{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.024691358024691357, 'fraction_numerical': 0.004489337822671156, 'mean_word_length': 4.955456570155902, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Drinking the Waters: Creating an American Leisure Class at Nineteenth-Century Mineral Springs

One of the first American springs to be developed as a resort by European settlers was Warm Springs, Virginia. It, as well as nearby Hot Springs, gained popularity by 1766 and by the nineteenth century Warm Springs was also a well-established resort. From the very beginning, they prided themselves on their southern exclusivity, as compared with the all-inclusive enthusiasm of New York’s Saratoga. These resorts became stages where Americans acted out social roles. But the allure of high society, with its usual entrapments of money, wealth, and name, engendered an under-culture of social climbers, poseurs, and sycophants, all hungry for a slice of the pie. Ambition was the driving force behind many a pilgrimage to the springs. It was the place to negotiate through class boundaries for status, power, and privilege. At the springs the upper classes came to find mates for themselves and their families where the rules and etiquette of social interaction were relaxed. They served as a sort of marriage mart. Saratoga is situated relatively close to the Hudson River, providing direct access to New York City. The Virginia springs weren’t so lucky. Despite all the best efforts of the Virginia proprietors, the southern springs region remained remote and difficult to access. Both regions encouraged and even sponsored road building, canals, and railroad construction to supply their goods to the increasing demand. Saratoga’s connections to urban America provided ready access to funding that built the Schenectady and Saratoga railroad in 1833. In contrast, the first Virginia railroad to penetrate the springs region wasn’t constructed until 1857. The syndicate that developed Hot Springs bought up the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroads. The financiers decided to buy three springs in the valley: Warm, Hot, and Healing Springs. Having pumped considerable cash into the project, the syndicate went about promoting its investment. Warm, Hot, and Healing Springs, plus a later development, White Sulphur Springs, might have remained small watering places had it not been for the expansion of the railroads. Riding the rails marked one as a sophisticated traveler. The fashionable and bustling spas those resorts were to become were a product of the railway age. If Saratoga could pride itself on the wide mixture of people who came there to amuse themselves, drawn by a racecourse and a casino, Hot, Healing and Warm Springs prided themselves on just the opposite: their exclusivity. Those were the places to go, not because of the waters, but because the people went there.