Saratoga Springs (as a North American iteration of spa sociability) [ Sports & Leisure ]
… on a stage set with strikingly similar elements: a pump room where the salubrious mineral waters might be taken and bathing facilities, shared spaces for balls and social gatherings, as well as opportunities for excursions and activities … might expect, the nascent spas of British North America sought to imitate models from across the Atlantic, most notably Bath, which was the premier and tone-setting English spa of its day. This imitation was transparent in the case of the … Virginia spa town of Berkeley Springs (in contemporary West Virginia), which was one of several watering places known as Bath in the late eighteenth century. O thers sought to replicate what they saw as an ideal of curing in an environment of …
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