Tourism In America

Tourism came about as a way to form America’s national identity. In the book See America First, Shaffer gives an overview of how America used tourism to shape its’ identity. In the late 1880’s, America, even though we were considered one big country, it was still subdivided into the North, the South, the East, and the West. As railroads and eventually automobiles allowed easier travel the tourism industry picked up. The tourism industry proposed that by traveling and seeing the country, it would unite America. Shaffer (2001) points out that “tourism was integrally connected to the emergence of the United States as a corporate, urban-industrial nation-state, which helped imbue the nation with form and substance” (p. 4). Tourism was the …show more content…
(Shaffer, 2001, p.263). See America First points out that consumerism took over the tourist industry as tourists bought items to “transform their experience into substance” (Shaffer, 2001, p. 265). Travel shops were now opened along the highways that crisscrossed across the nation allowing people to document their travels with souvenirs from their journey. Tourism was now breaking away from the mold of just traveling to see places and becoming an all-around experience for the …show more content…
Shaffer hit on many factors that contributed to expanding tourism and a few problems that hampered tourism in the beginning. This book hits upon the problem railroads had in the beginning because they were not interconnected between the National Parks and the need for better quality roadways, like the ones Europe had, so that people would travel the country. One of the topics that this book hit a little upon, but could have been expanded upon, was how railroads and eventually automobiles changed the tourism industry of those living in the West who now got to travel and experience the big cities in the East. Shaffer also briefly brings up the influence tourism had incorporating folklore and folk customs in their guidebooks, but this idea of sharing America’s past with new generations could have been expanded on explaining to the reader how incorporating these details influenced the tourism industry. See America First is well written, with many details supporting Shaffer’s overall theme of tourism playing a part in shaping America’s identity. The read is easy, yet thought provoking allowing the reader a glimpse into the “how” and “why” tourism played such an integral role in America’s