Who is this person?

[Eva Elisabeth]

Is he related to a president or First Lady?

[RJNorton]

Thanks to Steve for sending these articles. Steve writes, "Restaurants in the 19th century in the U.S. routinely advertised "private rooms for ladies" or "private rooms for ladies and families". It wasn't a universal practice, but it wasn't a euphemism for prostitution or brothels. I tracked down the 1890 advertisement with the "private room for ladies" tag for the "Poodle Dog" restaurant (located at the same spot in Seattle where Frederick Trump's "The Dairy" would soon be) mentioned in the articles Eva cited. I also found a somewhat random assortment of restaurant ads from around the same year to compare them. There's nothing to suggest that they coyly trying to promote prostitution.

In the first decade of the 20th century there was a push generally associated with the Temperance/Prohibition movement, to ban "saloon boxes", a subset of these private rooms (or dividers), in drinking establishments.

2011 New England Quarterly article mentioning nineteenth century practice of "ladies and family rooms" in restaurants:

https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf...EQ_a_00066

(part about private rooms for ladies starts around pg. 33, but the whole article is interesting)

1906 temperance/religious crusade type book titled The Booze Cruise with a section on saloon boxes:

https://books.google.com/books?id=IUdDAA...&q&f=false

I've also attached a full copy of the letter/article printed on page 5 of the 17 April 1900 edition of the Yukon Sun which I quoted from in my earlier post. Along with a few articles about the movement to abolish "saloon boxes", I've also included an interesting article from page 5 of the 20 Feb. 1891 edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about a knife fight at the Poodle Dog between two of its chefs. I'm guessing it was probably before Frederick Trump bought the business, so a little off topic, but still fascinating to read.

[RJNorton]

(12-29-2018 06:47 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Is he related to a president or First Lady?

No, not by bloodlines.

Hint #1: He is alive.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Re.: "Restaurants in the 19th century in the U.S. routinely advertised 'private rooms for ladies' or 'private rooms for ladies and families'" - how many honorable ladies and families would you expect in that environment? And did all rooms and boxes typically include a bed and scale for weighing gold dust used to pay for “services"?
I think it most logical that lonesome men facing such rough everyday life would spend their finds in" fulfillment". That is not anything new as well as to sugar coat to public. And very smart to make profit of.

---

Here's a photo of one establishment.
   

[AussieMick]

He's a husband of the daughter of a President?

[RJNorton]

Great guess, Michael, but not correct.

Hint #2: He is involved in politics.

[Eva Elisabeth]

But he is somehow related to the Lincoln/CW/assassination saga?

[RJNorton]

(12-29-2018 09:41 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  But he is somehow related to the Lincoln/CW/assassination saga?

No; for a change I am not asking about someone related to that era. I just happened by chance to see this photo on the web, and thought it would be interesting to use as a trivia question. I showed it to my wife and daughter, and neither one had the slightest idea who it was.

Hint #3: Politically, he is a Democrat.

[Steve]

He looks a lot like Beau Biden, the former Attorney General of Delaware. Based on the photo's obvious age and Beau's passing, I'm going to say his father, a young Joe Biden.

[RJNorton]

Kudos to Steve. Yes, it is Joe Biden at age 26. I saw it on a web page, and I would never have known who it was if not for the identification on that web page. Once I found out who it was I went looking for it on other web pages to see what people were saying. On one web page it is being debated - who is "hotter" - a young Joe Biden or a young Justin Trudeau. Apparently Joe Biden himself posted the photo on Twitter.

[Susan Higginbotham]

(12-29-2018 07:00 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Re.: "Restaurants in the 19th century in the U.S. routinely advertised 'private rooms for ladies' or 'private rooms for ladies and families'" - how many honorable ladies and families would you expect in that environment?

---

Plenty. Respectable ladies could, and did, travel without male companions, either out of necessity or for pleasure. I believe that trains also offered some all-ladies cars.

[L Verge]

(12-29-2018 11:54 AM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:  

(12-29-2018 07:00 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Re.: "Restaurants in the 19th century in the U.S. routinely advertised 'private rooms for ladies' or 'private rooms for ladies and families'" - how many honorable ladies and families would you expect in that environment?

---

Plenty. Respectable ladies could, and did, travel without male companions, either out of necessity or for pleasure. I believe that trains also offered some all-ladies cars.

I agree with Susan. In fact, Surratt House has two dining rooms - a public one for gentlemen travelers and the family dining room. On the few occasions when a traveling female or several in a group or with children might be on one of the stagecoaches that stopped at Surratt House at meal time, those customers would be fed in the family's dining room.

The stage actually ran out of D.C. three days a week into the southern counties of Maryland (the economic backbone - except for Baltimore - of the state because of the antebellum slave system and the production of tobacco). The return trip to D.C. was made the other three days. Because of the gentry related to Southern Maryland since the colonial days, I suspect that some well-to-do ladies might well have eaten separately at the Surratts' establishment.

Just remember that "private rooms" did not always suggest extra entertainment. They were part of the culinary scene. There used to be a Japanese restaurant in Georgetown years ago that had side "rooms" separated from the main dining room by heavy drapes. Behind those drapes were just a table and chairs or a large booth.

[Eva Elisabeth]

(12-29-2018 01:07 PM)L Verge Wrote:  

(12-29-2018 11:54 AM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:  

(12-29-2018 07:00 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Re.: "Restaurants in the 19th century in the U.S. routinely advertised 'private rooms for ladies' or 'private rooms for ladies and families'" - how many honorable ladies and families would you expect in that environment?

---

Plenty. Respectable ladies could, and did, travel without male companions, either out of necessity or for pleasure. I believe that trains also offered some all-ladies cars.

I agree with Susan. In fact, Surratt House has two dining rooms - a public one for gentlemen travelers and the family dining room. On the few occasions when a traveling female or several in a group or with children might be on one of the stagecoaches that stopped at Surratt House at meal time, those customers would be fed in the family's dining room.

The stage actually ran out of D.C. three days a week into the southern counties of Maryland (the economic backbone - except for Baltimore - of the state because of the antebellum slave system and the production of tobacco). The return trip to D.C. was made the other three days. Because of the gentry related to Southern Maryland since the colonial days, I suspect that some well-to-do ladies might well have eaten separately at the Surratts' establishment.

Just remember that "private rooms" did not always suggest extra entertainment. They were part of the culinary scene. There used to be a Japanese restaurant in Georgetown years ago that had side "rooms" separated from the main dining room by heavy drapes. Behind those drapes were just a table and chairs or a large booth.

Well, I referred to the ARCTIC in the 19th century. How many honorable ladies would you suspect to have gone there with their men? And why the need for beds and scales in the boxes/rooms?

[L Verge]

(12-29-2018 01:09 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  

(12-29-2018 01:07 PM)L Verge Wrote:  

(12-29-2018 11:54 AM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:  

(12-29-2018 07:00 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Re.: "Restaurants in the 19th century in the U.S. routinely advertised 'private rooms for ladies' or 'private rooms for ladies and families'" - how many honorable ladies and families would you expect in that environment?

---

Plenty. Respectable ladies could, and did, travel without male companions, either out of necessity or for pleasure. I believe that trains also offered some all-ladies cars.

I agree with Susan. In fact, Surratt House has two dining rooms - a public one for gentlemen travelers and the family dining room. On the few occasions when a traveling female or several in a group or with children might be on one of the stagecoaches that stopped at Surratt House at meal time, those customers would be fed in the family's dining room.

The stage actually ran out of D.C. three days a week into the southern counties of Maryland (the economic backbone - except for Baltimore - of the state because of the antebellum slave system and the production of tobacco). The return trip to D.C. was made the other three days. Because of the gentry related to Southern Maryland since the colonial days, I suspect that some well-to-do ladies might well have eaten separately at the Surratts' establishment.

Just remember that "private rooms" did not always suggest extra entertainment. They were part of the culinary scene. There used to be a Japanese restaurant in Georgetown years ago that had side "rooms" separated from the main dining room by heavy drapes. Behind those drapes were just a table and chairs or a large booth.

Well, I referred to the ARCTIC in the 19th century. How many honorable ladies would you suspect to have gone there with their men? And why the need for beds and scales in the boxes/rooms?

Point taken. I would love to know how many females of any persuasion would have been in that region - gold or no gold. I would also suggest that "beds" were a selling point to those miners who had been roughing it and wanted a comfortable night's sleep. And, the wiki piece does say that the scales were for weighing the gold dust so that it wasn't a guessing game when it came to payment.

---

Start here if you are curious about the women of the Klondike gold rush: https://www.nps.gov/klgo/learn/historyculture/women.htm

---

OK - I'm hooked... https://scholarship.tricolib.brynmawr.ed...sAllowed=y

[Eva Elisabeth]

I meanwhile, too, tried to find statistics - just found books and articles that claimed some, yet only few women went there, a lot of whom were prostitutes. It makes sense to me as we all know human nature - away from civilization and in extreme situ many go back to instincts rather than moral and culture. Reminds me also of a student of my mother's, one of the laziest and most resistant to work. She happened to encounter him two years after graduation, he was just parking a Ferrari. She inquired as for his career - his graduation was right when the wall fell, and he headed to Dresden to open brothels, something that wasn't in former DDR. Market gap that made him rich.

---

Re. "And, the wiki piece does say that the scales were for weighing the gold dust so that it wasn't a guessing game when it came to payment." - Yes, but why scales and bed in each box?