This Article Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Gilbert, D. Articles by Hancock, C. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

New York City and the Transatlantic Imagination

French and English Tourism and the Spectacle of the Modern Metropolis, 1893-1939

Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham

Claire Hancock

Universite de Paris-XII-Val de Marne

Between the late nineteenth century and the Second World War, New York City became one of the most familiar cityscapes in the world and a major international tourist destination. This article explores the reactions of visitors from England and France, concentrating on responses to the city’s architecture and its ethnic and racial diversity. For many Europeans, New York disturbed ingrained assumptions about the nature of modern metropolises and threatened established divisions of the world into "progressive" and "backward" domains. Tourism, however, also played its part in the development of new international understandings of New York. By the Second World War, the interpretations of the city written in international guidebooks and experienced in organized tours emphasized its distinctively modern and American characteristics instead of reading the city through its differences from London or Paris.

Key Words: tourism • travel writing • guidebooks • New York City • occidentalism

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?