Far More Than A Bed And A Bath

Published: Dec. 7, 2018, 10 a.m.

After he was elected, President George Washington traveled through our newly-formed country. And along the way, he stayed at a series of inns and taverns. How did they stack up? Well, let\u2019s just say our first president wasn\u2019t much kinder than a modern-day disgruntled Yelp reviewer about his experiences. Washington wrote in his diary that he found, \u201cNo rooms or beds which appeared tolerable.\u201d

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While places to stay were rudimentary during Washington\u2019s day, hotels eventually came to signify American progress. A.K. Sandoval-Strausz, an associate professor of history at Penn State and the author of \u201cHotel: An American History,\u201d talks about how entrepreneurs in the early United States invented hotels, the hospitality industry, and how, in turn, hotels influenced American culture and commerce.