Griswold Hotel Ladies Cafe

Uniontown Morning Herald,
April 21, 1910

Griswold Hotel Ladies Cafe

Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

Opened: 1910

Closed: ?

One hundred years ago, it was not unusual for businessmen to create spaces for women as something of an afterthought. As a result, the resulting women's space was not only marginalized physically in relation to any existing men's space, but it was typically regarded as far less important or valuable in other ways.

The Griswold Hotel Ladies Cafe perfectly illustrates this concept. Check out this ad from 1910, which I have reproduced in part below:

Mr. [Walter] Herrington has remodeled the Griswold. A ladies' cafe on the second floor is a new feature. On May 2 the Griwold will open a Gents' Cafe on the ground floor and this is sure to be well stocked with the best wines and liquors, seven-year-old pure rye whiskey is served over few bars, but the Griswold serves it. Moreland's Beer is always on tap. When you go to Pittsburg stop at the Griswold.

Forbes Field (1910)

Hmm. Do the ladies who hiked up the steps to the second floor also get the best wines and liquors? Or seven-year-old pure rye whiskey? How about that Moreland's Beer? It's not clear to me that they do. Maybe just iced tea and lemonade? It's obvious that Mr. Herrington really doesn't much care, as he can't be bothered to tell us anything about the ladies' cafe, except that it's upstairs from the ground floor Gents' Cafe.

Well, hopefully the ladies that patronized the ladies' cafe enjoyed the baseball game...and the time away from their drunken husbands downstairs.

Grace Dodge Hotel

Grace Dodge Hotel (1920s)

Grace Dodge Hotel

Location: North Capital and E Streets, Washington, DC, USA

Opened: October 1921

Closed: Hotel began admitting men as guests around 1924. Hotel demolished in 1972.

The Grace Dodge Hotel was built as a women-only hotel by the National Board of Young Women's Christian Associations. The intention was to create housing for women workers who had flocked to Washington, DC during World War I. But as it turned out, the hotel was not completed until after the war was over. 

The hotel was named after Grace Hoadley Dodge (1856-1914), who was elected as the first president of the Board in 1906. The 8-story, 376-room hotel finally opened in October 1921 under the leadership of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller (1874-1948). 

(As something of a side note, it turns out that Abby Rockefeller was a great booster of womyn's space. As the New York Times reported in 1922, "She hopes to live to see the day when every big city has a woman's hotel." She informed the Times that "If women can go down the corridor in their kimonos knowing they will not meet a man, it will add to their sense of freedom and comfort.")

John DeFerrari has written one of the more extensive descriptions of the Grace Dodge Hotel:

 WCTU members tour the Grace Dodge Hotel
(March 1922)

Designed by New York architect Duncan Candler (1873-1949), the Grace Dodge was stately and elegant but restrained in décor. It was finished in tan brick with limestone trim and featured an enormous three-story tall entrance-way with a neoclassical pediment broken by third-story windows.   In contrast with—or perhaps to complement—its other facilities that aimed to help disadvantaged young women, the Grace Dodge Hotel was conceived from the start as a for-profit enterprise, intended to be managed and operated by an entirely female staff.   It offered professional women traveling alone to the Capital a top-notch hotel experience, free from the harassment by men that they would undoubtedly suffer anywhere else. As summarized in The Washington Post,

The Grace Dodge Hotel, as it is to be called in honor of the woman who did so much for her sex, will have all the useful and attractive features that any hotel has, excepting men, and the housing committee of the "Y," of which Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., is chairman, guarantees that the staff and working force of women will be every bit as efficient and courteous as the best masculine staff could be. And the hotel has some conveniences that no other public stopping-place has offered to date.

Ad for Grace Dodge Hotel (1923)

There are special suites for mothers, with heaters for baby's milk, and cribs constructed on sanitary principles. There will be a nurse on call, to be paid for by the hour. There are valeting rooms where the woman who wants her tumbled blouse laundered in a hurry can slip in and do it herself, at the cost of a small sum for the use of the tubs and electric iron. There are shampoo basins, and the guest may wash her own hair. There are vanity parlors for those who care about their complexions, and there is to be an information service where the visitor can find out what debate is on in the House of Representatives and what the Senate is doing about that bill she is interested in....

Nevertheless, as we have often seen with women's hotels, the restaurant and lounge on the first floor were open to men. In fact, it is reported that these facilities were reserved at least as often by organized groups of men as by women (though Washington men certainly didn't lack for facilities of their own).

After just three years, the women-only policy was abandoned. When the hotel was sold in the mid-1940s, it was renamed the Dodge Hotel, which of course just further stripped it of its female origins.

It's interesting that when the hotel was still owned by the YWCA and managed by Mary A. Lindsley (1876-1949), the hotel paid much higher wages than comparable hotels in the area. Lindsley was apparently able to pull this off by running a tight ship with "efficient, by-the-book, economical operations." She ardently believed that no employees (i.e. management) should have special privileges.

But after the hotel fell into the hands of "a group of private investors," with a (male?) former manager from the Waldorf-Astoria hired to run the place," hotel service and food workers voted to strike over poor wages and working conditions, a predicament that surely would never have arisen under Mary Lindsley and the YWCA."

This isn't to say that the Grace Dodge Hotel was progressive in every way. Racial discrimination at the hotel is discussed in The Women and the Warriors (1995) by Carrie A. Foster. 

Scenes in a Boston Ladies Restaurant (1889)

Boston ladies (1890s)

Scenes in a Boston Ladies Restaurant (1899)

As regular Lost readers are aware, womyn's spaces have a complex and often contradictory history in terms of how gender/sexual boundaries are understood and enforced. And what I'm finding is that this ambivalence has been a consistent theme for at least the past hundred years or more. 

Today, you can find many lesbian bars, dyke marches, and other so-called "womyn's spaces" that are pretty much dominated by men. Women may feel vaguely uncomfortable about the situation, but many seem hapless or paralyzed by guilt when it comes to doing anything about it. 

You can also find many examples of women who are intent on preserving a particular womyn's space, along with women who are willing to aggressively regulate the presence of men to the extent that the law and/or custom will allow. These spaces can be as different as a 1950s lesbian bar in Detroit or Buffalo, a 1970s women's music festival, or a current women's passenger train car in India. 

Up until now, though, the evidence I have seen suggests that while some women may have been unhappy about the numbers of men that insisted on barging into the ladies' cafes and restaurants of 80 - 130 years ago (while the same men still insisted that the gentlemen's clubs, bars, and grills be strictly that), the women's objections were largely muffled, ineffective, and limited to the private sphere. (By way of exception, see this 1885 complaint of a New York City woman, which was published in the New York Times.) 

But just recently I found an article that shows that Boston women were not afraid of policing their ladies' restaurants. They didn't shy away from the old "fish eye" when it came to the dudes marching in--unlike many of their supposedly more liberated and assertive great, great-granddaughters.

Back on December 22, 1889, the Boston Daily Globe published a piece called "Scenes in a Ladies Restaurant." As you would expect, the descriptions of the women and their conversations are quite patronizing. And yet for all the condescending language and dismissive treatment of these women, we still see that these women were quite capable of taking care of business. In addition, we see the origins of a narrative that is still pretty common: the poor naif of a man who (accidentally!) wanders into a lesbian bar, only to be treated cruelly by the mean evil butches:

It is a rare thing to see a man in a ladies' restaurant. Few men possess the courage to venture in such a place. However a man gets in sometimes, but not intentionally always. When one does come in, no matter under what circumstances, he wishes before he has been there five minutes he had selected some other place in which to get his lunch. He looks about in a helpless and distressed way for a seat. His evil genius leads him to take the one beside the prim and proper spinster. She looks up to see who it is that dares to share a table with her, and then gives a little shudder, as if to say, "Oh, good gracious! It's a man!" And she turns slightly in her chair in order to present him with the cheerless north side of a very cold shoulder.

The unhappy recipient of these delicate attentions casts an appealing glance at the women opposite, and is rewarded with a look of cold contempt, whose mercurial registration would be about 20 below zero. The poor unfortunate young man is at once depressed by the frigidity of the surrounding atmosphere. He bends his downcast eyes, rings the bell and orders "chicken salad" in a supulchral tone, without raising his eyes. Many long and painful minutes elapse before his order is filled, during which time he devotes himself to the literary merits of the bill of fare, with an ardor of attention that is really pathetic. At last his order comes and he makes remarkably good time in getting through it. He apparently does not care for any dessert, except that he has an inward desire to desert this place of torture. He pays his bill and departs a wiser and a sadder man.

Just to show that nothing is new under the proverbial sun, read a contemporary retelling of this story here.

Breathe Fitness for Women

Breathe Fitness for Women (2010)

Breathe Fitness for Women

Location: 13864 Poway Road, Poway, California, USA

Opened: 2008

Closed: April 1, 2011

Here's how she described herself at yelp:

Breathe Fitness for Women is Poway's premier health club. You don't have to look beyond the front doors to see The Breathe Difference, but the amazing decor is only the beginning. Our staff is courteous and professional, our members are friendly and warm and our programs safe and fun.

Specialties
What you will find at Breathe Fitness:
-Les Mills Group Exercise Classes: Body Flow, Body Combat, Body Pump and RPM
-Zumba and Yoga
-Our spa featuring facials and massages to relax and rejuvinate
-State-of-the-art Cardio machines, each with personal televisions
-Juice bar with 100% fruit based smoothies and healthy snacks
-Free support on the weight room floor
-Outstanding personal training services
-Complete satisfaction every time you visit

Breathe Fitness for Women interior (2010)

Customer reviews were enthusiastic without exception: 

Some snippets from 2009:

I had never really belonged to a gym before, and actually wanted to go there on a regular basis!

It's clean, people are friendly, so I definitely recommend joining this gym for women only!

And 2010: 

I utterly love this gym and the people who work there.  

From the moment I walked in as a charter member just weeks after it opened they made me feel like family.

And finally, from 2011:

This WAS a fantastic gym for women.  Unfortunately, it closed as of April 1, 2011.

No reasons are given for why this place was shut down. Yet another short-lived womyn's space....

Lindseys Bed and Breakfast for Women

Lindseys Bed and Breakfast

Lindseys Bed and Breakfast for Women

Location: 3974 Avenue Laval, Montreal, Canada

Opened: 1984

Closed: 2010

The Lindseys website announces the sad news of her departure:

After 26 years, we have closed our doors. Many thanks to all our guests for making our business such a pleasure.

We will miss meeting so many warm and interesting women from all over the world. We are leaving up our web site for the time being if any of you wish to contact us.

So what was Lindseys? Here's the basic description:

Lesbian-owned bed and breakfast in a restored Victorian brownstone in the heart of the "Plateau" restaurant district. Three guest rooms, for women only.

According to the website, Lindseys was run by two women: Lindsey and Augusta. Judging by the mouth-watering photos, the breakfasts were totally scrumptious. And what a gorgeous home! The website also has an area where various newspaper articles about the history of the place are scanned in, if you want more detail. Like, just how does a classically trained bass player end up becoming a B&B operator anyway? But I'm going to let you look up the answer yourself.

The "Victorian Bathroom" at Lindseys

Here's what gay pink pages had to say:

Lindsey's Bed and Breakfast offers a warm, friendly atmosphere for women traveling to Montréal. We're located in an 1887 renovated Victorian townhouse on a quiet residential street. Within a few blocks you'll find cafes, restaurants and terrific shopping on rue St. Dennis and Boulevard St. Laurent. There is also lots of nightlife nearby. Choose from private studio with bath and kitchenette or from one or two upstairs bedrooms that share a Victorian bathroom.

One of the bedroms at Lindseys

Judging by the reviews at tripadvisor, guests uniformly adored this place. Five stars across the board.

Why Lindseys closed is not really not explained. We only know that this womyn's space is no longer with us.

Very sad right now, as this would have been a lovely place to visit some day...

Peninsular Hotel Ladies Cafe

South Boston, City Point (around 1910)

Peninsular Hotel Ladies Cafe

Location: City Point, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Opened/Closed: 1890s

I have not had a lot of luck determining where the Peninsular Hotel was, or even finding a postcard showing its appearance. But I do have a newspaper ad that mentions the hotel's ladies cafe.

Boston Daily Globe,
July 19, 1897

We've mentioned more than once that men's space and women's space are (sometimes) separate, but very seldom equal. Notice that the ladies cafe was squished onto the second floor--which is nearly always considered more marginal space from a commercial standpoint. A second floor (or basement) location was pretty much standard procedure for the ladies cafes. 

Not only that, but in this case, the Gentlemen's Cafe even commands a larger font! So if you somehow didn't realize that the men had priority, the very layout of the ad spells it out for you. 

In the absence of any photos, I'd like to think that the Ladies Cafe had plenty of windows. At least we're promised that "all the rooms give a magnificent view of the bay with its hundreds of yachts." It's even possible that there might have better views of the bay from the second floor than the first floor. But then, the men were NOT excluded from the second floor view, as ladies cafes were set up for unescorted women and women in the company of men. While the boys had the stag party all to themselves downstairs. 

Those who don't understand history will sometimes claim (erroneously) that men have no spaces just for themselves, while women still do. Actually, the evidence has always been clear on this. Women's bars, guesthouses, cafes, restaurants, etc. are nearly always "open" to all with few exceptions. And if not, they're under constant social and economic pressure to be "open" to all. By contrast, men's bars, clubs, baths, guesthouses, etc. are seldom under the same pressures of reciprocity. 

Hayden Hotel

Ad for Hayden Hotel
Phoenix Arizona Republican, August 4, 1895

Hayden Hotel

Location: Tempe, Arizona, USA

Opened/Closed: Around 1895

Most of the ladies hotels I have identified have been located in the eastern United States, especially in New York City.

This appears to be one of the exceptions. Note the above ad from an 1895 Arizona newspaper:

MRS. M. E. SPOONER, proprietress of the Hayden Hotel has a most delightful home for ladies stopping in Tempe as well as gentlemen. The only ladies hotel in Tempe.

And though I have done a little digging, I can't uncover much more than that. I did find out that Hayden is a prominent name in Tempe history--Charles Hayden is generally credited with founding the town, and the Hayden family has continued to play a leading role politically and economically since then. And though I have found references to all things Hayden, I have not found any reference to a hotel as such. Nor have I figured out who (Mrs.) M. E. Spooner might have been.

However, the old Charles Trumbull Hayden house, which was built in 1873, still stands. And it is said that for a time it functioned as a boarding house. Could this have been the old Hayden Hotel as advertised in 1895?

Hayden House today

La Casa Vieja (the old house in Spanish) was built in 1873. The original structure was a residence for Charles Trumbull Hayden and his family. The original house was a single-story row house constructed of adobe in the Sonoran style by Hayden and his Mexican American workers. Prior to 1883, the house consisted of 13 rooms located in an “L” shaped plan. The house spanned a distance of 80 feet along the Mill Avenue frontage and 120 feet along First Street. During the period of 1876-1883, a second story of adobe was built over the room at the north end of the house. In this same period, three rooms were built to create the west wing.

The Hayden Family moved from the adobe house in 1889 at which time the house began 35 years of use as a boarding house. In 1893, a frame second story was added to the west wing.