Boarding Houses, Households, Homes, and Families
For many Houstonians, the boarding house was home
What is a boarding house? What is its architectural typology? Who lived in them? Here is an abstract for my current research project.
First, a boarding house was a house divided into rooms for sleeping and privacy. Sometimes boarders had private rooms; sometimes they shared rooms. However, boarding houses also had a semi-public realm. Boarders shared use of common areas, including the parlor and the dining table. In these areas, they socialized with their housemates (or “inmates”). Dining at the table of the host, or at the table d’hôte, brought together the housemates to eat the same food at appointed times. A fictional portrayal of this practice in the twentieth century appears in the movie Brooklyn (2015), starring Saoirse Ronan. The boarding house keeper acted as something more than just a contractor providing room and board, but also as a mother or a wise older person. Similarly, the housemates were sisters at the table, trading stories about work and other personal concerns. Of course, people outside the house could appear at the common table. The protagonist of Brooklyn invited a young man to her home in order to meet the family.
In Houston, a Swedish-immigrant named Gustav Forsgaard resided in boarding houses as a young man. When Mrs Niles quit the boarding house business in 1860, Forsgard wrote in his diary, “‘Tis almost like leaving home to leave a house where I boarded for so long.” This is the earliest reference I have found of “home” used in Houston in this sense. Yet Forsgard perhaps understates the importance of the Niles Boarding House. Boarding houses were homes. It was common for boarding house keepers and residents to talk about their boarding house families. Thus, boarding houses represent one aspect of open households or open families more characteristic of the Victorians. Historically speaking, an open family is more characteristic of a traditional family of the western world. Closed nuclear families are more characteristic of the twentieth century and present times. So we are the normies in one sense, and the closed, nuclear family is in some sense non-traditional.
Were boarding houses single-family or multi-family homes? There is no obvious answer to this. The census enumerators considered hotels and boarding houses as single-family dwellings in 1850, 1860, and 1870. The logic of it seems clear enough: these boarders shared a common address, a common threshold, a common parlor, and a common table. The census enumerators were not concerned about blood relationships, and these were not recorded through 1870. In present-day thinking, however, perhaps hotels and boarding houses were multi-family homes, since residents commonly lived in private rooms. In any case, the social customs of boarding houses are difficult to translate into present-day language. Many single men lived in Houston boarding houses, though occasionally, married couples lived in them, too. These were commonly blended households, with various combinations of nuclear families, adoptees, extended families, co-workers, and strangers.
What was the architectural typology of a boarding house? This is even more problematic. Here are two buildings which were used as boarding houses, the first was adapted for use and the second was probably purchased by the owner for the purpose of running it as a boarding house (shaded yellow). Both were modified and expanded from the houses’ original plans:
Both of these were 1850s Greek Revival houses which looked like what we would call “single-family detached homes.” There is no evidence that Victorians in Houston ever uttered such a term. For the Victorians, these were all just buildings. In fact, their use of “house” referred to buildings in general. Victorians used “dwelling” to refer to buildings used as residences. The Sanborn’s cartographers sometimes distinguished boarding houses from other dwellings, but not consistently. All this implies that single-family detached home did not constitute a Victorian architectural typology. Instead, these were simply dwelling houses.
Not all boarding house keepers considered themselves commercial operators, and some of them used the term “private houses.” A few elite households in Houston boarded employees, business partners, extended family, adopted persons, or even complete strangers. Households in general could be any combination of nuclear families, extended families, and boarders. Single-member households were rare. So it is safe to say that Houstonians rarely ate alone.
Boarding houses served a wide arrange of Houstonians. Many hotels and boarding houses were operated by natives of German-speaking countries. A few boarding houses were homes to railroad workers, while others catered to clerical workers. In Houston, boarding houses almost always racially segregated boarders; that is, most boarding houses served white clients exclusively and some served black clients exclusively. However, even the white boarding houses might house and board black servants. In this sense, Houston boarding houses practiced a sharp practice of racial segregation. In another sense, these houses were less segregated than in the 20th-century. Surprisingly, during Reconstruction, most neighborhoods were mixed between white and black households, even if black households were not perfectly well distributed throughout the city. Therefore, in Houston, it was not unusual for a black household to be located next to a white household. Most neighborhoods included blacks households and white households.
Houston hotels during Reconstruction were permitted by Texas law to deny blacks access to their facilities. It appears that Texas hotel owners advocated for such a law, and resistance to blacks as “bedfellows” was commonly used as a metaphor to express white supremacy. However, blacks often resided in hotels when they were employed by the hotel. Hotels and boarding houses were strictly segregated in Houston with the exception of the house servants. Where they were housed on the property is unknown, however.
A boarding house offered room and board for a single fee. Lodgers might have had individual rooms or share them, and all residents had access to common areas, such as the threshold, parlor, and dining room. Residents ate the same food at the table of the host, and at appointed times. A boarding house operator might supplement their income by serving day boarders, or people who did not reside in the house, but paid for meals and dined at the common table with the host and the residents. Just about anyone might live in a boarding house during the Victorian era, though a house might cater to storekeepers, railroad workers, or professionals. In Houston, white boardinghouses almost always excluded blacks.
References
Howard Beeth and Cary D. Wintz, eds., Black Dixie: Afro-Texan History and Culture in Houston. College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 1992.
Barry A. Crouch and L. J. Schultz, “Crisis in Color: Racial Separation in Texas during Reconstruction,” in Barry A. Crouch and Larry Madaras, The Dance of Freedom: Texas African Americans during Reconstruction (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007), 118-133.
Wendy Gamber, The Boardinghouse in Nineteenth-Century America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007.
Doris Glasser, “The Gustav A. Forsgard Diaries.” The Houston Review 14:1 (1992), 2-65.
Modell, John and Tamara K. Hareven. “Urbanization and the Malleable Household: An Examination of Boarding and Lodging in American Families.” Journal of Marriage and Family 35:3 (August 1973), 467–79.
Morrison & Fourmy, Houston City Directory. Houston, 1870.
Sanborn Fire Maps of Houston, 1877, 1885.
United States Census, 1870.