Following the example of large city hotels, the first grand hotels began to spring up in the Alps. Mostly financed with capital from abroad, they adopt international standards in terms of their furnishings and technology. They have their own hydroelectric power stations to power their lifts and in 1879 the first electric lights in the Alps are switched on, at the Hotel Kulm in St. Moritz.
Wealthy guests no longer come merely to recuperate, but also to enjoy themselves. Shielded from the harsh realities of life that face the population of the mountains, the landscape becomes a backdrop and the grand hotel a stage for them to see and be seen.
The Grandhotel Kursaal Maloja, opened in 1884 (subsequently the Maloja Palace)
Archiv culturel d’Engiadin’Ota, Zuoz
Behind the scenes
Employees usually only find out once they have arrived exactly what awaits them at their next place of work. They work up to 16 hours a day in the grand hotels, often without a day off. As they are only employed for a single season, nobody – according to contemporary accounts – cares about their health. Sick chambermaids are even, on medical advice, sent to health resorts where they are expected to “recover” even while continuing to work.
Whereas male hotel staff soon form unions, women long remain without any form of collective support. Nevertheless, moving from hotel to hotel also enables them to earn their own living, thus providing new scope for self-determination.
Captions
1. Brief Marx (KG)
Sometimes the journey to a grand hotel can end sooner than expected: in 1897 the excessive warmth generated by the steam heating system at the Hotel Kulm in St. Moritz drives this writer’s son to hurry back to Churwalden.
Archiv Badrutt’s Palace Hotel, St. Moritz
2. Poster Union Helvetia
The Union Helvetia workers’ association, founded in Luzern in 1886, primarily represents Swiss chefs and waiters. Until 1919 the Union Helvetia will only represent women in an allegorical sense.
Private archive
3. Foto Anstecknadel
Amicitia, Solidaritas, Institutio – this is the motto under which, in 1877, senior hotel staff found the Internationaler Genfer Verband (IGV) – an association representing hotel and restaurant employees. One branch is established in Meran in 1897: by 1914, the association had grown to around 20,000 members in some 240 branches.
Touriseum – Südtiroler Landesmuseum für Tourismus/Museo provinciale del turismo, Meran/o
4. Plan Habsburgerhof
A simple room with up to 30 beds, either on the top floor or next to the service and machinery rooms in the basement – this is how staff accommodation looks in the grand hotels of the Belle Époque.
Stadtarchiv Meran/ Archivio storico di Merano
Annelise Rüegg (1879 Uster – 1934 Lausanne)
Between 1896 and 1911, the waitress Annelise Rüegg works in 28 hotels and restaurants in 27 different locations.
Touriseum – Südtiroler Landesmuseum für Tourismus/Museo provinciale del turismo, Meran/o
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