It served as a backdrop for change in American culture, and a barometer of progress in the experience of American women in particular.īren said she began to delve into research for the book in part because she had always “heard about the Barbizon.

As guests came in and out, the hotel evolved, too. Mademoiselle magazine used the Barbizon as the lodging for its annual, highly competitive summer “guest editor” program for college students. Women’s college clubs reserved blocks of rooms for their alumni, as did well-regarded institutions such as the Katharine Gibbs Secretarial School and the Ford Modeling Agency (which was dreamed up in a Barbizon room). Still, its guest list includes a remarkable number of household names, many of whom stayed at the Barbizon during their formative years: the “unsinkable” Molly Brown (of Titanic fame), Joan Crawford, Grace Kelly, Liza Minnelli, Phylicia Rashad, Sylvia Plath, Janet Burroway, Gael Greene, and Joan Didion. Like other women’s hotels built in the early part of the 20th century, the Barbizon was open only to female guests (and primarily white, middle- to upper-class single women under the age of 30, at that).

The book traces the decades-long history of New York City’s famous Barbizon Hotel for Women, which opened in 1928 and closed in 2005 (the building today exists as high-end condominiums).

That’s a takeaway from The Barbizon: The Hotel That Set Women Free (Simon & Schuster), published this month by Paulina Bren ’87, a College of Letters major and now a writer, historian and professor at Vassar College. A new book by Paulina Bren ’87 traces the decades-long history of the famed New York City hotel and the women who stayed there.įixed places and spaces don’t always receive much attention in history books, yet they are often the foundations upon which-or even vehicles through which-change and progress can occur. Above: Guests peruse books inside the library of The Barbizon Hotel for Women, photographed in 1950 for the New York Sunday News.

The barbizon hotel book