填空题
Hotels were{{U}} (31) {{/U}}the earliest facilities{{U}}
(32) {{/U}}bound the United States together. They were both creatures
and creators of communities, as{{U}} (33) {{/U}}as symptoms of the
frenetic quest for communities. {{U}}(34) {{/U}}in the first part of the
nineteenth century, Americans were already forming the{{U}} (35)
{{/U}}of gathering from all corners of the nation for both public and{{U}}
(36) {{/U}}business and pleasure purposes. Conventions were the new
occasions, and hotels were distinctively American facilities{{U}} (37)
{{/U}}conventions possible. The first national convention of a major party
to choose a{{U}} (38) {{/U}}for President (that of the Clay for
President) was held in Baltimore, at a hotel that was then reputed to be the
best in the country. The presence in Baltimore{{U}} (39) {{/U}}Barnum's
City Hotel, a six-storey building with two hundred apartments, helps explain{{U}}
(40) {{/U}}many other early national political conventions were held
there.
In the long run, too, American hotels made other.
national conventions not only possible{{U}} (41) {{/U}} pleasant. The
growing custom of regularly assembling{{U}} (42) {{/U}}afar the
representatives of all kinds of groups — not only for political conventions, but
also for commercial, professional, learned, and avocational{{U}} (43)
{{/U}}—in{{U}} (44) {{/U}}supported the multiplying hotels. By
mid-twentieth century, conventions accounted{{U}} (45) {{/U}}over a
third of the yearly room occupancy of all{{U}} (46) {{/U}}in the nation,
about eighteen thousand different conventions were held annually{{U}} (47)
{{/U}}a total attendance of about ten million persons.
Nineteenth-century American hotelkeepers, {{U}}(48) {{/U}}were no
longer the genial, deferential "hosts" of the eighteenth-century European inn,
became leading citizens. Holding a large stake in the community, they exercised
power to make{{U}} (49) {{/U}}prosper. As owners or managers of the
local "palace of the public", they were makers and shapers of a principal
community attraction. Travelers from{{U}} (50) {{/U}}were mildly shocked
by this high social position.