The Green Book - Glenwood Manor Tourist Hotel

THE “GREEN BOOK” - GLENWOOD MANOR TOURIST HOME:

What was the “Green Book?” The following description is excerpted from a website entitled, “The Architecture of the Negro Travelers’ Green Book.”

“The Negro Travelers’ Green Book, a guidebook for African-American travelers, was published by New York City mailman Victor Hugo Green in response to pervasive and widespread racial discrimination during the pre Civil Rights-era. Green’s guide featured hotels, restaurants, service stations and other places where African-Americans could count on being served.”

For many years I did not think we had a Green Book listing for Maryland in this area. However, there was indeed a listing from 1955-1959 at 927 Glenwood Street for a location known as the “Glenwood Manor Tourist Home.” In looking at both my 1955 and 1956 Polk Cumberland City Directories it was noted that this was the home of Mrs. Florietta Gales (1897-1956). A quick search also revealed that in 1942 Florietta Gales was a superintendent of the Negro Bible School at Grace Baptist Church. Further information provided by Anne Bruder who researched Maryland’s Green Book sites indicates that Florietta “moved to the Glenwood house in about 1939, and was in the phone directories through the mid-1950s with her 3 children. She is listed in the 1942 phone directory as a nurse, but otherwise appears as a homemaker in the 1920-1930-1940 census. She did have one lodger in 1940, and that appears to be a typical pattern that women took in boarders/lodgers and they were willing to offer their homes as tourist homes”

The research recently undertaken by the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities had indicated that the site still exists. When I drove by it appeared to me the structure was now gone, and possibly now a vacant parcel of land. I checked with two of the neighbors and they both said the house had burned down some years ago. In addition, I checked with several government agencies which also indicated (via SDAT and GIS) the parcel was now vacant. I wanted to be sure in this case.

The 1956 Green Book image shown here identifying the Glenwood Manor Tourist Home is from the New York Public Library Digital collections.