Ladies and Gentlemen on Display: Planter Society at the Virginia Springs, 1790-1860 (review)

Charlene M. Boyer Lewis vividly portrays the public lives and leisure activities of America's southern antebellum elite in Ladies and Gentlemen on Display: Planter Society at the Virginia Springs, 1790 1860. The Virginia springs resorts, initially designed as oases for the ill, became arenas where the most socially prominent men and women of the South gathered and competed for status during the nineteenth century. Lewis's depiction of the resorts illuminates a setting in which many wealthy families expanded the boundaries of southern etiquette to engage in, and accept, new physical and social experiences that differed drastically from societal norms.

During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the natural springs of Virginia became popular gathering places for elite southern families, who fled to popular resorts such as White Sulphur Springs to seek cures in the mineral waters and find refuge from the extreme heat of southern summers. Patrons of the springs both ingested and bathed in the waters, which resort owners claimed had miraculous powers to heal a variety of illnesses. Visitors to the springs appeared fascinated with the effects of the waters on their bodily functions, meticulously recording them in personal journals and discussing them in mixed company. Topics such as perspiration and vomiting, taboo in elite social circles, were acceptable in the health conscious atmosphere of the springs. As the popularity of the Virginia springs grew, however, guests increasingly placed a greater value on comfort and companionship than physical cures.

Visitors to the springs discovered a world where conventional behavior and social etiquette was both challenged and reinforced. Lewis argues that the common representation of southern belles and beaux as strict adherents to traditional gender roles does not accurately reflect their interaction at the springs. Women, in particular, enjoyed freedom from daily chores and experienced a level of independence rarely permitted in their southern households. Young women of marriageable age, unable to interact freely with the opposite sex at home, frequently accompanied young men on hikes, picnics, or other leisure activities without a chaperone while at the springs. Though the relaxed setting allowed belles to experience more private interaction with beaux, most young men and women continued to embrace the ideals of southern courtship in other areas. Gentility, fashion, and family status remained important factors in the attraction of a spouse, regardless of the setting.

Despite the numerous deviations from traditional behavior evident at the springs, one aspect of southern society that remained constant was the presence of slave labor. Though masters frequently sent slaves to the springs for health reasons, most blacks worked to meet the various needs of white patrons. As on plantations, slaves formed their own communities within the resorts, often adopting the behavior of white guests. In reference to Margaret, a popular slave at Rockbridge Alum Springs, her owner, Elizabeth Gray, claimed that she "'never saw a greater belle.'"

Ironically, the issue of slavery eventually led to the decline of the Virginia springs. When the Civil War erupted in 1861, many of the resorts suffered extensive damage or were used in the Confederate war effort. Though a few resorts survived, the South's premier recreational centers, supported for more than a century by slave labor, were lost in the battle to maintain its "peculiar institution."

Beautifully written and supported by extensive primary research in the journals and letters of spa visitors, Lewis's work offers a rare glimpse into the lives and leisure activities of the antebellum South's most privileged families. Though repetitive at times, the text is engaging and challenges traditional historical perspectives of southern etiquette and behavior. Lewis's research fills a gap in the social history of the South and allows readers to participate, if but for a moment, in the drama and romance of life at the Virginia springs.