Hotels and Boarding Houses
"The American Inn... is altogether an institution apart, a thing of itself. Hotels in America are very much larger and more numerous than in other countries. They are to be found in all towns, and I may almost say in all villages...In the States of America the first sign of an incipient settlement is an hotel five stories high, with an office, a bar, a cloak room, three gentlemen's parlours, two ladies' parlours, a ladies' entrance, and two hundred bedrooms".
Anthony Trollope, North America, 1863
"You enter the hotel and silently sign your name in the guest book. Next to your name they silently write the number of the room you will occupy, and silently hand the key to a Negro. He by innate talkativeness interrupts the silence, takes the traveling bags and guides you to the assigned room"
Aleksadandr Borisovich Lakier, 1857
"One is in a free country, yet in an American inn, one can never do as one likes. A terrific gong sounds early in the morning, breaking one's sweet slumbers, and then a second gong sounding some thirty minutes later, makes you understand that you must proceed to breakfast, whether you be dressed or no. You certainly can go on with your toilet and obtain your meal after half an hour's delay. Nobody actually scolds you you for so doing, but the breakfast is, as they say in this country, 'through'. They begrudge you no amount that you can eat or drink; but they begrudge you a single moment that you sit neither eating nor drinking. This is your fate if you're too late, and therefore as a general rule you are not late."
Anthony Trollope, North America, 1863