Spring is nigh. The vernal equinox has arrived. Tis the season of rebirth, and renewal, of growing warmth and sunshine, and of celebrating our survival, today more mental than physical, of winter.
For Cape Mayans in the Victorian Era and today, spring also brings with it the prospects of another summer tourism season with its concurrent economic boom, and concurrent challenging changes in the lifestyle of locals.
For Victorian Cape Mayans, the changes and challenges were many. Most were to varying degrees either farmers or fishermen. As for farmers everywhere, spring meant the sowing and cultivation of crops. Demand for their yield would grow beyond substance to supplying the many hotels, guest houses and restaurants with food for the hopefully large influx of “resorters.” For many, it also meant part-time second jobs in the town’s tourism industry.
For fishermen, spring meant not only a similarly expanded market for their commercial catch but the return of recreational fishing. Some boats, dormant in winter, were now to be refitted to serve as either pleasure craft or to host fishing trips.
For both farmers and fishermen, the relatively slow pace of life among old friends similar in beliefs and culture to themselves, many who were also relatives of varying degrees, was about to change drastically. Along with a drastic upswing in income would come a related drastic upswing in workload (often involving multiple jobs) and increased interaction with “outlander resorters” and their different cultures, beliefs and pace of life.
Within the town itself, locals would face similar changes, with similar rewards and challenges. Owners of accommodations, be they hotels or guest houses, and other businessmen would see an economic boom time from the swarms of resorters. Hotels would be reopening. Private homes would be converted to guest houses. Their owners, along with other business owners, would need to hire many seasonal workers. Many of these workers would be part-time farmers and fishermen or members of their families or their friends. Their pace of life and stress levels would rise at parallel rates with their income.
Vacation “cottages” — many mansions when compared to the locals’ homes — that had sat dormant for 10 months would be reopening. Town would be crowded and most of the crowd would have “foreign” cultural tastes and beliefs. Most would be of a higher socioeconomic status and tend to treat the locals they encountered with condescension.
Social life within the town would soon change and expand. The church, civic group and social club activities of winter would mushroom into an almost daily cornucopia of balls, concerts, theater presentations, recreational activities and private parties. Of course, most locals would be workers, not guests or attendees, at these events. Just like the gala celebration of Independence Day that started the season, locals could at least enjoy it from the background. The same would be true of visits by presidents and other VIPs of the political and business worlds.
By season’s end in September, Cape Mayans would be both enriched and exhausted (physically and mentally). The rite of spring and the rigors of summer would be followed by a rite of fall. This would be a rite of recovery and rest, and of reckoning if the rigors of summer were worth their rewards. Most Cape Mayans would conclude that they were and would ready themselves to repeat them the following year.
Ah, my modern Cape May readers might well reflect, things have not changed much in the ensuing nine score plus years.
A retired history teacher, school administrator, university professor and Museum Education Director Emeritus for the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts and Humanities, R.E. Heinly writes this column weekly on the Victorian Era, highlighting its foibles and fascination. He is the author of the book “Victorian Cape May.”