{"id":2533,"date":"2011-11-21T17:06:00","date_gmt":"2011-11-21T17:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjhblog.cjh.org\/index.php\/2011\/11\/21\/out-of-the-archives-1913-letter-written-on-white\/"},"modified":"2018-06-27T16:55:52","modified_gmt":"2018-06-27T16:55:52","slug":"out-of-the-archives-1913-letter-written-on-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/2011\/11\/21\/out-of-the-archives-1913-letter-written-on-white\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-2533 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/2011\/11\/21\/out-of-the-archives-1913-letter-written-on-white\/attachment\/2534\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/tumblr_lv0sfmph9y1r3qmd1o1_r1_1280-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/2011\/11\/21\/out-of-the-archives-1913-letter-written-on-white\/attachment\/2535\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/tumblr_lv0sfmph9y1r3qmd1o2_r1_640-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p><strong>Out of the Archives: 1913 letter<br \/><\/strong><strong>written on White Sulphur Springs stationery<br \/><\/strong>by Kevin Schlottmann, <em>Levy Processing Archivist, Center for Jewish History<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Before email and before the telephone, people wrote letters. \u00a0And, as any archivist will tell you, some people wrote lots and lots of them, as they fulfilled a desire for economical daily communication when apart from friends and loved ones. \u00a0Hotels were happy to provide letter-writing materials, and they prepared stationery with printed letterhead that advertised the establishment. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This letter illustrates both things nicely: It is written on paper with prominent letterhead advertising the author&rsquo;s vacation locale, and it is one of the hundreds of daily letters that Stella Koch wrote to her husband Richard whenever they were apart. \u00a0The letterhead, from the White Sulphur Springs, Bathing Establishment, Pavilion Hotel and Cottages, Sharon Springs, NY, comes from the Leo Baeck Institute&rsquo;s <a href=\"http:\/\/findingaids.cjh.org\/?pID=1343327\" target=\"_blank\">Richard Koch Family Collection, AR 25369<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The author&rsquo;s locale also deserves closer mention. \u00a0Sharon Springs, NY was already a noted spa town at the birth of mass American tourism in the mid-nineteenth century, and hotels and resorts sprung up to cater to those seeking the prominent natural mineral springs in the area. \u00a0Later in the nineteenth century, Sharon Springs began to cater to wealthy German Jews, who were excluded from the premier New York State spa and resort town of the time, Saratoga Springs. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As first-generation German-American Jews, both Stella Koch and her husband fit into the community that vacationed there. The town&rsquo;s popularity continued into the twentieth century; according to <a href=\"http:\/\/brustman.wordpress.com\/ancestors\/10-sharon-springs\/\" target=\"_blank\">this family blog<\/a>, Sharon Springs was even a stopover for Jewish bootleggers. Running their liquor from Canada to New York City, they passed through town on their way south and sold some of their wares to local proprietors. \u00a0Like many resort towns in upstate New York, it experienced a decline in the mid-twentieth century, although it did get another influx of German Jews after the West German government\u2014which paid for medical care for Holocaust survivors\u2014allowed therapeutic spas as a legitimate treatment. \u00a0Mirroring demographic shifts, today it is mostly Hasidic and Russian Jews who frequent the mineral spas. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/annabanana74\/5090150626\/in\/photostream\/\" target=\"_blank\">Click here<\/a> for a view of the Lower Bath House and the White Sulphur Temple of the Pavilion Hotel, Sharon Springs, NY in 2010. (Photograph by Anne White via Flickr.)<\/p>\n<p>Additional information about the history of Sharon Springs can be found from the local <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sharonspringschamber.com\/history.asp\" target=\"_blank\">Chamber of Commerce<\/a>, a newsletter of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nyfolklore.org\/pubs\/news\/nlss99\/sharon.html\" target=\"_blank\">New York Folklore Society<\/a>, and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org\/jsource\/judaica\/ejud_0002_0015_0_14807.html\" target=\"_blank\">Jewish Virtual Library entry about New York State<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Out of the Archives: 1913 letterwritten on White Sulphur Springs stationeryby Kevin Schlottmann, Levy Processing Archivist, Center for Jewish History Before email and before the telephone, people wrote letters. \u00a0And, as any archivist will tell you, some people wrote lots and lots of them, as they fulfilled a desire for economical daily communication when apart from friends and loved ones. \u00a0Hotels were happy to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[460,45,38],"class_list":["post-2533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-blog-post","tag-kevin-schlottmann","tag-lbi-collections","tag-out-of-the-archives","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2533"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2536,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533\/revisions\/2536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}