Lounging room for ladies, Louisville & Nashville Railroad

San Antonio Express, June 20, 1925

Lounging room for ladies, Louisville & Nashville Railroad

Location: Ran between New Orleans, Louisiana, Louisville, Kentucky, and Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

Open/Closed: 1920s

As a student of history, I know very well that access to a transportation service like this, especially in this location (the American South), was stringently regulated by race and social/economic class.

But there is a part of me that is easily seduced by the golden age of railroads--I freely admit it. Especially in the hot summer months, I can easily find myself fantasizing what this kind of journey by train could have been like.

And then under the description of the Pan-American, I see a reference to a "lounging room for ladies."

Now I'm really imagining good times!

I have seen references to ladies lounges in hotels of this era, but never one on a train. I have seen references to smoking cars, which were almost always reserved for men with few exceptions. (An earlier post on a smoking car for women--for some inexplicable reason--is one of our most popular posts.)

So as I swelter in front of my computer, I am drifting back to 1925 and shuttling off on a night-bound train out of New Orleans. I had just settled into a seat in the lounging room for ladies, when a mysterious woman in a black cloche hat strolls into the car and eases into the seat beside me....

Ladies Restroom and Lounge, Pan Am Boeing 377 Stratocruiser

Ladies Restroom and Lounge, Pan Am
Boeing 377 Stratocruiser

Ladies Restroom and Lounge, Pan Am Boeing 377 Stratocruiser

Opened: First flight on July 8, 1947

Closed: Retired 1963



From the Virtual Pan Am Museum. Yes, in the days before deregulation, cost-cutting, CEO packages in the mega-millions, and security theater, air travel was different.

The Stratocruiser's basic mechanical design was derived from a World War II troop transport plane, but the end product was far more upscale. This plane had a double-decker physical layout, with the passenger seating on the top level, and a bar and lounge (or lounges in this case) on the bottom level. Only 56 of these planes were built for the commercial airline industry.

The spaciousness of the ladies restroom and lounge is perhaps the most shocking first impression for the contemporary air traveler. The second is that there was any space on board just for women at all. This is almost unheard of these days, though in the last year or so, several Asian carriers, including Korean Air and All Nippon, have introduced women-only toilets on some services.

Ladies' Lounge, Hotel Warwick

Hotel Warwick

Ladies' Lounge, Hotel Warwick

Location: 24th Street and West Avenue, Newport News, Virginia, USA

Opened: April 11, 1883

Closed: Destroyed by fire, November 14, 1961

Given that the Hotel Warwick was built 13 years before the City of Newport News was incorporated, this was clearly designed as a holiday residential hotel--especially as one of its selling points was that it overlooked "the Greatest Harbor on the Atlantic Coast." Obviously, this hotel did not cater to the hoi polloi or the random travelling salesman. Rather, it was to serve as "an agreeable headquarters for business men and their families" along with other "guests from the leisurely classes." As further explained here,

The Hotel Warwick was the center of all major social events for several decades with its popularity peaking in the 1920s. In close proximity to the hotel was a pleasure pier on the James River, a casino, a bowling alley, and a park. Dances, baseball games, and all manner of resort activities made the hotel a popular destination for travelers to the area as well as local residents.

While perhaps not as stuffy as many big-city hotels, the Hotel Warwick was nonetheless a high-end establishment that still observed the formal gender divisions typical of other hotels of this type.

When we peek into the ladies' lounge, we see something that was obviously laid out with great care and elegance, yet it's as breezy and comfortable as your grandmother's veranda--assuming your grandmother was an upper-crust Victorian.

Ladies' Lounge, Hotel Warwick

If anything, it's the gentlemen's lounge that comes across as stodgy and suffocating, with all its "leather furnishings" and rather pretentious coat-of-arms over the fireplace.

This is one of those cases where I can happily imagine myself in the womyn's space, but not the men's. I can see myself contentedly flipping through a book in one of those wicker chairs, sipping a cool glass of sweet tea, or giggling with my lady friends before departing, arm-in-arm, for our early evening promenade down the pier. Oh, to be of the manner born.... However, the unpleasant reality for most of us is that our great-grandmothers were far more likely to be cooks or maids--rather than pampered guests--in such a place as this.

Gentlemen's Lounge, Hotel Warwick