Boardinghouses are very popular in Germany today. Around the major metropolitan areas, there's hardly a village left without one. In this article, we explore the meaning behind the term, where these accommodations originally emerged, what people around the world associate with it today, and why Germany is an outlier in this regard.
Etymology
The term boarding house is derived from the noun board, not from the verb to board in the sense of "to go on board". Board first meant "a plank, a flat piece of wood". In late Old English, its meaning broadened to "table". By the 14th century it had taken on the figurative sense of “food” – what is placed on the table – and from there came the meaning "daily meals provided at a place of lodging".[1]
In its literal sense, a boarding house is a house where one is provided with both food and lodging.
There are differing accounts of when the term was first used: while the Oxford English Dictionary cites 1728 as the earliest attested use, Merriam-Webster dates it to 1680.[2]
Boarding houses in the USA
The boarding people
Around 1830, boarding houses became very popular in the United States. They emerged as a response to rising property prices and housing shortages in the major cities. In Boston of the 1830s, for example, an estimated 50% of the total population lived in a boarding house at some point:
In 1842, the poet Walt Whitman referred to Americans as “a boarding people.” New York city was the “capital” of boarding houses at that time, and Whitman noted that fully 75% of Manhattan’s adult population either had lived or were currently living in boardinghouses. In Boston in the 1830’s, between 33% to 50% of the city’s entire population lived in boarding houses.[3]
The boarding houses of that time mostly were small accommodations in private homes, often run by widowed women.[4] In addition to accommodation, meals were included in the price. Guests gathered in the dining rooms to eat together.
The accommodations were used by students, workers, immigrants, and newlywed couples who moved to the city. Vacationers and families rented the accommodations as an inexpensive alternative to hotels. Many prominent Americans, such as Edgar Allan Poe and Herman Melville (Moby Dick), also lived in boarding houses from time to time. So it was by no means only low-income earners who used and appreciated this type of accommodation.[3]
The decline
Starting in the 1920s, society's attitude toward boarding houses slowly changed. They were increasingly seen as outdated and morally questionable, partly because they brought together people of different social classes, skin colors, and lifestyles under one roof. Politicians responded with strict building codes and regulations that pushed these accommodations out of many residential areas.[3]
With the housing boom of the 1950s, many members of the middle class were able to finance their own apartments or houses for the first time, causing boarding houses to lose further significance. Today, they play only a minor role in the housing market and tend to have a negative connotation as accommodation for the socially disadvantaged.
Boarding houses in the UK
In the 19th century, boarding houses in the United Kingdom were often small, privately run accommodations that offered room and board to travelers, workers, or homeless people – comparable to the American model. However, there were also houses that catered to a more affluent clientele:
A favorite resort of the homeless are boarding-houses. Of these establishments there are hundreds in London – from those devoted to the entertainment of minor City clerks, rigorously „engaged during the day,“ to those which – one is almost led to suppose – nobody under the rank of a baronet is received, and even then not without a reference as to respectability on the part of a peer. But most of these houses have one or two features in common. There is always a large admixture of people who go there for the sake of society.[5]
From the middle of the 20th century onwards, these types of accommodation became increasingly irrelevant and were replaced by more modern forms of housing, such as "houses in multiple occupation".
Nowadays, in the UK, the term boarding house is almost exclusively used in the context of boarding schools, referring to the buildings where students sleep and live together. Well-known examples include the boarding houses at Harrow School or Eton College.
Boarding houses in Australia
In the late 19th century, boarding houses also began to spread across Australia, often in cities and gold mining regions, such as the “Chinese Boarding House” in Gulgong (ca. 1873). These were simple, small buildings that mostly accommodated immigrants and gold miners.
Boarding houses still exist in Australia today. However, a distinction must be made between those found in boarding schools (as in the United Kingdom) and “general” boarding houses. The latter are inexpensive accommodations, where several people often live in one room and share a kitchen, bathroom, and living room.
These are clearly defined and regulated in several states, such as New South Wales (Boarding Houses Act 2012[6]) and Victoria:
A rooming house, or boarding house, is where one or more rooms are for rent and the total number of people who can reside in the property is four or more. The residents usually share facilities like kitchens and bathrooms. […] If there is an increase in the number of people in the room there must be a reduction in the rent each person pays.[7]
Landlords must register their properties, meet minimum standards, and uphold residents' rights.
General boarding houses do not have a good reputation in Australia today. People tend not to live in them voluntarily, but because they have no other choice. During the coronavirus pandemic, they were also considered hotspots due to cramped conditions and shared sanitary facilities:
During the current COVID-19 pandemic, the combination of older and sometimes less healthy people living in dwellings where they share bathrooms and kitchens is dangerous. Lack of cleanliness makes it even more dangerous. […] Generally, people do not live in boarding houses because they want to, but because they have no choice. Affordable housing in Australia continues to be under-supplied. (CPSA, 2020)[8]
In summary, it can be said that general boarding houses in Australia today, probably even more so than in the USA, serve as social shelters for those in need.
Boardinghouses in Germany
Berlin Building Exhibition 1931
In Germany, boarding houses gained popularity in the 1930s. A notable example is the "Boarding-Haus" building type, which was showcased at the 1931 German Building Exhibition in Berlin.
This model boarding house was exhibited in the department "Die Wohnung unserer Zeit" (lit. The apartment of our time) and featured various apartment types ("for single men", "for single women", "for two women", "for married couples", and "for intellectual workers"). Each apartment included a kitchenette and a sleeping area separated by a curtain or folding doors. On the ground floor, there was also a restaurant and common rooms.[9]
The label was intended to convey a progressive and cosmopolitan mindset, but, as M. Eisen notes, it had little in common with the classic boarding houses in the US, which were already in decline at that time:
In America, boarding houses were small guesthouses set up in private homes, often run by widowed women. These houses already had a clearly negative connotation in the interwar period [...]. In 1890, there were 928 such boarding houses in Chicago alone, but by 1915 there were only 230. Their heyday was long gone. To make matters worse, the so-called "Boarding Palace" had opened on Kurfürstendamm in 1912, a spectacular project that sought to offer wealthy visitors to Berlin “all the refined and luxurious comforts of a modern hotel in combination with the privacy of an cozy apartment.”[4]
Boardinghouses without boarding
To this day, the term Boardinghouse (sometimes Germanized as Boardinghaus) carries a different meaning in Germany than in the Anglophone world.
While there it is primarily understood as an inexpensive form of housing with shared facilities for students or the socially disadvantaged, Boardinghouses in Germany often provide high-quality furnished apartments including limited hotel-like services for temporary stays.
These so-called Serviced Apartments are usually located in larger, professionally managed apartment buildings. Meals are generally not included, which makes the word "boarding" in the name somewhat misleading.
The bottom line
The results of our brief research were surprising, as it became clear that Germany is an outlier. The term boardinghouse is not only "outdated", as Apartmentservice[10] writes, but from the very beginning had little to do with the understanding of the concept in the English-speaking world.
While the label carries a rather negative connotation in some countries today, in many parts of the world the concept is virtually unknown. When addressing international guests, it is therefore preferable to drop it in favor of the more widely recognized, self-explanatory term "Serviced Apartment".
References and Sources
- Harper, Etymology of board, Online Etymology Dictionary. Link
- Merriam-Webster, Boardinghouse. Link
- Housing Solutions Blog, A History of Boarding Houses: Ideal Forms of Affordable Housing. Link
- Eisen, M. (2018). Neues Wohnen für Neue Menschen: Ledigenheime als Programmbauten der Moderne in der späten Weimarer Republik. RIHA Journal, 0182. Link
- Lee Jackson, Lodgings and boarding-houses, Dictionary of Victorian London. Link
- NSW, Boarding Houses Act 2012 No 47. Link
- Victoria Legal Aid, Rooming Houses. Link
- CPSA, Boarding houses: COVID-19 risk could be as bad as nursing homes, 01.09.2020, Link
- Vorhoelzer et. al. (1931), Wohnräume im Boarding-Haus. Innendekoration 42, S. 273ff. Link
- Apartmentservice, Boardinghouse: A different meaning in German. Link
- Wikipedia contributors, Boarding house. Link
