As a vacation spa, Nantucket fell short of the sophisticated affluence of Newport, and it rose above the tawdriness of Coney Island. The picturesqueness of the seventeenth-to-nineteenth-century whaling port on an island off Cape Cod provided the ideal setting for middle-class summer outings. Visitors engaged in sightseeing, bicycling, rollerskating, riding in carriages, omnibuses, or the narrow-gauge railroad, and sailing, swimming, or beach-bumming. They dined and danced at the various inns; patronized tea rooms, ice-cream parlors, and gift shops; attended theatricals at the Straight Wharf Theatre, Yacht Club, and 'Sconset Casino; went to the county fair and Main Street Fete; and visited whaling, art, historical, and house museums. They lodged at hostels, guest houses, boardinghouses, the large seaside hotels, or rented summer cottages near the beach. Daytrippers and seasonal visitors alike were enchanted by this crescent-shaped never-never land far out to sea.
From the middle of the nineteenth century on, Nantucket was the most photographed place on Earth, and its newspapers abounded in information about its seasonal activities. From these sources derived the material for this book. *Holiday Island* reflects the evolutionary vicissitudes of American vacationing over a period of two and a half centuries.
