Expected Sights traces the origins of tourism as a distinct category of travel in the United States between 1790 and 1860.It argues that tourism became an identifiable kind of traveling as a result of changes in geographical knowledge and in transportation technology that happened in the first half of the nineteenth century.The embodied authorities of Revolutionary era geographical texts gave way in the 1820s and 1830s to the disembodied authorities of the guidebook industry, which simplified travel over a limited number of commercially defined routes.At the same time, the developments of the transportation revolution, starting especially with the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825, turned travel into a market commodity and active travelers into relatively passive passengers.Contemporary travelers, tourists, and observers of movement through space had profoundly ambivalent reactions to these two interrelated developments and to the touristic travel they enabled.Critics suggested that tourism was superficial, unoriginal, and produced nothing of value; such critics often used satire to make their point.At the same time, tourists often embraced the label, likening their tours to pilgrimages, in which they gained status from having visited and contemplated socially and culturally significant sites.Finally, some travelers sought to distance themselves from tourism entirely, using their travels as opportunities for rigorous reporting and analysis, and therefore making the observations ;;useful” to society at large.These developments in the years between the Revolution and the Civil War set the stage for the distinction between ;;travel” and ;;tourism” as it has become increasingly rigid in the modern era.
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Expected Sights: The Origins of Tourism in the United States.`
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