The McAteers of Guelph

The McAteer family were exemplary of this trend and demonstrate perseverance, success and response to circumstances and personal challenges. Volatile business cycles, fickle markets and a rapidly changing economy challenged the ability of the Victorian hotelkeeper attempting to run a profitable business. To succeed, the keeper had to contend with far more. The late 19thC keeper sought a livelihood from a business that was the subject of this ongoing social contest - Victorian moral rectitude and the stringent demands of temperance movements cast the hotel as the site of illicit assignations, bar room brawls and drunken licentiousness, and as a result, it was subject to scrutiny by police and liquor license inspectors.