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→Changing Attitudes in the 19th Century
What perhaps changed the perception of the vacation was the railroad. In the 1830s, the United States began to build railroads, initially just outside of cities such as New York and Boston, that people began to use on their days off from work to venture beyond confines of their towns. Perhaps among the earliest destinations were coastal beaches on the East Coast and soon in the South (Figure 1). Coney Island, just outside of New York, became among the first places that catered to vacationing individuals. The railroad, powered by steam engines, helped to vacationers usually for very short stays, perhaps no more than a few days, and sometimes even shorter. Nevertheless, this became the first form of mass vacationing in the United States, although most Americans still did not go on vacations at this time.<ref>For more on the early American vacation in its history, see: Aron, C.S., 2001. <i>Working at play: a history of vacations in the United States</i>. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford.</ref>
By the mid-19th century, Americans began to see Florida, and then later California, as popular areas for longer vacations. Places such as Silver Springs in Florida offered rowing and became among the first resort-style places to attract mass tourism. In addition to beach holidays, boating and rowing were popular leisure activities in rivers and lakes around the country. For the elites, steamboats allowed them to more easily travel abroad. This began a period of travel to Europe and even more exotic locations, but this was very rare. The railroad had begun to increase its spread in the United States, but the Civil War brought leisure activities to a standstill until after the war. By the late 19th century, attitudes to leisure and vacations began to expand to more types of workers, including the lower classes. In the 1890s, companies and local councils and governments began to pay or even subsidize leisure and vacation time for their employees. Vacation homes were built by these organizations to allow their employees to spend time away from work along with their families. These heavily subsidized vacations made vacationing affordable. In the 1890s, a teacher taking a vacation with the family could pay no more than $75, which would include room, board, leisure activities, and lectures. This also covered up to six weeks of summer vacation. Effectively, this became the first form of employee vacation policy. Most companies and workplaces did not have such policies but increasingly some companies and organizations realized the benefits of giving their employees time off for vacations because of the health benefits, where workers were often more productive and better rested, and thus less stressed, after vacations. Some medical researchers already recognized the benefits of vacations and began to encourage their patients to take time off.<ref>For more on how early beach holidays and travel destinations developed in the mid-19th and later 19th century, see: Gassan, R.H., 2008. <i>The birth of American tourism</ref>. New York, the Hudson Valley, and American culture, 1790-1830. University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst. </ref>
[[File:On-the-beach-at-trouville-1871.jpg|thumb|Figure 1. Even in the early 19th century, beach holidays were popular for those who could afford to take time off.]]