seasonal work

Where we worked: resort hotels.

Many young men traveled north for seasonal work at resort hotels in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and the Pennsylvania Poconos.

  • Walter Blount, waiter; Saint Charles Hotel, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 1917
  • Ernest E. Boyd, waiter; Strand Hotel, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 1917

Hotel Strand, Atlantic City, N.J. Image courtesy of westjersyhistory.org.

  • Arlando R. Dawson, waiter; Girard Hotel, New York, New York, 1918
  • Charlie Gay, dishwasher; Pennsylvania Assembly Hotel, Pocono Pines, Pennsylvania, 1918

Assembly Lodge, Pocono Pines, Pa. Image courtesy of mrlocalhistory.org.

  • Alexander B. Joyner, chair pusher; Shill Company, Atlantic City New Jersey, 1917
  • Joseph Speight, bellhop; Lorraine Hotel, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 1918
  • Frank Taylor, porter; Hotel Yarmouth, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 1918
  • James T. Taylor, bellhop; Yarmouth Hotel, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 1917
  • (maybe) William Kelley Cane Thigpen, waiter in kitchen; Johnstown, Pennsylvania, 1917

Leaving for the turpentine districts of Georgia and South Carolina.

By 1890, North Carolina’s long-leaf pine forests had been decimated, and the state’s once-dominant share of the national naval stores production had plummeted. As highlighted in Imagination Station‘s exhibit “Journey to Wilson,” though the county was never a major player in the turpentine game, western Wilson County had a thriving naval stores industry through much of the nineteenth century. When workers began to follow the work, the Advance took notice.

Wilson Advance, 2 January 1890.

Wilson Advance, 25 December 1890.