Tourism Commons^™

The Tourist Experience In Boston, 1848-1910: American History, Middle-Class Leisure And The Development Of Urban Tourism, Hillary Corbett

Hillary Corbett

This project analyzes a selection of representative guidebooks produced between 1848 and 1910, to illustrate the development of a tourist industry in Boston and to indicate how the changing nature of the city influenced a similar change in the tourist experience. It also provides the necessary context in which to place this narrative. Part I introduces two key elements essential to understanding the relevance of urban tourism in Boston: the city’s experiences with the national phenomena of electrification and urban planning in the mid- to late-nineteenth century, and Boston’s distinctive role in nineteenth-century America’s developing national identity and history. In …

Green, Frank Henry (Sc 2946), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and full text manuscript (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2946. “Mammoth Cave Stories – Mammoth Cave National Park,” by Frank Henry Green. A guide at the park from 1975-1986 and 2008-2009, Green includes narratives of cave tours, stories about other guides, and anecdotes relating to his work. Includes illustrations.

Gettysburg: A Town Built On Tourism, Kevin P. Lavery

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

In my most recent blog posts, I’ve adopted a rather unforgiving stance on the rampant consumerism that pervades the town of Gettysburg. Essentially, I have argued that the borough’s tacky gift shops sell odious little trinkets to gullible tourists and profiteer from the public’s morbid obsession with war and death. But while I firmly believe that this zealous consumerism is a persistent threat to healthy historical engagement, there is another side to the issue that demands to be recognized: Gettysburg kitsch is part of what has made Gettysburg into a town brimming with opportunities to broaden the public’s historical consciousness. …

Lost: Sesquicentennial Sanity. If Found, Please Contact Borough Of Gettysburg., Kevin P. Lavery

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

If you were in Gettysburg during the summer of 2013, you surely encountered the ubiquitous 150th Gettysburg logo branded on everything from promotional materials to souvenirs. The latter – tacky at best and irreverent at worst – filled the town to the point of excess, making some of us wonder how many people completely missed the point of the sesquicentennial. Anniversaries exert a powerful force on the American historical psyche, but it is dubious whether Gettysburg’s celebration exerted an appropriate one. The sesquicentennial was a wonderful opportunity to refocus on the events of July 1863, but sadly many businesses in …

Gettysburg’S Faustian Bargain, Kevin P. Lavery

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

A question to the reader: have you ever visited Gettysburg? Presumably most of the Gettysburg Compiler’s audience will answer in the affirmative. A follow-up question: have you ever purchased a souvenir from one of the town’s abundant gift shops? Perhaps it was a kepi or a cork gun for your child? Or maybe a bottle of “Rebel Red” wine? Or some tacky trinket or faux antique?

Let’s face it: we live in a consumer society in which there is nothing too sacred to profit from. And, sadly, the Battle of Gettysburg is no exception. [excerpt]

The Tourist Experience In Boston, 1848-1910: American History, Middle-Class Leisure And The Development Of Urban Tourism, Hillary Corbett

American Studies Graduate Final Projects

This project analyzes a selection of representative guidebooks produced between 1848 and 1910, to illustrate the development of a tourist industry in Boston and to indicate how the changing nature of the city influenced a similar change in the tourist experience. It also provides the necessary context in which to place this narrative. Part I introduces two key elements essential to understanding the relevance of urban tourism in Boston: the city’s experiences with the national phenomena of electrification and urban planning in the mid- to late-nineteenth century, and Boston’s distinctive role in nineteenth-century America’s developing national identity and history. In …

The Gettysburg Battlefield, One Century Ago, Benjamin Y. Dixon

Adams County History

In the fall of 1899, Colonel John Nicholson reported on the recent changes being made to the Gettysburg National Military park. The park held a dedication ceremony that July for a new equestrian statue to General John Reynolds erected northwest of town. It was a shiny goldenbrown, polished-bronze statue sculpted by Henry Kirke Bush-Brown (his second equestrian statue at Gettysburg in three years). The horse and rider, balancing on two legs stood on a large pedestal near the new avenue in his name. Reynolds Avenue and adjoining Wadsworth, Doubleday, and Robinson Avenues were new to the battlefield as well. These …