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During the Jim Crow era, African American travelers often relied on the Green Book to avoid encountering violence or harassment on the road. Victor H. Green, a postal carrier who lived in Harlem, introduced the guide in 1936 which listed establishments that welcomed non-white travelers. While the book initially only focused on the New York Metropolitan area, over time it grew to include the whole country.
Before there were guidebooks, 18th- and 19th-century authors wrote “stranger’s guides” to cities and countries, pamphlets and books that combined helpful tips with particular and offbeat advice and context: the best boarding houses alongside bits of history, preferred brothels as well as ways to avoid pickpockets. These guides were far removed from a modern, sanitized Fodor’s—rather they were personal, eccentric and intimate portrayals of place.
Stranger’s Guide is a modern version of that idea—a nonprofit publication designed to reveal the intricacies of places across the globe, through both local and foreign eyes.
