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History General

A Happy Holiday

English Canadians and Transatlantic Tourism, 1870-1930

by (author) Cecilia Morgan

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Jul 2008
Category
General
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780802097583
    Publish Date
    Jul 2008
    List Price
    $126.00
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780802095183
    Publish Date
    Jun 2008
    List Price
    $57.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442692411
    Publish Date
    Jun 2008
    List Price
    $45.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442688186
    Publish Date
    Jun 2008
    List Price
    $112.00

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Description

One of the most revealing things about national character is the way that citizens react to and report on their travels abroad. Oftentimes a tourist's experience with a foreign place says as much about their country of origin as it does about their destination. A Happy Holiday examines the travels of English-speaking Canadian men and women to Britain and Europe during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It describes the experiences of tourists, detailing where they went and their reactions to tourist sites, and draws attention to the centrality of culture and the sensory dimensions of overseas tourism.

Among the specific topics explored are travellers' class relationships with people in the tourism industry, impressions of historic landscapes in Britain and Europe, descriptions of imperial spectacles and cultural sights, the use of public spaces, and encounters with fellow tourists and how such encounters either solidified or unsettled national subjectivities. Cecilia Morgan draws our attention to the important ambiguities between empire and nation, and how this relationship was dealt with by tourists in foreign lands. Based on personal letters, diaries, newspapers, and periodicals from across Canada, A Happy Holiday argues that overseas tourism offered people the chance to explore questions of identity during this period, a time in which issues such as gender, nation, and empire were the subject of much public debate and discussion.

About the author

Cecilia Morgan is Professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. She is the author of Commemorating Canada: History, Heritage, and Memory, 1850–1990s (2016), as well as Creating Colonial Pasts: History, Memory, and Commemoration in Southern Ontario, 1860–1980 (2015).

Cecilia Morgan's profile page

Awards

  • Short-listed, Sir John A. Macdonald Prize awarded by Canadian Historical Association

Editorial Reviews

'Morgan's valuable study of English Canadians and transatlantic tourism in the early decades of the Dominion combines travel literature, tourism history, and attitudinal studies... It makes an important contribution to our understanding of tourism, of cultural bonds within British Empire, and of identity formation in Canada's early decade.'

H-Canada July 20, 2011