Symposium: Home Away From Home: Archaeology of American Hotels

American hotels developed from the colonial inns and taverns at the turn of the nineteenth century. Features that distinguished hotels from their tavern predecessors included private sleeping rooms, accommodation of travelers, grand architecture, social stratification, and the inclusion of spaces for female guests. In his book Hotel, Sandoval-Strausz (2007) argues that hotels serve as expressions of human relationships, ideologies, and as scenes of social conflict, reflecting a distinctly American vision of mobility, civil society, democracy, and space. In this session, we will explore the similarities and differences among and between American hotels from a variety of times and places, serving a variety of populations and functions