![](\"http:\/\/file.vintageadbrowser.com\/i182t5zmxuftz0.jpg\")
<\/a>A 1950s tourism add for Rhode Island (1955)<\/p><\/div>\n
With this rise in highway systems and cars, the roadside motel became popular. \u201cFamilies of the broad middle class took vacations, usually by car. They stayed at motor hotels\u2014\u201cmotels\u201d\u2014located on highways rather than near downtown rail depots\u201d.[4] Not only does car travel evolve, but also jet and planes. Spending money on ones children and vacations became the norm especially with the opening of Disneyland.[5] The 1950s were a \u201cgolden age\u201d for tourism and the resort businesses around the country.[6] Vacationing families sought freedom from care, a complete rest, relief and recuperation.<\/p>\n
Other new technologies evolved as well to help make the guests experience easier and more enjoyable. For example, in the Weekapaug Inn of the 1950s, there was a communication device called \u201can enunciator\u201d.[7] Buffum recollects the many uses for the machine and says \u201c people that were in the hotel room had a wire that came and they had a box in the back office. If somebody rang the buzzer for ice or something like that the little arrow would flip up to the room number and then the bellhop would run down the hall and would get to the door and ask what he or she wanted. If they said they wanted ice, then he would take their ice bucket and go down and bring it back. He would get a tip on that. That would go on every single night\u201d.[8]<\/p>\n
It was a time for the hotels to be family run and \u201cinteractive\u201d for guests. One of the rising inventions of the 1950s was the TV. Despite the rise of TV, there still might not be a TV in every room. Instead there was a singular room with a common TV which guests could use collectively. This results in televised events being shared by the guests as a collective body. Televised sporting events also rose in popularity during the 1950s. \u201cMany sports events during the decade of the 1950\u2019s were telecast during the day on weekends\u201d.[9] The hotels would also have events like, \u201cSaturday dances\u201d.[10] Buffum remembers \u201c We would have a funny little band. They would clear all the tables and chairs out of the Sea Room and people would all dance Saturday night\u201d.[11]<\/p>\n
Another aspect of 1950s hotels that adds to the \u201cinteractive\u201d experience for guests are communal bathrooms that are sometimes within hotels or motels. An example of this room set up can be seen on top floor of the Weekapaug Inn. This floor was known as the Bridge.[12] Though Sydney and Robert soon found a fatal flaw with the Bridge bathrooms when, \u201cOne very naughty boy and most rowdy was a minister\u2019s son and he went in one time to the ladies\u2019 room and he went under the stall doors. He locked all the doors. Then in the morning when all the women woke up and went to the bathroom they found all of the doors locked. All the old ladies didn\u2019t think to crawl underneath the stall doors\u201d. [13]<\/p>\n
Vacationists coming to New England are primarily coming for \u201cthe peace and quiet of the ocean, bathing, mountain scenery, or rolling meadowland\u201d, but during the 1954 summer season for hotels was anything but.[14] The first sign of trouble happened during June of the 1954 hurricane season. \u201cA tropical storm developed rapidly in the west Gulf of Mexico on the 24th<\/sup> of June and by early on the 25th<\/sup> was of hurricane force. It moved inland south of Brownsville, Tex., early on the morning of the 25th<\/sup>\u201d. [15] This storm would be called Alice.[16] Next came hurricane Barbara, which hit the coast of Louisiana.[17] Another storm started to brew in the Atlantic Ocean, but no one knew how dangerous it would become. \u201cThe system developed from a tropical wave over the northeast Bahamas on August 25, 1954\u201d. [18] The New England resort community and residents had been lulled into a sense of security during the rising prosperity of the 1950s. The residents of New England had forgotten the devastation of the 1938 hurricane. \u201cNo one had experienced that before. Of course ships had went down before, but nothing had really destroyed the land\u201d.[19] Hurricane Carol hit the coast of New England on August 31, 1954. [20]<\/p>\n Photograph of Hurricane Carol As recounted in Robert Buffum\u2019s book, a guest named Micky McQueenie Mathews recalls her experience in the hurricane, \u201cThat first summer I was to fall in love with this place of sunshine and the occasional storm. Along with my parents and four siblings we were spending a months vacation at the Inn when hurricane Carol hit with her fury. Upon arising I remember a few families packing their cars and heading for higher ground. I thought, \u201cwhat sissies they are\u201d\u2014there is such excitement about a hurricane, especially when you are 14\u201d. [21]<\/p>\n Robert Buffum, himself, recalls looking at the Weekapaug Inn during the storm, \u201cThe Inn was like a ship in deep water\u2014pointing the way! There she is with guests aboard, pointing her bow into the sea and wind. Almost it appears looking toward the beach where the first inn was born and destroyed, saying, \u2018I\u2019m here, staying strong to protect those aboard\u2019\u201d.[22]<\/p>\n Hurricane Carol ripped through New England with force, \u201chighest winds were at Block Island, RI where 130 mph was measured in gusts\u201d and up into Canada [23]. The damage from the 1954 hurricane was tremendous. \u201cThe storm left 60 dead and over 460 million dollars of damage to property and crops in the North Atlantic States\u201d. [24] Sydney remembers the damage that her little family endured during a storm and the damage that a hurricane can swiftly cause. Their 38-foot trimaran, Wings. \u201cIt was in the Stonington Harbor, but it dragged because it flipped over on one hull and then of course the trampoline and stuff in between acted like a sail. She had two hulls and one hull was up in the air and the trampoline between the two acted like a sail. The wind was coming down the Stonington Harbor so it just blew the boat right a shore and the water pushed the boat up onto the railroad tracks. We didn\u2019t see the boat until the next day. We went to go look at it and someone came and said, \u201cWhat is this boat doing on the railroad tracks\u201d and of course Grand Bob [Robert C. Buffum] with his great sense of humor says, \u201cOh she was trying to get a ride on the train [down to New York]\u201d.[25]<\/p>\n The day after newspapers began to report the damage of Hurricane Carol. Some of the numbers are too large to even comprehend. The front page of a paper later reads, \u201cBy states the number of affected families was given as 6,000 in Rhode Island, 3,760 in Massachusetts, 1,200 on Long Island in New York and 825 in Connecticut\u201d [26]<\/p>\n Finally, Eisenhower calls a relief effort for the victims of the hurricanes. One newspaper reports, \u201cPresident Eisenhower today ordered the federal civil defense administration \u201ccut through any red tape\u201d to provide aid for victims of the hurricane which hit the northeaster section of the United states [27]<\/p>\n New England Historical Society Finally when all the rain, wind, dust, and debris settled, there were 7 hurricanes that hit the Americas in the 1954 hurricane season. Hurricane Carol and Hurricane Hazel were so bad that their names were retired from further use.[28] The 1954 Hurricane season was one of the worst that ever hit the coasts of the United States. The 1950s was a time of both prosperity and destruction.<\/p>\n [1] Phone Interview with Sydney Hinkle Buffum, April 24, 2017.<\/p>\n [2] Ibid.<\/p>\n [3] Ibid.<\/p>\n [4] H.W. Brands, American Dreams: The United States Since 1945 (New York: Penguin Books, 2010), 80.<\/p>\n [5] Ibid, 73.<\/p>\n [6] Phone Interview with Sydney Hinkle Buffum, April 24, 2017.<\/p>\n [7] Ibid.<\/p>\n [8] Ibid.<\/p>\n [9] Keller, Richard. \u201cSport and Television in the 1950\u2019s: A Preliminary Survey,\u201d29<\/p>\n [10] Phone Interview with Sydney Hinkle Buffum, April 24, 2017.<\/p>\n [11] Ibid.<\/p>\n [12] Ibid.<\/p>\n [13] Ibid.<\/p>\n [14] \u201cTranquility of New England Vacation.\u201d New York Times, <\/em>10 May 1959, 33. [ProQuest]<\/p>\n [15] Walter R. Davis, \u201cHurricanes of 1954\u201d, Monthly Weather Review<\/em> (1954):370<\/p>\n [16]Ibid.<\/p>\n [17]Ibid.<\/p>\n [18] \u201c1954-Hurricane Carol,\u201d Hurricanes: Science and Society<\/em>, accessed April 23, 2017, http:\/\/www.hurricanescience.org\/history\/storms\/1950s\/carol\/<\/a><\/p>\n [19] Phone Interview with Sydney Hinkle Buffum, April 24, 2017.<\/p>\n [20]Davis, 370.<\/p>\n [21] Robert C. Buffum, The Weekapaug Inn: The Best of All Possible Worlds<\/em> (Robert C. Buffum, 1999), 123.<\/p>\n [22] Ibid, 123.<\/p>\n [23] Davis, 372.<\/p>\n [24] Ibid, 372.<\/p>\n [25] Phone Interview with Sydney Hinkle Buffum, March 22, 2017.<\/p>\n [26] \u201c11,785 Families Hit By Hurricane,\u201d Daytona Beach Morning Journal<\/em> September 9, 1954, 22.<\/p>\n [27] \u201cIke Tells CD Chief to Cut Through Red Tape\u201d Spokane Daily Chronicle<\/em> September 1, 1954, 1.<\/p>\n [28] \u201cRetired Hurricane Names Since 1954,\u201d NOAA, accessed April 27, 2017, http:\/\/www.nhc.noaa.gov\/aboutnames_history.shtml#retired<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-118pinsker\/files\/2017\/04\/Unknown-1.jpeg\")
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hitting the Coast of New England<\/p><\/div>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-118pinsker\/files\/2017\/04\/Hurricane-Carol-300x242.jpg\")
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Photograph of the aftermath<\/p><\/div>\n