07/24/2026
Thinking back to 2022 making this tintype in Congress Park, Saratoga Springs NY.
Craig Murphy Photography - Glens Falls Art
In the mid 19th century, the majority of the BIPOC folks at Saratoga Springs were working in the service industry, and without them the majority of the activities that made it the number one resort town would not exist. The service on train cars that brought vacationers, the maids and footmen in the hotels, the cooks and waiters serving food at lodges and eateries, carriage drivers, jockeys and handlers at the race track. People like George Crum, who was Mohawk and Black. He worked as a cook at Moon's Lakehouse, and is credited with producing the first commercially available potato chip in 1853.
Before the 1890s there were some well to do Black families who were able to partake in the many amenities at Saratoga Springs, by the 20th century many of the accommodations were closed to Black folks. So they had to make their own inns.
Already I am getting comments from people saying that if they were Black in the early to mid 19th century they would not have been able to go on vacation because they couldn’t stop thinking about slavery or Black poverty. Did Frederick Douglass not deserve a vacation? Many middle class and wealthy free Black people were actively working to support freedom seekers and the abolitionist movement.
This thinking is so toxic to activist. I didn’t go on a vacation in my adult years until I was 31 because I thought it was not ok for activist to go on vacations. Every dollar I put back into the cause. Reverend Al Sharpton during his move to a more healthy lifestyle pointed out that stress and poor eating habits is why we lost so many of our Civil Rights era activist who made it past assassinations.
I proudly represent Black folks at leisure! Taking the waters, and being fabulous while doing it!
"Heretofore, colored Americans have thought little of adorning their parlors with pictures. They have to do with the stem, and I may say, the ugly realities of life. Pictures come not with slavery and oppres- sion and destitution, but with liberty, fair play, leisure, and refinement.” - Frederick Douglass
📸- Glens Falls Art
