On December 5, 1898, Paul Laurence Dunbar traveled from New York City to Albany, as the first stop on a lengthy recital tour through New York and Ohio. He sent frequent updates to his wife Alice, who remained at their home in Washington, D. C.
Hubbins is so blue and homesick this morning that he don't know what to do. New York streets are piled with filthy snow to the height of five feet, but the rain has reduced it some. I am not a bit well, suffering with the old pain at the back of my head and in my spine. How are you and ma? Try to keep well and drop me a line at Toledo. I leave at 3:30 for Albany.
Paul Laurence Dunbar to Alice Moore Dunbar, December 5, 1898. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).
Paul wrote to Alice again that night using stationery of the Hotel Kenmore in Albany, telling her about an encounter he had with the African American driver of the hotel coach. Because Paul was Black, the driver assumed he was going to the hotel to work as an employee. The driver was shocked to learn that Paul intended to stop as a guest.
I am here at last and in my room, tired and hungry but calm. There was no one to meet me at the station and I came up in the hotel bus. The runner, a Negro, said, "Kenmore? You -- you -- are you going there to work?" "No," said I, "to stop." "Whuh, well -- well -- you know." I handed him my baggage check. He looked it all over as if it were going to bite him and said, "Well, well, get in." I got in and was here in a jiffy.
Paul Laurence Dunbar to Alice Moore Dunbar, December 5, 1898. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).
The Kenmore regularly appeared on a short list of America's leading hotels. The nightly room rate of $4 was significantly more expensive than other hotels on the list.
HOTELS OF THE WORLD
Hotel Tariff Bureau Co.
ALBANY, N. Y. Hotel Kenmore $4 up
"Travellers' Hotel Pocket Guide." New York Daily Tribune (New York, New York). March 5, 1898. Page 13.
Many years later, a friend of Paul's described how staff at the Hotel Kenmore tried to prevent him from registering because he was Black.
In 1898 Paul received from a wealthy society woman of Albany, New York, a very flattering offer to give a recital. He told me of arriving on this occasion in Albany about six o'clock in the evening, of the funny experience he had with the colored bus driver of the Kenmore Hotel where a reservation had been made for him, how when he stepped in the bus, the driver asked him what he was going there for, whether he was going there to work. When Paul told him that he was not going there to work, that he was going there to stop, the old fellow with a grunt and a shake of his head drew the reins on his horses and started up the street. Arriving at the place, Paul walked up to the desk, picked up a pen, and attempted to register. "Hold on there!" the clerk said to him, "what are you going to do?" "To register, of course," Paul replied. "You can't register here; we have no rooms for you in this hotel." "Oh yes you have. A reservation has been made for me in this hotel. I am Paul Laurence Dunbar." That was at a time when outside of the literary world Paul was scarcely known, and his name conveyed nothing to the hotel clerk. However, turning to his files, the clerk found that Mrs. X, one of the wealthiest society women of the city, had engaged the most expensive suite of rooms in the hotel for Paul Laurence Dunbar, poet, with no reference to his race, color, or previous condition. Puzzled, the clerk rushed back to the manager's office to explain the situation. The manager came to the front and looking Paul up and down said, "This Negro is crazy, telephone to the police station and let them come up and get him." At this juncture Mrs. X arrived on the scene and relieved him from further embarrassment.
"Some Personal Reminiscences of Paul Laurence Dunbar," by Edward F. Arnold. The Journal of Negro History (Chicago, Illinois). October, 1932. Pages 403 - 404.
The woman referred to as "Mrs. X" was Winifred Haring Edgerton, known at that time by her married name, Mrs. F. J. H. Merrill. She was the first woman to receive a degree from Columbia University, and the first woman in the United States to earn a Ph. D. in astronomical mathematics. She married a Ph. D. who was the Director of the New York State Museum in Albany.