish traders alone.” Nearly two-thirds of A. T. Stewart customers were Jewish, the article claimed.
JEWISH MERCHANTS COMBINING
They Are Determined To Deal No More With A.T. Stewart & Co.—The Race Proscribed Through Mr. Seligman—Representative Views From Prominent Clotheirs—No Public Meeting Sought
There was less general interest yesterday in the Grand Union Hotel discrimination. Among the Hebrews however, there is apparently a deep-seated determination to do no more business with the house of A.T. Stewart & Co. There is said to be a paper circulating containing a pledge to have no further dealings with this firm. Interviews with several Jewish merchants are given herewith, which express the opinions of the many whom our reporter conversed. One of them says that Judge Hilton has proscribed the Jewish race through Mr. Seligman and that the race as a body will resent the insult. Few if any are in favor of any public indignation meeting, Mr. Seligman’s friends being satisfied with the expression already made in a private and semi-public way. Judge Hilton compares his manner of rejecting Jewish people with that of some other hotel keepers who, he claims, make just as rigid discrimination in less open manner; he thinks that his method is fairer and that he has done his duty.
—New York TimesJune 22, 1877
Jewish clothiers banded together in their boycott of A. T. Stewart & Co. A majority of Jewish-run businesses agreed that Stewart’s would lose the patronage of Jewish clothing merchants throughout the country. According to the merchants, there would be no further dealings with Stewart’s, certainly no buying anything from it, and only under extraordinary circumstances, selling anything to it. Jewish-run operations comprised three-fourths of the clothier trade.
According to Mr. Hoffman of Hoffman, Goldsmith & Co., located at 139 Duane Street in the city’s clothier district, although Mr. Seligman did not represent all Jews, “The Jews cannot help feeling that their race has been proscribed through Mr. Seligman and resent it for all time.” Hoffman said, “It is idle for Judge Hilton to try to split the hair by an attempted discrimination between the Jew and the Hebrew on the score of religion. … As a race they are united against the outrage upon one of their fellows. … The Jews all know Mr. Seligman and his life and they are satisfied with him as a splendid American citizen.”
“We are unanimously and absolutely resolved to avoid Stewart and Co. henceforth in all business. The line is drawn now not between American and Jew, that is impossible socially and commercially, but between the Jew and ex-Judge Hilton, and the line will never be wiped out,” Hoffman concluded.
JEWISH CLOTHIERS OF ONE MIND
They Will Trade No More With A.T.
Stewart & Co.—The Race Proscribed
Through Mr. Seligman—Opinions Of
Prominent Firms.
Mr. Seligman may or may not be Hilton’s social equal, but I know personally … that the gross description of Seligman’s personal habits given by Hilton has evolved from his inner knowledge of his own self and is considered by those who know him best to be a perfect photograph of the nature of the artist himself. He thought he was describing Mr. Seligman but he was, in a fit of absent-mindedness looking in a mirror at a reflection of himself and painting it for mankind. … Watch the result. I hope Judge Hilton can stand it—we can.
—New York TimesJune 22, 1877
Jewish women throughout the city and the country were even more indignant than their male counterparts about Hilton’s order banning Jews from his hotel. And they were determined to take out their own form of retribution on Hilton and A. T. Stewart & Co. It was well known that Jewish women spent large sums annually at Stewart’s store, some speculated upward of ten thousand dollars in some cases and one thousand dollars per year in other cases. Regardless of the sums, Jewish women closed their accounts at Stewart’s store, in droves. It was projected that the loss of this patronage would be four million dollars in one year alone, a staggering amount.
It was not merely the Jewish community that boycotted A. T. Stewart & Co. A large number of other nationalities, in sympathy with the Jewish victims of Hilton’s discrimination, also joined the boycott. Hilton underestimated the impact the boycott would have. In a June 23, 1877, issue of the New York Tribune, Hilton proclaimed, “I can stand it if they can. A man will buy goods where he can buy them most advantageously … no one—least of all a Jew—is going to bite his own nose off.”
“When we are poor and ignorant we are Jews.
When we are well to do we become Israelites.
When we are rich and influential we are called Hebrews.”
—Baron James Rothschild (1792–1868)
Jesse Seligman, the brother of Joseph, told reporters, “I am at a loss what to think concerning Judge Hilton. In view of his extraordinary statements in to-day’s Times, it would be charitable to suppose that the warm weather had affected his brain.”
According to the brother, the late A. T. Stewart held no opinions as audacious as Henry Hilton’s.
Jesse Seligman told reporters, “Mr. Stewart was a man of great talent, of enlarged and liberal views and of great business foresight. He never for one moment countenanced such silly notions as those of Judge Hilton. If he could realize the gross indiscretion in a business point of view which Mr. Hilton is committing, it would be enough to make him turn in his grave.”
According to Jesse Seligman, Americans weren’t buying any part of Hilton’s prejudicial beliefs.
“The American public were too broad and liberal in their principles to entertain such vulgar and exploded prejudices, and that Judge Hilton would realize his mistake to his cost before the Summer was over,” he said.
Seligman’s brother was not the only outraged party to voice his contempt of Hilton’s behavior. Seligman received letters of support from a vast array of indignant citizens.
“You can well afford to stand for social principle and I hope you will fight it out on the line which Judge Hilton has chosen to assume,” one unidentified supporter wrote.
From Philadelphia, Seligman received a correspondence stating: “We would like to know the truth of the statements which we see in the newspapers. We are dealing largely with the house of A.T. Stewart & Co., and would like to know whether such bigotry really exists with the chief of such an honorable establishment.”
About fifty businesses, from New York City and beyond, all longtime customers of A. T. Stewart & Co., immediately closed their accounts with Stewart’s. Among them were Coleman Brothers and Neustadter Brothers of San Francisco, Kohn & Co. of Chicago, and a host of city establishments, accounting for tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue. Those buying from Stewart’s were not the only ones who withdrew their patronage. Sellers who for decades had sold their goods to Stewart’s began withdrawing their business as well, accounting for even more financial losses.
Regardless of the public furor, Hilton refused to back down and took great pains to inform reporters of the public support he had received for his actions. He told the Times that he was firmer than ever in his position and was receiving scores of letters and telegrams from across the country commending his exclusion policy. He told reporters that no discrimination against Jews was exercised in any way in the wholesale and retail side of A. T. Stewart & Co., desperately trying to distance the department store side of his affairs from the hotel side. It did little good. Hilton was seen as a bigot, and nothing he could do or say would change what was quickly becoming a widely accepted view of the man who had taken over Stewart’s vast empire.
Yet despite the public outrage and the Jewish boycott, Hilton didn’t even try to make amends. In a letter dated July 9, 1877, written to a friend in Chicago, Hilton boasted, “If they do not wish to trade with our house, I will be perfectly satisfied, nay, gratified, as I believe we lose much more than we gain from their custom. Should the Jews under these circumstances want to draw a sharp line, I might determine not to deal with or purchase from them and then they might possibly find greater reason than ever for feeling bad. Every dollar we sell them is set off by at least $500 purchased from them. … It has not heretofore been my nature to back out or hedge when I have deliberately taken a stand, and I am now too well on in years to begin. … Possibly the Jews may yet regret having made such a fuss about a matter in which they had no cause for complaint. The laws yet permit a man to use his property as he pleases and I propose exercising that blessed privilege, notwithstanding Moses and all his descendants may object.”
As the Jewish boycott hobbled the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga, where business fell off even more in succeeding years, the boycott of Stewart’s retail and wholesale businesses caused profits to decline so much that Hilton was forced to suspend operation of the wholesale branch and combine it in space at the retail location. Hilton refused to publicly acknowledge that the Jewish boycott had anything to do with either financial loss.
The Saratoga incident was best summarized by New York City Rabbi Gustav Gottheil of Temple Emanuel during his sermon on June 23, 1877: “The absurdity of the attack becomes more apparent if you put the case in legal form: Judge Henry Hilton vs. Jews and Judaism. When that purse-proud man and his ‘model hotel’ at Saratoga and even his Broadway stores shall be all swept away and buried in oblivion, the race which has given the world some of its most highly prized treasures, and which has fought more battles for truth and for the triumph of liberal principles amid Christian civilization than any other, will continue its great historical mission.”
REMOVAL OF THE STEWART WHOLESALE STORE
Judge Hilton says that the rumors of the probable removal up town of the wholesale store of A.T. Stewart & Co. are true, and that the downtown store may be closed by the 1st of December. The process of removal to the up-town store has been going on for some time and about one-half of the wholesale department has been transferred.
—New York Times
November 13, 1878
Between the debacle of his foray into the Chicago market and the boycott of his hotel, retail, and wholesale businesses by the Jewish community, it would seem as if Hilton’s troubles couldn’t get any worse. But the straw that appeared to break the camel’s back—and another prime example of Hilton’s ineptitude—was the closing of one of Alexander Stewart’s major and most visible acts of philanthropy, the Working Women’s Hotel, on May 26, 1878.
Stewart had intended the Working Women’s Hotel to be a philanthropic gesture. He had wanted to build an affordable hotel for working women in New York where they could live in a secure, clean, comfortable, and upscale environment at a reasonable cost.
The building was begun in January 1869 and took nine years to complete at a cost of $3.7 million. Stewart, who had checked in on the construction of his grand experiment almost daily, said of it, “That hotel will make 1,000 working women happy and independent. If it succeeds the example will be imitated. It will be a woman’s kingdom, where those of them that wish to be alone can be so. It will prove whether or not the sexes can live apart, and whether or not it will be better for them to do so, whether or not they will choose to.”
At the time of Stewart’s death in 1876, the hotel, on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Thirty-second and Thirty-third Streets, had not been completed. The grand gesture by Stewart was welcomed by thousands of working women in New York and notably by members of the growing feminist movement, who saw Stewart’s hotel as another major foothold for women in the working environment. Even before Stewart’s death, though, Hilton had openly expressed his doubts about the project, calling it impractical. And so it was with a great deal of elation that women throughout the city read in the newspapers that Hilton fully intended to complete the Working Women’s Hotel. Their elation was, however, short-lived.
The hotel had the capacity of one thousand patrons and guests. The building covered sixteen lots formerly owned and occupied by the locomotive shops of the Hudson River Railroad. It was approximately two hundred feet square and seven stories high, constructed as a square to let the maximum amount of light and ventilation into the rooms. In the center of the lobby was an elaborate fountain surrounded by an assortment of plants and vases of flowers. Aside from its magnificent cosmetics, the building was fireproof, built almost entirely of brick, iron, and stone. On its roof were two enormous iron tanks holding thirteen thousand gallons of water to be piped throughout the hotel. There were numerous wide staircases throughout the hotel and five elevators that ran from the basement to the roof. Two of the elevators were in the rear of the hotel, to be used as freight elevators; two were located in the front for patrons and guests; and a main central elevator was located at the very front of the building.
Of the 502 private rooms in the hotel, 115 were double rooms, measuring approximately thirty by sixteen feet. The remaining 387 rooms were designed for single occupancy and were half the size of the double rooms. They were furnished with heavy, expensive, custom-made marble-topped black walnut furniture and decorated with paintings from Stewart’s collection. The rooms were indeed small, and more than half had no clothes closets or wardrobes—a glaring oversight, or perhaps intentional, considering what Hilton ultimately did.
Every floor was covered with plush, expensive carpeting. Each room was supplied with gas and hot and cold water and was heated by the giant boilers in the basement. Semiprivate bathrooms were available on every floor with attendants to assist boarders. There was also a huge laundry room for dropoffs. The main dining room had a seating capacity of six hundred people and was under the supervision of a French chef who had previously worked at the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga. There were several spacious reception rooms for guests and entertaining and a fifty-five-by-one-hundred-foot parlor. A library, with 2,500 volumes, and a reading room were also available. Throughout the library, reception rooms, parlor, dining room, and hallways, a number of paintings were hung and sculptures placed on display.
Women had to adhere to a plethora of rules and restrictions, including no guests in their rooms, a ban on additional furniture, a cost of ten cents imposed on baths, and no pets. None of these were deal breakers for most working women longing to stay. It was, by all Gilded Age standards, an elegant and luxurious hotel. It was also the largest hotel in New York City.
When he was alive, A. T. Stewart stipulated that the $3.7 million enterprise would not be required to ever produce a profit. He intended it to be self-supporting, and if not, the Stewart estate was to supplement any deficiency in its revenues. If, according to Stewart, the hotel did show a profit, then that profit was to be applied to the rates of guests in proportion to the surplus. Under no circumstances was any woman to be charged more than $5 a week for her board and single room lodging. According to the New York Times, Stewart intended to “give the working women of New York the best hotel accommodations, the best rooms, best furniture, best food, best attendance, best living for less than $5 per week.”
THE WOMEN’S HOTEL OPEN
A GREAT ENTERPRISE BEGUN.
The Most Brilliant Reception Ever Held
In New York—Twenty Thousand People
Surging Through The Building—
The Magnificient Appointments
Inspected In Detail—Mrs. Stewart
Congratulated By Thousands.
The great Women’s Hotel, projected by, and finished according to the expressed wishes of the late Alexander T. Stewart, was formally opened last night. The occasion was probably the most brilliant of the kind in the history of the country. … The hotel was brilliantly illuminated from cellar to the topmost floor, and the tiers of light were visible for blocks in every direction. … Every apartment was found to be complete, comfortable, even luxurious. … It is estimated that nearly 20,000 persons visited the new hotel last night. … Mrs. Stewart was abundantly congratulated upon the consumption of the plans of her husband and Judge Hilton was overwhelmed with compliments as it was well known that many of the details were directed by his taste and carried out under his personal supervision.
—New York Times
April 3, 1878
It took Judge Henry Hilton less than sixty days to close the hotel. On May 26, 1878, Hilton announced that as a charity for working women, the hotel was a failure. Hilton also announced that it would be remodeled and reopened on June 8, 1878, as a commercial hotel called the Park Avenue Hotel. Although Hilton had claimed that more than one thousand applications for admission to the hotel had been filed and that nearly seventy-five women had moved into the hotel on the first day, he then claimed, at the announcement of its closing, that the hotel had never had more than fifty registered guests and that the enterprise had lost five hundred dollars a day over the fifty-three days it had been in operation.
Hilton told the press that Cornelia Stewart was heartbroken by the failure of her late husband’s pet project. “The women for whom the hotel was built have not patronized it liberally, and it has been run at a loss,” Hilton said. “Mrs. Stewart has therefore determined to end the experiment at once.”
He went on to say, “A hotel on an extensive scale for women is an impossibility. Women want to associate with the other sex and the restrictions imposed upon them in this house were so severe that many who would gladly have taken advantage of its benefits declined for that reason.”
NOT ONLY FOR THE WOMEN
A WHITE ELEPHANT TO BE MADE
PROFITABLE
Mr. Stewart’s Woman’s Hotel To Be
Thrown Open For All—The Original Plan Unsuccessful—What Judge Hilton Says
Mrs. A. T. Stewart, bitterly disappointed, has made up her mind, after two months’ experience, that the Woman’s Hotel experiment is a complete failure. She has, therefore, concluded to abandon it. … Mrs. Stewart was very much grieved at the failure. She had expected grand results from the enterprise, had taken a room in the hotel for her own exclusive use … and had hoped to spend the remainder of her days in the midst of those of her sex whom her husband’s philanthropy had surrounded with all the comforts of life. But after all that had been done and after the enormous expenditures that had been made, the women could not be brought to appreciate the hotel and patronize it in sufficient numbers to warrant running it any longer for the exclusive benefit of women.
—New York Times
May 26, 1878
According to Hilton, as the manager of the Stewart estate, it fell upon him to save the estate from the financial burden of the Working Women’s Hotel and to find some profitable use for it. He concluded that structural changes would allow him to open it as a commercial hotel.
“The richest woman in this country have not better parlors or bedrooms and no place in the world can produce better cooking or service. But it is a failure,” Hilton said.
“Women will not be kept from the other sex,” he said. “You can run a hotel for men exclusively—but for women you can’t. I am not greatly surprised at the failure. But I have done my full duty in the face of a conviction of inevitable failure.”
A WOMAN’S HOTEL NO MORE
The Park-Avenue Opened
Its Formal Opening By The Managers Of
The Stewart Estate
Owing to its lack of patronage and its consequent failure as a hotel for women exclusively, the late Woman’s Hotel was thrown open to the general public yesterday at noon, under the name of the Park-Avenue Hotel. … $50,000 have since been expended upon it in making such alterations as the change in its character necessitated. … The store room on the ground floor, on the corner of Thirty-second-street and Fourth-avenue, has been converted into a large and elegantly fitted up bar-room, with a 38-foot bar backed by tall, broad plate mirrors. … On the Fourth-avenue side it is adjoined by three large lounging and smoking rooms. … On the Thirty-second-street side the bar adjoins the cigar stand and two large billiard rooms.
—New York Times
June 9, 1878
The firestorm of protest caused by Hilton’s closing of the Working Women’s Hotel only added to his already damaged reputation. Far worse than the damage to his reputation was the damage heaped on the Stewart business. A flood of public denunciation rolled in from feminist groups, working women, and the press.
It is said that those ladies who took board while the establishment was the Women’s Hotel will be welcome to remain as long as they please at the rates on which they entered.
—New York Times
June 9, 1878
Hundreds of women gathered at Cooper Institute on the evening of June 4, 1878, to protest Hilton’s closing of the hotel. One speaker after another condemned Hilton’s actions and comments. Again Hilton managed to offend an enormous percentage of his patrons. And, similar to the protests of the Jewish community, Hilton refused to accept blame or apologize.
JUDGE HILTON AND THE LADIES
A Public Meeting Of Women To Be Held
To Protest Against Alleged Wrongs
On Friday afternoon a number of prominent ladies who feel aggrieved at the statements given to the press by Judge Hilton in reference to the failure of the Woman’s Hotel, met at the residence of Mrs. C.S. Lozier, M.D. for the purpose of protesting against the position taken by Judge Hilton. The ladies, after debating as to the best course to pursue in the matter, determined to hold a public meeting at the Cooper Institute.
—New York Times
June 2, 1878
We the undersigned appeal to the honest, noble-hearted working women, to all true women who sympathize with them, and to all fathers and brothers who possess a sense of justice to unite with us at Cooper Institute, Tuesday, June 4, in a public protest against the insult Judge Hilton has put upon all womanhood by insinuations which he permits to be circulated as an excuse for the wrong he has perpetrated in appropriating to mercenary and selfish purposes what he has extensively advertised as a noble charity.
—public notice, —New York Times
June 2, 1878
The women at the Cooper Institute meeting read and approved a series of resolutions. Among the resolutions was an affirmation that the intentions of the late A. T. Stewart to provide safe and comfortable living accommodations for working women had been “effectually and shamefully thwarted.”
They called upon Mrs. Stewart to intervene on the closing of the hotel, entreating her to remain steadfast to her late husband’s plan, and to ensure that “what was intended for working women shall not be taken from them.”
Further resolutions exonerated Mrs. Stewart from any blame for the closing of the hotel. But more explicit was a resolution that would have a dramatic and immediate impact on Hilton and the A. T. Stewart business enterprise. It read: “Resolved, That until the evil genius of sordid gain that presides over Stewart’s vast commercial enterprise shows signs of true reform, every self-respecting woman should withdraw her patronage therefrom and that that which was built up by women chiefly, be taken away by women.”
The Woman’s Hotel had never been open to women. It was not open to those who earned their living by manual labor, as they did not receive wages enough. Among this class were Judge Hilton’s own employees. Lady physicians or students were not allowed to have libraries or working desks in their rooms. Lady artists were not allowed to have easels. No sewing machines were permitted in rooms. The management turned pale when musical instruments were mentioned. Literary women were not allowed to take books from the library and that was closed at 10 P.M. The inmates were thus presided over as though they were schoolgirls. … Judge Hilton ought to know that he does not rule this country, that it is not a kingdom and that if it was, he would not be selected King.
—Mrs. Matilda Fletcher, —New York Times June 5, 1878
Printed cards were distributed for women and men to sign, pledging that they would no longer shop at Stewart’s store.
The card read: “Until five years after the date, we shall not buy anything at Stewart’s store, in consequence of the unmanly insinuations regarding the management and failure of the Woman’s Hotel, hoping that in that time the managers thereof may better learn the characteristics of American women.”
Thousands of these pledge cards were signed in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The boycott by the women took effect immediately. Thousands of women transferred their patronage from Stewart’s to other merchants.
SCOLDING JUDGE HILTON
THE WOMEN’S GREAT MASS-MEETING
Cooper Institute Packed—An Evening Of Uproarious Merriment—A Code Of Rules Provided For The Reconstructed Hotel—Resolutions That Delighted The Audience—Speeches On All Sorts Of Subjects, Music, Recitations, And A Collection
Fun was evidently anticipated at the mass meeting called to protest against Judge Hilton’s action in diverting the Women’s Hotel from its original purpose and his published reasons therefore. At 7:30 last evening the great hall of Cooper Institute was full. At 7:45 it was jammed in every part. … Until five years after date, we shall not buy anything at Stewart’s store, in consequence of the unmanly insinuations regarding the management and failure of the Women’s Hotel, hoping that in that time the managers thereof may better learn the characteristics of American women.
—New York TimesJune 5, 1878
“Thus ends in bigotry and cant
Stewart’s divinest dream.”
—poem by Matilda Fletcher, Cooper Institute, —New York Times June 4, 1878
The condemnation of Hilton for abandoning Alexander Stewart’s dream of a hotel for working women, and the subsequent feminist-led boycott of the Stewart retail store, coupled with the Jewish boycott, irrefutably damaged the Stewart brand. Hilton was forced to liquidate the business four short years later in 1882 because of the boycott-led atrophy of the enterprise. Considering the enormity of the retail empire Alexander Stewart left behind in 1876, its liquidation six years later represented one of the fastest mercantile declines in American business—all at the hands of the incompetent Judge Henry Hilton.
Despite the controversy surrounding the closing of the Working Women’s Hotel, Hilton’s newly reincarnated Park Avenue Hotel became a successful enterprise and one of the most popular hotels in New York City.
Hilton’s public relations blunders with the Jewish community and the feminist movement and his failed foray into the Chicago retail marketplace paled in comparison, however, to Hilton’s handling of the next gruesome debacle—the theft of the remains of Alexander Turney Stewart between midnight and sunrise on November 7, 1878, from St. Mark’s Churchyard in the Bowery. In this ghoulish matter, Hilton once again displayed his inimitable ineptness and recklessness.