Some New York hotels proudly discriminated against Jews in 1877

In 1877, a sensational story played out in the pages of the New York Times.

A Jew named Joseph Seligman and his family were refused lodging at the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga, upstate New York because they were Jewish, even though they had stayed there previous years. The owner of the hotel, Judge Henry Hilton (not related to the Hilton hotel chain of today), justified this because, he said, his gentile guests objected to being with Jews.

On June 20th, the Times published a number of articles and letters about it. Here is the summary:

Other vacation hotel managers in Long Branch, NJ, agreed with Judge Hilton and said they did not welcome Jews.

New York City hotel owners were generally fine with Jewish customers, many of them complimenting them as guests. A few hotels, however, some flatly refused Jews, giving interesting reasons about how Jews acted. Others bragged that they didn't discriminate against anyone, even Blacks. 

The letters section the next day had three letters agreeing that Jews were nasty and no one wants to share a hotel with them. Here are two of them.

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